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Narrative Bias

Give people a good story and they'll ignore the data. Give them data without a story and they'll forget it by tomorrow.

Your brain doesn't think in statistics. It thinks in stories. A beginning, a middle, a villain, a hero, a lesson — that's the format your mind wants. When information arrives as a coherent narrative, it slides in effortlessly. When it arrives as disconnected facts, your brain resists it, forgets it, or reshapes it until it fits a story anyway.

This is why anecdotes beat data in almost every argument. One vivid personal story about a bad experience with a hospital will override a study of ten thousand patients showing excellent outcomes. The data is stronger. The story wins. Every time.

Anyone who wants to influence you knows this. Propagandists, advertisers, and politicians don't present spreadsheets — they tell stories. The immigrant who took a job. The entrepreneur who started from nothing. The enemy who threatens your way of life. These narratives are carefully constructed, and they work because your brain is wired to receive them.

The real world is messy, contradictory, and full of things that don't fit a neat plot. When something feels like a perfect story — clear villain, clear hero, clear moral — that's exactly when you should be most suspicious.

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