Inspirational stories are told and heard often in places like self-help groups. These stories normally tell the journey of how a person recovered after hitting rock bottom. Their purpose is to inspire change for others who are in the same situation.
The reasons why these stories are inspiring are explored in a recent paper by Nadav Klein and Ed O’Brien. The authors had argued that stories of change are inspiring because they show the effort made by the individual to change. This effort is not seen when stories only highlight the good end-result. The effort that is visible makes the difference between a story that is inspiring and one that is not.
In a set of studies, participants were told stories about people in three conditions. Each participant was only exposed to one condition. The three conditions were: 1) A person who changed from doing something bad to doing something good, like staying clean from a previous lifestyle of drug-taking behaviour. 2) A person who went from being in a bad state to a good state, for example, from having financial difficulties to being financially stable. 3) A person who was always good or in a good state. Participants were then asked how inspiring the stories were and the amount of effort they felt the person had to put in to change or remain good. The level of inspiration and amount of effort put in was rated higher for stories of change than for people who stayed consistently good.
Another study asked participants to read stories about individuals who were fit. One group of participants read about the effort put into staying fit, while the other group did not, and only read that the individual was always fit. The stories were found to be more inspiring for the group that had read about effort put into staying fit.
However, not all stories of change and improvement are inspiring. Stories in which the person stopped harmful behaviour to others, for example by selling drugs or cheating, were not found to be inspirational. People tend to be inspired when the story focuses on a person whom they believe to be good and putting in effort to change for the better. So while a drug-peddler who changes for the better may not be inspirational, a drug user, who many find to not be inherently bad, can still be inspiring in his story to stay clean. Hence, it was suggested that inspiration has an aspect of morality. Stories of change are less inspirational for people viewed as inherently bad. It is not certain why this may be so. However, it was suggested that people view themselves as good, and find it hard to identify with a person who has committed socially unacceptable acts of behaviour.
Changing of behaviour requires the want to put in effort to change. Hearing stories about others who have successfully changed behaviour can be inspirational to making the commitment to change and seeing it through.
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Source material from Psychology Today
