Why human-interest stories?

Show readers one — not 1,001

What would make people give twice as much money to a single child as to 11 million starving children in Ethiopia? A human-interest story.

**Story vs. statistics** People care more about one person they know something about than they do about hundreds or millions of nameless, faceless souls. *Image by Riccardo Mayer*

For the study — by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University and Decision Research — people read one of two letters.

The first focused on facts and stats about the magnitude of the problems facing children in Africa:

Food shortages in Malawi are affecting more than 3 million children.
In Zambia, severe rainfall deficits have resulted in a 42% drop in maize production from 2000. As a result, an estimated 3 million Zambians face hunger.
Four million Angolans — one third of the population — have been forced to flee their homes.
More than 11 million people in Ethiopia need immediate food assistance.

The second shared the story of a single African girl named Rokia:

Any money that you donate will go to Rokia, a 7-year-old girl from Mali, Africa. Rokia is desperately poor, and faces a threat of severe hunger or even starvation. Her life will be changed for the better as a result of your financial gift. With your support, and the support of other caring sponsors, Save the Children will work with Rokia’s family and other members of the community to help feed her, provide her with education, as well as basic medical care and hygiene education.

On average, the people who read the statistics contributed $1.14. The people who read about Rokia contributed $2.38 — more than twice as much.

“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”

— Mother Teresa

Next, the researchers gave a third group of people both sets of information — the statistics and the story about Rokia. Perhaps, they thought, the combination of statistics and stories — the power of individual need coupled with the statistical scale of the problem — would inspire a whole new level of giving.

Not so. The people who received both letters gave $1.43, almost a dollar less than the people who read the Rokia story alone. Somehow the statistics — evidence of massive human suffering — actually made people less charitable.

“The mere act of calculation reduced people’s charity,” the Heaths write. “Once we put on our analytical hat, we react to emotional appeals differently. We hinder our ability to feel.”

Multiply your communication success:
Choose the story, not the statistic.

How can you engage your readers?

It ain’t fluff. Storytelling helps people pay closer attention to your message, understand it faster, remember it longer and act on it more quickly.

Do you know how to grab attention, communicate more clearly, make your message more memorable and move readers to act with storytelling and other creative techniques?

At Master the Art of Storytelling — our business-storytelling workshop starting July 11 — you’ll learn how to engage readers with a great story, as well as other creative elements like concrete details, description, wordplay and metaphor.

Save up to $100 with our group discounts.