Can The Way You Tell A Story Affect How Willing People Will Be To Donate Money To Charity?

See Why Inspiring Stories Make Us React: The Neuroscience of Narrative by Paul Zak. Zak is an economist who uses neuroscience in his research. In fact, he coined the term "neuroeconomics." Excerpts from his article:

"My lab was the first to discover that the neurochemical oxytocin is synthesized in the human brain when one is trusted and that the molecule motivates reciprocation. We found that the human oxytocin response was similar to that found in social rodents,  signaling that another person (or rodent) is safe and familiar. Perhaps most surprising, we found that in humans, this “you seem trustworthy” signal occurs even between strangers without face-to-face interactions."

"After years of experiments, I now consider oxytocin the neurologic substrate for the Golden Rule: If you treat me well, in most cases my brain will synthesize oxytocin and this will motivate me to treat you well in return. This is how social creatures such as humans maintain themselves as part of social groups"

He had subjects watch different short videos. One told an emotional story, the other lacked strong emotions.

"We found that the narrative with the dramatic arc caused an increase in cortisol and oxytocin. Tellingly, the change in oxytocin had a positive correlation with participants’ feeling of empathy"

"Heightened empathy motivated participants to offer money to a stranger who was in the experiment."

"emotionally engaging narratives inspire post-narrative actions—in this case, sending money to a stranger."

Then he gave oxytocin to subjects who watched short Public Service Announcements (PSAs).

"We found that those who received oxytocin donated, on average, 56 percent more money to charity compared with participants who received the placebo. This confirmed the causal role of oxytocin on post-narrative prosocial behavior. But why did this happen? We discovered that participants who were given oxytocin showed substantially more concern for the characters in the PSAs. This increased concern motivated them to want to help by donating money to a charity that could alleviate the suffering these stories depicted."

"stories that sustain attention and generate emotional resonance produce post-narrative donations—even stories on difficult topics. To the brain, good stories are good stories, whether first-person or third-person, on topics happy or sad, as long as they get us to care about their characters. 

Psycholinguists have shown that effective stories induce “transportation” into the narrative. Transportation happens when one loses oneself in the flow of the story"

"Both narrative transportation and concern predicted post-story donations. This shows why stories affect behavior after the story has ended: we have put ourselves into the narrative. Even a week after the experiment, accurate story recall was predicted by a single measure: narrative transportation."

The article is long so I have just given the highlights. But it is all very interesting.

My lab was the first to discover that the neurochemical oxytocin is synthesized in the human brain when one is trusted and that the molecule motivates reciprocation. ^{1 2 3} We found that the human oxytocin response was similar to that found in social rodents, ⁴ signaling that another person (or rodent) is safe and familiar. Perhaps most surprising, we found that in humans, this “you seem trustworthy” signal occurs even between strangers without face-to-face interactions.   - See more at: http://www.dana.org/Cerebrum/2015/Why_Inspiring_Stories_Make_Us_React__The_Neuroscience_of_Narrative/#sthash.9gpX7ps9.dpuf

My lab was the first to discover that the neurochemical oxytocin is synthesized in the human brain when one is trusted and that the molecule motivates reciprocation. ^{1 2 3} We found that the human oxytocin response was similar to that found in social rodents, ⁴ signaling that another person (or rodent) is safe and familiar. Perhaps most surprising, we found that in humans, this “you seem trustworthy” signal occurs even between strangers without face-to-face interactions.   - See more at: http://www.dana.org/Cerebrum/2015/Why_Inspiring_Stories_Make_Us_React__The_Neuroscience_of_Narrative/#sthash.9gpX7ps9.dpuf

My lab was the first to discover that the neurochemical oxytocin is synthesized in the human brain when one is trusted and that the molecule motivates reciprocation. ^{1 2 3} We found that the human oxytocin response was similar to that found in social rodents, ⁴ signaling that another person (or rodent) is safe and familiar. Perhaps most surprising, we found that in humans, this “you seem trustworthy” signal occurs even between strangers without face-to-face interactions.   - See more at: http://www.dana.org/Cerebrum/2015/Why_Inspiring_Stories_Make_Us_React__The_Neuroscience_of_Narrative/#sthash.9gpX7ps9.dpuf

Here are two articles about professor Zak's 2010 Mind Science Foundation lecture from the San Antonio Express-News:

Emerging field offers insight into human virtues

Humans release ‘niceness' chemical

More information about neuroeconomics can be found at (these are two short articles by Zak that give you some idea of what he does in his experiments):

Neuroeconomics Explained, Part One

Neuroeconomics Explained, Part Two

Adam Smith vs. Bart Simpson. (A post of mine from last year and it also has a link to a video of Zak lecturing on all of this)