Little, Hannah 
ORCID: 0000-0001-6367-8845 and Collver, Jordan
(2025)
Storytelling for Science Communication Toolkit: Cognitive Biases, Memory & Objectives.
[Report]
|
Text
Little_Storytelling Toolkit 2025_33MB.pdf - Published version Download (33MB) | Preview |
Executive Summary
Humans have used stories to understand the world around us for millennia, from folktales to news stories, and from movies to the gossip we collect in the local pub. Science communicators have long been trying to monopolise on this most human instinct to hear and pass on the information we hear in the form of stories. For science communication, stories enable us to foreground relevance, emotion and engagement, which can be used to persuade audiences or make information stick with people. Many people already get their science content through the mass media, which has a bias towards communicating through narratives[1], and many science communicators use storytelling in communication through video, stage shows or writing. As a result, research centring on the use of stories within science communication has exploded in recent years, inspiring dedicated books on the subject which act as introductory texts to how storytelling can be used in science communication. For example, Randy Olsen’s Houston, “We Have a Narrative: Why Science Needs Story”. This toolkit is not intended as an introduction to storytelling practice. Instead, it is concerned with tactics to make our storytelling in science communication more memorable. The fields of cultural evolution and cognitive science have been investigating the cognitive biases that make some stories stick with us while others are lost, and what makes us remember information from the stories we hear. In this toolkit, we will describe different cognitive biases for storytelling, cover the empirical evidence that indicates what these biases are and how they work, and explore how they might be useful for science communication, but also areas where science communicators might want to be careful. While cognitive biases can be powerful tools for engagement, it is crucial to use them responsibly and ethically. Therefore, the toolkit also considers the objectives, scientific integrity, and well-being of their audience as we discuss each bias. The reflections for science communication practice come from practicing science communication professionals in an interview study (see Little and Dunstone, 2025). This study asked science communicators how they use stories, whether they can benefit from the evidence reviewed in this paper about cognitive biases for certain types of narratives, and what issues the cognitive biases reviewed might pose for their science communication practice.
| Item Type: | Report |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > School of the Arts |
| Depositing User: | Symplectic Admin |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Oct 2025 07:04 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Oct 2025 07:05 |
| DOI: | 10.17638/03194747 |
| URI: | https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3194747 |
Altmetric
Altmetric