Anyone who’s been reading this blog knows I’m big on stories. Anyone who knows me as a friend or teacher knows I tell them all the time. But it was only after studying the history of psychology that I came to realize just how critical stories were to the evolution of our identity.

William James, arguably the father of modern psychology, was very interested in the ideas of Darwin and the theory of evolution. Both Darwin and James were interested in the ability of animals and the human animal in particular to function in the world. Darwin argued the better the organism can adapt to changes in their environment, the better they function and the more likely they are to reproduced. Over countless generations, the genes that allowed for better functioning and adaptability were passed along and became more dominant.

Why consciousness evolved

Darwin and James both believed that consciousness evolved because of the ways that it enhanced the human ability to adapt. Being able to conceive of something beyond the present moment allows a human to conceive of possible outcomes, both positive and negative. Being able to conceive of a past and future allows us to sequence ideas and events. Being able to think in sequences allows us to consider cause and effect. And what better way to capture valuable lessons of what actions can lead to certain outcomes (good or bad) than to link a sequence of events and outcomes into a narrative. That is to say, a story.

It’s not a coincidence that so many of the early stories of any culture are so often morality or cautionary tales. The art of telling meaningful stories came before the logic of reason or science.

Why identity or a sense of self is adaptive

It also should come as no surprise that William James, so interested in the stream of consciousness and adaptability would develop one of the most vigorous early theories of the self. Having a self, that is to say, a sense of identity, allows us to not only have a sense of cause and effect, but a personal sense of cause and effect. It allows for an operational theory of what actions to pursue and which actions to avoid that is individualized to our specific circumstances. We’ve long realized in psychology that personalized treatment plans for a person’s psychotherapy makes far more sense than a one size fits all approach. Evolutionarily, having a personal sense of “When I drink, I tend to reveal too many personal details” is far more helpful than just having a general cultural sense that “drinking can make you more impulsive” or “drinking can make you do dumb things,” lessons that might be conveyed in broadly distributed cautionary tales of a culture.

Of course, having an overly fixed sense of identity can get in the way. James would have argued that a rigid self concept would interfere with adaptability, which implies a certain flexibility.

To summarize, as humans we first developed a sense of consciousness and later developed a sense of cause and effect which we began to capture in the communal telling of stories. I would argue that only later did we develop the ability to tell personal stories to ourselves.

Sense of self and self stories helps us achieve goals

Being able to tell our selves stories of past mistakes and victories reminds us of what is helpful and not so helpful for us to do. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment we can forget those lessons or self stories so all the more reason to repeat them. And having a sense of identity and a sense of a future for that self helps us to better set and achieve goals. Think about it. We almost always set our goals in terms of “I want…” such and such. Obviously setting goals and recognizing the ways we could screw those goals up is extremely helpful. Remembering the stories of our past and envisioning a potential story of our future enhances us getting what we want. Hopefully what we want turns out to be what we need, but that is a whole ‘nother article!

A great book for those interested in this topic

Right before I started this site, I read a fascinating book entitled On the Origins of Stories: Evolution, Cognition and Fiction by Brian Boyd, a professor of English. It crystallized many of the thoughts I already had and added a few others I hadn’t considered. At some point I want to write a review of that book for this website, but for the time being wanted to draw your attention to it.

In the meantime, for those of you who enjoy a deeper dive into this type of think, I hope it gives you clearer sense of what ties the various threads of this website together. Self-help narratives are just the sort of self stories that James might have recognized when he wrote about the adaptability of consciousness. History and myths most often tell the story of some success, failure or combination of both. They’re called romances, comedies and tragedies for a reason. And what are the hero and villain tales of comic books and movies but a pop cultural manifestation of earlier morality tales.

I love telling and reading stories. Luckily, its a very adaptive pastime!

Mark Carlson-Ghost