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What is empathy

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Without two things theres no such thing as connection.

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Definition for connection

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Families have special connections between each other.

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Lack of empathy can cause problems

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Similar to empathy

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Can someone lack empathy?

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How can a connection be established?

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Forbes Welcome page -- Forbes is a global media company, focusing on business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership, and lifestyle.

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There are different types of connections

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There is data, internet, mechanical, and etc

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Can animals teach us empathy?

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Are some people born with a brain that is wired to be more empathetic? Can compassion be learned? What daily habits or life experiences reinforce selfishness, narcissism, and at a far extreme psychopathy?

Last night, I listened to an interview with Madonna and Anderson Cooper talking about the importance of teaching our children to be able to empathize and to not be complacent about fighting against oppression and inequality. Two studies in the past month have identified specific brain regions linked to empathy and compassion.

This morning, a new study was released by the Max Planck Institute for Human and Cognitive Brain Sciences that revealed the neurobiological roots of how our own feelings and experiences can distort someone's capacity for empathy. Last month, another study from the University of Chicago found the neurobiological roots of psychopathic behavior. Together, these studies offer valuable clues for ways we can fortify empathy at a neural level. Luckily, researchers have found that compassion can be trained.
The Neuroscience of Empathy
In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience on October 9, 2013, Max Planck researchers identified that the tendency to be egocentric is innate for human beings - but that a part of your brain recognizes a lack of empathy and autocorrects. This specific part of your brain is called the the right supramarginal gyrus. When this brain region doesn't function properly-or when we have to make particularly quick decisions-the researchers found one's ability for empathy is dramatically reduced. This area of the brain helps us to distinguish our own emotional state from that of other people and is responsible for empathy and compassion.

The supramarginal gyrus is a part of the cerebral cortex and is approximately located at the junction of the parietal, temporal and frontal lobe. "This was unexpected, as we had the temporo-parietal junction in our sights. This is located more towards the front of the brain," explains Claus Lamm, one of the paper's authors.

The research team headed by Tania Singer said, "When assessing the world around us and our fellow humans, we use ourselves as a yardstick and tend to project our own emotional state onto others. While cognition research has already studied this phenomenon in detail, nothing is known about how it works on an emotional level. It was assumed that our own emotional state can distort our understanding of other people's emotions, in particular if these are completely different to our own. But this emotional egocentricity had not been measured before now."

The right supramarginal gyrus ensures that we can decouple our perception of ourselves from that of others. When the neurons in this part of the brain were disrupted in the course of a research task, the participants found it difficult to stop from projecting their own feelings and circumstances onto others. The participants' assessments were also less accurate when they were forced to make particularly quick decisions.
The Lap of Luxury Can Make You Less Empathetic
When you are in an agreeable and comfortable situation it is more difficult to empathize with another person's suffering. At a neurobiological level - without a properly functioning supramarginal gyrus - your brain has a tough time putting itself in someone else's shoes. To test this in the laboratory the Max Planck researchers used a perception experiment in which participants, who worked in teams of two, were exposed to either pleasant or unpleasant simultaneous visual and tactile stimuli.

For example, while participant 1 was shown a picture of maggots and had slime placed on her hand, participant 2 saw a picture of a puppy and could feel soft, fleecy fur on her skin. "It was important to combine the two stimuli. Without the tactile stimulus, the participants would only have evaluated the situation 'with their heads' and their feelings would have been excluded," explains Claus Lamm. The participants could also see the stimulus that their team partners were exposed at the same time.

The two participants were then asked to evaluate either their own emotions compared to those of their partners. As long as both participants were exposed to the same type of positive or negative stimuli, they found it easy to assess their partner's emotions.

The participant who was confronted with an unpleasant or disagreeable experience could easily imagine how unpleasant the sight and feeling of slime and maggots must be for her partner. For more on the genetics of staying happily married please check out my recent Psychology Today blog: " Is the Secret to a Happy Marriage Held in Your DNA?"

Major differences arose during the test when one partner was confronted with pleasant stimuli and the other with unpleasant ones. In this scenario a person's capacity for empathy plummeted. The participants' own emotions distorted their assessment of the other person's feelings. The participants who were feeling good themselves assessed their partners' negative experiences as less severe than they actually were. In contrast, those who had just had an unpleasant experience assessed their partners' good experiences less positively.

Until now, social neuroscience models have assumed that people simply rely on their own emotions as a reference for empathy. This only works, however, if we are in a neutral state or the same state as our counterpart. Otherwise, the brain must use the right supramarginal gyrus to counteract and correct a tendency for self-centered perceptions of another's pain, suffering or discomfort.
The Neurological Basis for a Lack of Empathy
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by 'a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow affect, glibness, manipulation and callousness.' When individuals with psychopathy imagine others in pain, researchers have found that brain areas necessary for feeling empathy and concern for others fail to become active and connected to other important regions involved in affective processing and compassionate decision-making.

A September 2013 study from the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago published in journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscienc e found the neurobiological roots of psychopathic behavior.

When highly psychopathic participants imagined pain to themselves, they showed a typical neural response within the brain regions involved in empathy for pain, including the anterior insula, the anterior midcingulate cortex, somatosensory cortex, and the right amygdala. The increase in brain activity in these regions was unusually pronounced, suggesting that psychopathic people are sensitive to the thought of pain but are unable to put themselves in someone else's shoes and feel that pain.

When participants imagined pain to others, these regions failed to become active in high psychopaths. In a sadistic twist, when imagining others in pain, psychopaths actually showed an increased response in the ventral striatum, an area known to be involved in pleasure. Participants were assessed with the widely used PCL-R, which is a diagnostic tool use to identify varying degrees of psychopathic tendencies. Based on this assessment, the participants were then divided in three groups of approximately 40 individuals each: highly, moderately, and weakly psychopathic.

Previous research rate of psychopathy in prisons is much higher than the average population. About 23% of prison inmates are thought to be psychopathic while the average population is around 1%. To better understand the neurological basis of empathy dysfunction in psychopaths, neuroscientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on the brains of 121 inmates of a medium-security prison.

In the study participants were shown a variety of visual scenarios illustrating physical pain, such as a finger caught between a door, or a toe caught under a heavy object. Then they were asked to imagine that this accident happened to themselves, or somebody else. They were also shown control images that did not depict any painful situation, for example a hand on a doorknob.

The researchers believe that finding the neurobiological roots of empathy vs. psychopathy may lead to intervention programs in a domain where therapeutic pessimism is running rampant. Honing in on neural networks needed to make people more empathetic may be the key to targeting psychopathic behavior and lower violent crime. "Imagining oneself in pain or in distress may trigger a stronger affective reaction than imagining what another person would feel, and this could be used with some psychopaths in cognitive-behavior therapies as a kick-starting technique," the authors conclude.
Conclusion: Can meditation, daily physical activity, and volunteerism make your brain more empathetic?
Neuroscience allows us to see inside the human brain and better understand our minds. With this knowledge we can begin to make daily choices of mindset and behavior that not only reshape our neural circuitry but can alter the way human beings interact with one another.

Because our brain's neural circuitry is malleable and can be rewired through neuroplasticity one's tendency for empathy and compassion is never fixed. We all need to practice putting ourselves in someone else's shoes to reinforce the neural networks that allow us to ' love thy neighbor as thyself' and ' do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'

There are no easy answers for how to elevate people's consciousness and empathetic response. I am optimistic that through daily choices of mindset and behavior that anyone can rewire his or her brain to be more empathetic. As with everything, we need to take a multi-pronged approach. Other research has shown that compassion can be trained through: rigorous mindfulness training and/or loving-kindness meditation; physical activity that puts your body and mind in touch with "disagreeable" experiences some would consider to be a "suffer-fest"; and giving back through prosocial behavior and volunteerism.

Many studies have shown that mindfulness meditation that includes LKM (loving-kindness meditation) can rewire your brain. Practicing LKM is easy. All you have to do is take a few minutes everyday to sit quietly and systematically send loving and compassionate thoughts to: 1) Family and friends. 2) Someone with whom you have tension or a conflict. 3) Strangers around the world who are suffering. 4) Self-compassion, forgiveness and self-love to yourself.

Doing this simple 4-step LKM practice literally rewires your brain by engaging neural connections linked to empathy. You can literally feel the tumblers in your brain shift and open up to empathy by spending just a few minutes going through this systematic LKM practice.

I also believe that regular physical exercise and getting through a tough workout makes people more empathetic to human suffering. Some people may think that pushing yourself through a workout is masochistic. It is. This is one reason why daily physical exercise might make anyone less sadistic or likely to be a psychopath at neurological level.

Through the daily process of consciously seeking and experiencing something that is 'disagreeable' you become physically and mentally tough, but it makes you sensitive to what pain feels like. By leaving the comfort zone of modern American life - on a long run, bike ride or tough workout - you viscerally connect to the essence of human struggle experienced everyday by people around the world who are less fortunate than many of us. This is one of the founding principles of The Athlete's Way: Sweat and the Biology of Bliss.

Lastly, many studies have shown that volunteerism is good for your health. Dedicating some time each week to some type of charity work creates a win-win by reinforcing the empathetic wiring of your brain while making a contribution to reduce the suffering of someone less fortunate.

These are all small steps, but taken together they can fortify empathy and altruism at a neurobiological level for each individual. Collectively, these small steps can help make the world a better place.

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Are some people born with a brain that is wired to be more empathetic? Can compassion be learned? What daily habits or life experiences reinforce selfishness, narcissism, and at a far extreme psychopathy? Two studies in the past month have identified specific brain regions linked to empathy and compassion.

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Is everything connected?

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Everything is Connected -- Here's How: | Tom Chi | TEDxTaipei

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Tory Lanez - Connection (feat. Fabolous, Davo & Paloma Ford)

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Can you have too much empathy?

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"Can too much empathy be bad for me?" "Could empathy make me overly sensitive?"

These are common questions I hear in my emotional intelligence and coaching skills classes. If you embody the emotions you pick up from someone, the answer could be yes. If you instead, notice and release the emotions in your body so you can hold the space for the person to safely express him or herself, the answer is no.

If you want people to feel comfortable and be open with you-the purpose of empathy-you need to let your reactions fade away. You create a safe space between you by caring and feeling curious so you can identify and understand what they feel, not mirror it back to them.

Empathy as Social Sensitivity

Even at work, most people long for you to listen with compassion, the cornerstone of empathy. ¹ They want you to sense their discomfort or distress especially when they struggle articulating how they feel.

Humans desire to be seen and understood beyond their words. Empathy demonstrates you care.

You can experience empathy by noticing a person's body language and voice, but acute sensitivity includes being open to the emotional energy vibrating between you. ² You might feel this energy in your heart or gut. You sense not only what people feel but also what they need. You can tell when they need attention, acknowledgment, or an offer of help. You grasp when they want you to back off and give them space or when they want you to quietly stand by. You know when they are impatient to move on or if they want to take more time.

Empathetic Reactivity - When too much empathy is bad

With empathy, you will feel their stress, anxiety, and anger in your body. You might feel their pain emotionally and physically. If you let these emotions sit in your body, your body and mind can be emotionally hijacked.

Unbridled empathy can lead to concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol, making it difficult to release the emotions. ³ Taking on other people's feelings so that you live their experience can make you susceptible to feelings of depression or hopelessness.

Not only will this lead to burnout, you can break the bond of trust you were hoping to strengthen. When you embody other people's emotions, you may feel responsible for relieving their pain. You feel the need to fix their problems and make them feel better.

Unless people want your help, your intrusive reaction will push them away no matter the value of your intention. They might feel less understood. They feel disrespected, undermined, or enfeebled when you interrupt to render aid. The response you believe is "being supportive" could damage their sense of safety and trust. They no longer feel they can fully express themselves with you.

How to foster non-reactive empathy

Having open, nonjudgmental awareness, "... is the capacity to remain receptive to whatever might pass into your thoughts, view, hearing or feeling and to do so in a non-critical way." ⁴ You notice when emotions begin to arise in your body. You might name the emotion and offer what you sense to the person to help him or her better understand the experience. Then you relax your body and let the emotion subside.

Non-reactive empathy is especially useful when you feel the urge to jump in and fix people, helping them see what they should feel and do instead. This urge might arise from empathy, or you could be judging the person's beliefs.

I was coaching a man in China in front of a big audience. He wanted to explore what to do when he retired. When he talked, I could sense his heart-felt desire to help others grow. I asked him what he loved about his job being the Director of HR for a large company. He told me he loved developing people and have them realize their potential. Most of all, he was proud to be instilling the Communist principles. I felt my entire body shudder. My democratic values curdled in my bones. But it wasn't my place to judge him or change him. I noticed my reaction and let it go so I could be fully present with this wonderful man who didn't want to quit helping people when he retired.
We accept, appreciate, and encourage expression in others by observing our reactions and letting them go.
You can foster this open, non-judgmental awareness with the following exercise. As soon as you notice that you are emotionally reacting:

Relax - breath and release the tension in your body.

Detach - clear your mind of all thoughts.

Center - drop your awareness to the center of your body just below your navel. Feel yourself breathe. This helps to clear the mind.

Focus - choose one or two keywords that represent how you want to feel. Feeling curiosity and compassion foster non-reactive empathy.

When your own emotions distract you, breathe and recall your keywords to maintain trust and connection. Allowing others the safe expression of emotions could help them diffuse their feelings and see a possible path forward.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Copyright Dr. Marcia Reynolds, April 15, 2017

Dr. Reynolds is a behavioral researcher, executive coach, and expert in reflective intelligence and emotional engagement. She is the author of The Discomfort Zone: How Leaders Turn Difficult Conversations into Breakthroughs.

More information about Dr. Reynolds can be found on her website.

Follow Marcia on LinkedIn and Facebook.

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"Can too much empathy be bad for me?" "Could empathy make me overly sensitive?" These are common questions I hear in my emotional intelligence and coaching skills classes. If you embody the emotions you pick up from someone, the answer could be yes.

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"Paradise has never been about places. It exists in moments. In connection. In flash across time."

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We can find connection in animals

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Humans aren't as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were 'reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.' Neil Degrasse Tyson

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"You OK? You seem distracted", asks Alice's coworker.

"Yes, I'm OK", Alice responds. " It's just that my mother is in the hospital again, and I'm not sure she's going to make it this time." Alice's voice cracks, and she reaches for a tissue to wipe her tears. When she looks up, she is surprised to find her coworker has vanished.

To make matters worse, her coworker avoids her for the rest of the day. He is even hostile when Alice asks for information she needs to complete a report.

Later that evening, her coworker sends her an email that simply says, "Sorry. Couldn't take it."

Most of us have had interactions like this that leave us scratching our heads. We can reverse the sexes in the above scenario, or have both parties be the same sex. It doesn't matter. It still surprises and chagrins us when people we consider friends-decent, kind people-seem to abandon us when we most need emotional support. They are clearly not sadists who delight in the suffering of others or psychopaths who are indifferent to it. So their behavior is perplexing.

This kind of interaction can lead to anger, judgment, and recriminations-the "you don't care about me" outrage response. But here is the problem: Both parties feel their feelings have been trampled.
The Empathy Response Can Lead to Emotional Overwhelm
Consider what happens inside us when we view the suffering of others. When we experience physical pain or emotional distress ourselves, a neural circuit becomes activated (anterior cingulate cortex-or ACC--and insula). Neuroscientific research shows this same circuit gets activated when we see others suffer pain or emotional distress. So seeing the suffering of others causes us to suffer as well.

Although this response is crucial for social interaction, it is indeed unpleasant. If that circuit is hit too frequently (excessive sharing of others' negative experiences), it can lead to emotional burnout.

And so people develop strategies for protecting themselves. Some do what Alice's coworker did-put physical and emotional distance between themselves and the suffering person. Some stay present but emotionally dissociate, which the sufferer usually experiences as emotional abandonment.
Coping with the Emotional Overwhelm of Empathy
A crucial part of socialization is learning how to protect oneself from being overwhelmed by the suffering of others while still giving them the support they need and deserve.

Research suggests that the answer to this dilemma may be compassion training. Compassion is defined as a feeling of concern for the suffering of others (rather than experiencing distress in the face of the suffering of others.) Programs aimed at training compassion have been found to foster prosocial (helping) behavior while evoking a feeling of emotional well-being.

Recent research led by Max Planck scientist Olga Klimicki showed that compassion training actually affects which neural circuits are activated when viewing the suffering of others.

This was the basic design of the experiment:

The affect group viewed three blocks of video clips that consisted of a high-emotion and a low-emotion video clip (10-18 seconds long). The clips were taken from newscasts or documentaries. The high-emotion video showed people suffering physical or emotional distress. The low-emotion vides showed everyday scenes that did not include suffering. fMRI brain scans were taken while the women viewed the videos. After each video, the women rated how much empathy, positive feelings and negative feeling they had experienced while seeing the video. They were told that "empathy" meant how much they shared the emotion of the persons in the video clips.

The first session was the baseline-the women simply viewed the videos and their natural responses were recorded. Following this pre-training viewing session, the women received "empathy training" to enhance their empathetic responses. This training consisted of instructing them to focus on resonating with the suffering they were viewing. The second viewing session followed this training. Following this, they received "compassion training" which consisted of a meditation for directing love and compassion toward themselves and others. They then viewed the third and final set of videos. (A control group completed a memory task that consisted of learning lists of neutral words.)

The results were quite striking: As expected, the women showed more distress to the high-emotion clips than the low-emotion ones, both in their fMRI scans and their own ratings. The scans showed activation of the "empathy circuit" (ACC and insula). Their distress was enhanced following empathy training-greater activation in their empathy circuitry, higher negative emotion ratings, and lower positive emotion ratings.

But importantly, compassion training reversed these effects: Negative emotion ratings returned to baseline levels, positive emotion ratings surpassed baseline levels, and a brain circuit associated with reward and affiliation became activated (medial orbitofrontal cortex and striatum).

The researchers concluded that compassion can be trained as a coping strategy to overcome empathic distress and strengthen resilience. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the suffering of others, those trained in compassion can offer help while simultaneously deriving peace and satisfaction from reducing the suffering of others.

Final note: You may be wondering why only women served as participants in the study. The answer can be found here.

Copyright June 23, 2014 Denise Cummins, PhD

Dr. Cummins is a research psychologist, a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and the author of Good Thinking: Seven Powerful Ideas That Influence the Way We Think.

More information about me can be found on my homepage

And my author page.

Follow me on Twitter.

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"You OK? You seem distracted", asks Alice's coworker. "Yes, I'm OK", Alice responds. " It's just that my mother is in the hospital again, and I'm not sure she's going to make it this time." Alice's voice cracks, and she reaches for a tissue to wipe her tears.

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Storytelling describes the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics, or embellishment. Every culture has its own stories or narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation or instilling moral values.

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How to tell a great story

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Steal these tips from seasoned IDEO storytellers

Imagine this scene. You're an aspiring leader at your company and have a big, game-changing idea. You and your team have worked tirelessly on this idea for months, carefully refining it into the wee hours. The hitch? The CEO's not so sure. She wants to meet about it. Now, it's show time. The story you tell in that fluorescent-lit conference room will either rocket your team's idea into the world or kill it, right there, on the spot.

Are you ready?

If you answered "no" or "maybe so," it might be time to strengthen your storytelling chops.

Let's face it, the future's not easy to measure. Great leaders need to imagine and articulate what's possible before they can make it real. As renowned business strategist Roger Martin has said, "it's not possible to prove analytically that a new idea is a good one in advance. If an idea is new, there's no data about how it will interact with the world." Which means no amount of data can take the place of a great story. So, tell a great story, and people will be more willing to go out on a limb for you and your idea.

To that end, here's a sneak peek from Storytelling for Influence, IDEO U's new online design thinking course. My fellow IDEO writers and I give these guidelines to our project teams to help their stories - and designs - have greater impact.

Embrace your inner Orwell. Recent studies from both The New School and Carnegie Mellon show that reading fiction can increase empathy. Psychologists and neuroscientists have found that stories stimulate parts of the brain that help us understand other people's thoughts and emotions. If you want to lead people to do something that's never been done before, you've got to help them imagine what this new world could look like and describe a future state that touches people emotionally, so that they stop thinking with their analytic, naysaying minds, and start seeing and believing with open, generative minds.

What's your point? What's your story really about? What's the ONE thing you want to stick in the brains of your audience? In a sense, you're the writer and director of a film that people have already shown up to see - what do you want them to remember as they're driving home afterwards? Sure, you've had a trillion ideas to get to where you are, but at the end of the day, your story will be clearer and have more impact if you can focus on nailing just one, BIG idea.

If you're having trouble figuring out your point, take a Bar Exam. Grab some colleagues, go to a bar, and tell them your story. Unlike conference rooms, bars are friendly, relaxed places. When you tell stories in bars, they're engaging, concise, and jargon free. And the only visuals you might use are simple drawings on cocktail napkins. If you can't keep your colleagues' attention in a bar, it's because you don't know the point of your story. Keep taking Bar Exams until you can. (And remember to drink lots of water!)

Empathize with your audience. Empathy is a critical part of human-centered design. Try to imagine what's most important to the folks you're presenting to. Will you be telling your story to a team of managers who are desperately looking for ways to improve the next quarter and move up in the ranks? Or, like in the opening example, a group of skeptical execs? Don't just stop at the first thing you think of. People are complex, and so are their needs. You've got to dig deep. The more you can empathize with their situation, the more connected you'll feel - and the more compelling your story will be.

Prototype, prototype, prototype. At IDEO, we've built prototypes of classroom chairs out of sticky notes, apps out of paper and foam core, and mobile food carts out of clothing racks. We find the same iterative process applies to stories, too. Draft up something and then retell it in different ways, with different audiences. Gather feedback and use it to make your next draft even better. Every time you tell your story, you'll get better at it. And you'll have the chance to hear what other people think about what you have to say-which will help you make your point stronger and clearer with every revision.

Now go, fearless leader. Time to tell your story and change the world!
Annette Ferrara is a Senior Writer and Marketing Lead at IDEO Chicago where she produces such live storytelling events as IDEO Stories and "The Future of the Midwest." She is an advisor to , the company's new online learning platform. Outside of IDEO, she co-produces of Chicago, a comedy show where real people read their childhood diaries in front of a live audience.

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How to Tell Stories that Influence People and Inspire Action

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Imagine this scene. You're an aspiring leader at your company and have a big, game-changing idea. You and your team have worked tirelessly on this idea for months, carefully refining it into the wee hours. The hitch? The CEO's not so sure. She wants to meet about it. Now, it's show time.

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Why I encourage everyone to share their stories

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Why I encourage everyone to share their stories

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This is a reaction I've become fairly accustomed to when participants step out of the StoryPod. It makes me smile every time I see the look of freedom on their face as they walk up to one of our story curators to debrief the experience. Not everyone we meet has the confidence to walk straight...

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Click to tweet this article to your friends and followers!

When an idea is born for a script, at first it doesn't matter what kind of story it is. A great idea is a great idea, right? But, defining the story type, understanding the underlying themes, and knowing where the story falls commercially (genres) clearly helps determine both structure and direction.

Dictionary definitions of what a story is just don't cut it, i.e., "an account of incidents or events," or "An account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment," or...the part of a building comprising all the rooms that are on the same level." Couldn't resist the last definition since some screenwriting gurus like to compare the construction of a script to the building of a house.

When it comes to story types, genres and plot types, the number of different types ranges from 1 to whatever. A single plot archetype might be that all stories begin with conflict. Comedy and Tragedy might be all that's needed for 2 types.
Script EXTRA: Download FREE copy of Breakdown of Film Genres to get insights into writing genres and discover which screenplay genre would serve your story the best.
Types of Conflicts Include:

Human vs. self

Human vs. human

Human vs. nature

Human vs. environment

Human vs. technology (machine)

Human vs. supernatural

Human vs. god

Usually there's a human involved, but conflict can certainly be animal vs. animal, etc.

In Christopher Booker's, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, the 7 plots are:

1. Monster in the House

2. Out of the Bottle (Wishes and curses)

3. Whydunit

4. Golden Fleece (Quest; Journey)

5. Rites of Passage

6. Institutionalized

7. Buddy Love

8. Superhero

9. Dude with a Problem

10. The Fool Triumphant (Underdog)

Georges Polti ups the ante, The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations:

1. Supplication

2. Deliverance

3. Crime Pursued by Vengeance

4. Vengeance taken for kindred upon kindred

5. Pursuit

6. Disaster

7. Falling Prey to Cruelty of Misfortune

8. Revolt

9. Daring Enterprise

10. Abduction

11. The Enigma (temptation; riddle)

12. Obtaining

13. Enmity of Kinsmen

14. Rivalry of Kinsmen

15. Murderous Adultery

16. Madness

17. Fatal Imprudence

18. Involuntary Crimes of Love (Incest)

19. Slaying of a Kinsman Unrecognized

20. Self-Sacrificing for an Ideal

21. Self-Sacrifice for Kindred

22. All Sacrificed for Passion

23. Necessity of Sacrificing Loved Ones

24. Rivalry of Superior and Inferior

25. Adultery

26. Crimes of Love

27. Discovery of the Dishonor of a Loved One

28. Obstacles to Love

29. An Enemy Loved

30. Ambition

31. Conflict with a God

32. Mistaken Jealousy

33. Erroneous Judgement

34. Remorse

35. Recovery of a Lost One

36. Loss of Loved Ones

Some of the listings, going by title alone, are a bit obscure, and require reading the book to understand in greater detail.

Want More Types of Stories, Plots, Genres, and Themes?:

Clearly there's a fair amount of overlap in these lists. Genres are similar to story type, or more accurately, types of stories fall within certain genres:

Well, there are actually hundreds of film and TV genres, criss-crossing fiction genres and maybe a few music genres as well. Obviously it would take a book to go into all the various types in detail, so I'll focus on just a few less obscure ones.

Themes are equally numerous. The more common types of themes include:
And the biggest one of all: Love.
Monster

A fairly easy type to understand, monsters include everything from the supernatural to aliens and dinosaurs, and of course, classic monsters like Freddie and even Hannibal Lecter. Monsters are scary. It takes courage to do battle against monsters.

Adventure

Another fairly easy category to grasp, Indiana Jones, Around the World in 80 Days, Titanic, Matrix, Robin Hood, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, to name a few. Adventure stories are usually heroic (even when the character is ordinary), fast paced with lots of action, overcoming larger-than-life obstacles, and take us to exotic places.

Rags to Riches

Rags to Riches stories usually have happy endings, where a downtrodden character overcomes numerous obstacles and rises above his/her limitations. The story or character arc doesn't necessarily have to be financial. Even Rocky could be deemed rags to riches. Cinderella, a fairy tale, is perhaps the most popular. Other examples: My Fair Lady, Slumdog Millionaire, Scarface and Trading Places.

Buddy Stories

Numerous buddy stories abound, friends who might be good, bad or ugly. Rain Man is about 2 brothers who become best friends. Lethal Weapon is two cops. Thelma & Louise is a tragic tale of two women so close, they're willing to die together.

Superhero

Superheroes are not always comicbook, such as Gladiator or A Beautiful Mind. But then, when we think of superheroes, we think of the stories that launched our childhoods: Batman, Spiderman, Superman.

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Story Types, Plot Types, Themes, Genres & MORE | Script Mag

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Click to tweet this article to your friends and followers! When an idea is born for a script, at first it doesn't matter what kind of story it is. A great idea is a great idea, right? But, defining the story type, understanding the underlying themes, and knowing where the story falls commercially (genres) clearly helps determine both structure and direction.

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A great story I wanted to share.

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Jenn Stanley & Peter Stanley

Jenn Stanley is a self-described liberal and a writer. Her father, Peter Stanley, began voting Republican in 1980 and works in construction. When Jenn was a kid, her dad was her best friend. But as she grew older, their views grew further apart, making it difficult for them to talk about the things that are important them - until the 2016 presidential race, when they agreed to avoid discussing politics altogether.

Jenn and Peter came to StoryCorps to try to put their differences aside, and to listen to each other's points of view., StoryCorps' new national effort to encourage people to engage in a conversation with someone they may not agree with politically.

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Jenn Stanley is a self-described liberal and a writer. Her father, Peter Stanley, began voting Republican in 1980 and works in construction. When Jenn was a kid, her dad was her best friend.

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What makes a story

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Buy books online and find book series such as Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo written by Nancy Krulik and John and Wendy from PenguinRandomHouse.com

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Different places have different traditional storytelling

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Storytelling is the flagship of Irish folklore. Our famous oral tradition is exemplified in famous storytellers from Peig Sayers to Anna Nic an Luain, Eamon a Burc, and many more. Notably, the members of the travelling community were traditionally regarded as amongst the best storytellers, and they have made an enormous contribution to the preservation of Ireland's oral and musical tradition.

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Can storytelling bring people together?

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When a storyteller interweaves description with emotion, a study suggests his or her brain activity becomes synchronized with the audience Speaker-listener neural coupling underlies successful communication. Stephens GJ., Silbert LJ., Hasson U. Joseph Henry Laboratories of Physics, Princeton University. Proceedings of the national academy of science of the United States of America 2010 Aug 10;107(32):14425-30. This synchronization suggests storytellers are imparting both ideas and emotions onto their listeners. It's a little like Inception, minus a thought-stealing Leo.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Greatest Storyteller Of Them All - Analysis

In a recent study, a storyteller and her audience were hooked up to MRI brain scanners. When the region of the brain associated with processing emotion lit up in the storyteller, so did the audience's. And when the region associated with higher-level thought activated for the storyteller, the audience's brains showed similar signals. The similarities in brain activity suggest the performer and audience connected on an emotional level to go along with the information exchange. However, this synchronization was unsuccessful when the storyteller performed in Russian, which she understood but the audience did not, suggesting the meaning of the story itself had a significant impact.

Another study demonstrated storytelling can aid in learning by encouraging students to connect with material on a personal level Once upon a time...Storytelling to enhance teaching and learning. Lordly D. Department of Human Nutrition, Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, NS. Canadian journal of dietetic practice and research 2007 Spring;68(1):30-5. Stories caused students to focus on similar, personal experiences, which led to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the information being presented. Of course, on the other hand, there's some material where personal connections just might not be possible.

TL;DR
Storytelling promotes emotional transfer, greater information retention, and increased connectivity among communicators.

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When a storyteller interweaves description with emotion, a study suggests his or her brain activity becomes synchronized with the audience Speaker-listener neural coupling underlies successful communication. Stephens GJ., Silbert LJ., Hasson U. Joseph Henry Laboratories of Physics, Princeton University. Proceedings of the national academy of science of the United States of America 2010 Aug 10;107(32):14425-30.

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Can stories be bad for you?