Personas are powerful storytelling modes that can inspire us to learn and empathize. In May, the Innovation Hub has launched a new Personas section on our website. We honour the launch of Personas with this blog post, where Ajeetha and Amelia reflect on why human-centered storytelling is so impactful.
Written by Ajeetha Vithiyananthan, Blog Editor & Digital Content Writer, Bachelor of Science, Psychology and Sociology and Amelia Di Meo, Research Coordinator, Master of Health Science, Translational Research
What Are Personas?
Personas are short, fictional stories of student experiences based on real student data from our design research. At the Innovation Hub, we use storytelling through personas in our research reports and presentations because they evoke empathy. Empathy drives people in our community to take action and create change.
In May, the Innovation Hub launched the Personas section of our website, where we’ve compiled diverse student stories that represent the kinds of stories students tell us during our various research projects. With the Personas launch, we began to reflect more deeply on the power of human stories in our work: Why is storytelling so impactful as a medium of communication?
Storytelling is Relatable
Through storytelling, the voice of a person is front and center. When a human is at the centre of a story, we often feel connected to the person – experiencing empathy. Interestingly, feeling emotional connection to characters is not just a universal feeling we experience when reading a book, or watching a movie or TV show, but is also proven by science to be built into us. For example, humans are born with mirror neurons (Aharya & Shukla, 2014) which are neurons that are activated when we observe actions done by others. There’s also been evidence (Saarela et al., 20007) that we not only perceive what others experience, but we can feel the intensity of their experience and what they are going through – almost like living through them.
In fact, scientists have found evidence that the same brain regions that are activated when we are doing activities ourselves are also activated when we read about a fictional character doing the same activity (Speer et al., 2010); (Hsu et al., 2015). In one study (Speer et al., 2010), participants underwent brain imaging scans while reading four short stories. The researchers observed that, at certain points of the story, when a character’s action suddenly changed (e.g. the character started to “run”), the motor region of participants also would become activated – and this region is normally activated when the participant themselves are running. This means that we understand stories by re-creating what the character is experiencing in our minds – and when events in a story take a turn, we react by updating the information in our brain.
With empathy innately built into us, we naturally want to connect with others to understand their experiences. And personas are a key tool that can help us to understand others by providing us with insight into the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of people.
After a long day of classes, I just want a place to sit and unwind. But my apartment doesn’t feel like home.
Samson (he/him)
Storytelling is Memorable
Do you remember what you had for breakfast last Saturday? Probably not. But can you explain the plot of your favourite movie, TV show, or book to me, from start to finish? Probably yes – And I’m confident that you might even add in some extra details, too!
Studies have shown that both children (Marcus et al., 2023) and adults (Stargatt et al., 2022) benefit from storytelling as a tool for learning and improving memory. In a 2022 study (Noya et al., 2021) midwives who shared their reflections on a training video of women recounting their experience with childbirth described the inclusion of real women’s stories as unforgettable. The midwives described how watching these videos helped them to understand how women felt during labour and childbirth, even if it was something that they hadn’t experienced before. Most interestingly, the women also expressed interest in learning more about different types of birthing practices and expressed wanting to share the videos with their colleagues.
Now I am worried if I am a good enough parent. I think she can tell that her mom just isn’t herself these days.
Noodin (she/her)
Storytelling is Action-Oriented
Because stories are so memorable and help us to relate to others, they often leave people feeling inspired to take action to create change (Martinez-Conde et al., 2019); (Barraza & Zak 2009). In fact, when high school students (Lin-Siegler et al., 2016) heard stories about how scientists overcame their academic and personal struggles, they became more interested in learning science, so much so that their grades improved. Similarly, another study (Barraza & Zak 2009) found that participants were more likely to donate money to charity after watching a video with an emotionally compelling story with a narrative arc. This behavioral change is also supported by a change in our biology – our brain may secrete more oxytocin (Brockington et al., 2021) a hormone associated with feelings of empathy and wanting to take action, while secreting less cortisol, a hormone associated with stress.
All of this research suggests that stories tend to have a lasting effect on people. Long after encountering a story, people keep thinking about it. Stories stay with people and compel them into taking action, as change does not happen in solitude.
I want to feel comfortable on campus. I just feel like it was not designed for students like me.
Pranlal (he/him)
Why Use Personas?
Design research is best when both the researchers and the designers can fully get into the heads of the “users” of their service. Through personas, what once may have been thought of as inconceivable becomes apparent/tangible. When personas are used in presentations and reports, they can help the audience to connect with the information by having someone to keep in mind. And, as science suggests, they can also inspire people to take action and make a difference. Researchers and designers can also rely on personas as sources of inspiration to understand existing needs and guide future research.
Explore Personas
We’re so excited to share our Personas. Click the link below to explore our data-driven personas and learn more about the experiences of students at U of T.
References
Acharya, S., & Shukla, S. (2012). Mirror neurons: Enigma of the metaphysical modular brain. Journal of Natural Science Biology and Medicine, 3(2), 118. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3510904/
Barraza, J. A., & Zak, P. J. (2009). Empathy toward Strangers Triggers Oxytocin Release and Subsequent Generosity. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1167(1), 182–189. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19580564/
Brockington, G., Moreira, A. P. G., Buso, M. S., Da Silva, S. G., Altszyler, E., Fischer, R., & Moll, J. (2021). Storytelling increases oxytocin and positive emotions and decreases cortisol and pain in hospitalized children. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(22). https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2018409118
Hsu, C., Jacobs, A. M., Altmann, U., & Conrad, M. (2015). The Magical Activation of Left Amygdala when Reading Harry Potter: An fMRI Study on How Descriptions of Supra-Natural Events Entertain and Enchant. PLoS ONE, 10(2), e0118179. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4324997/
Saarela, M. V., Hlushchuk, Y., Williams, A. C. D. C., Schurmann, M., Kalso, E., & Hari, R. (2006). The Compassionate Brain: Humans Detect Intensity of Pain from Another’s Face. Cerebral Cortex, 17(1), 230–237. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16495434/
Speer, N. K., Reynolds, J. R., Swallow, K. M., & Zacks, J. M. (2009). Reading stories activates neural representations of visual and motor experiences. Psychological Science, 20(8), 989–999. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2819196/
Stargatt, J., Bhar, S., Bhowmik, J., & Mahmud, A. A. (2021). Digital Storytelling for Health-Related Outcomes in Older Adults: Systematic Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 24(1), e28113. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8792772/
Lin-Siegler, X., Ahn, J. N., Chen, J., Fang, F.-F. A., & Luna-Lucero, M. (2016). Even Einstein struggled: Effects of learning about great scientists’ struggles on high school students’ motivation to learn science. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(3), 314– 328. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-07217-001?doi=1
Marcus, M., Solis, G., Sellars, S., & Haden, C. A. (2023). Promoting children’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning at home through tinkering and storytelling. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37207036/
Martinez-Conde, S., Alexander, R. G., Blum, D., Britton, N., Lipska, B. K., Quirk, G. J., Swiss, J. I., Willems, R. M., & Macknik, S. L. (2019). The Storytelling Brain: How Neuroscience Stories Help Bridge the Gap between Research and Society. Journal of Neuroscience, 39(42), 8285–8290. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6794920/
Noya, A., Oguro, M., & Horiuchi, S. (2021). Professional learning using storytelling videos of childbirth experiences: A qualitative pilot study of student midwives’ perceptions in Myanmar. Japan Journal of Nursing Science, 19(2). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9292943/
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