Story Week Tuesday: Little Triggers

So we looked at how people responded to a story told by Obama back in StoryWeek. What did people think about Tuesday's story? Here's a quick recap:

... we organised a workshop, it was really high pressure and done at very short notice. It ended up being a success, but the CEO was there, and I thought it was one of those things where the team had all sort of pulled together, and it could of fallen over, but it didn't. At the end of the workshop, it had all gone well, there was a perfect window there for the CEO to come up to the team and say "Good job". I don't know the CEO at all, but it was a perfect opportunity for him to go and get some easy PR, or even at least say good stuff, and pass it on. But he just left. I mean, he may have had a thousand other things to do, but it was one of those things.

So how did this score?



Well overall it wasn't as memorable as the Obama story - although people did find it more believable. However as with Obama, there was a definite split in terms of who found this story memorable. For Obama it was country of origin. For this story is was around gender.


The ratings given by men (n=27) & women (n = 24) are almost mirror images of each other. Which is interesting because we know that the CEO is a man but we don't know the gender of the storyteller or any of the other characters. For women this story is far more memorable. Why*? Is it because women have been in this situation more often? Is it because they empathize with the characters more? What do you think?

BTW the Wordle clouds are here and here if you are interested.

*More women gave the Obama story 6 out of 6 for memorability but the other pattern of responses wasn't as stark as this.