Questões de Inglês

Our fiction addiction: Why humans need stories

By David Robson

    Although we have no firm evidence of storytelling
before the advent of writing, we can assume that
narratives have been central to human life for
thousands of years. Cave paintings in France from
[5] 30,000 years ago appear to depict dramatic scenes
that were probably accompanied by oral storytelling.
Today, we may not gather around the camp fire, but
the average adult is still thought to spend at least 6%
of the waking day engrossed in fictional stories on our
[10] various screens.
    From an evolutionary point of view, that would be
an awful lot of time and energy to expend on pure
escapism, but psychologists and literary theorists
have now identified many potential benefits to this
[15] fiction addiction.
    One common idea is that storytelling is a form of
cognitive play that hones our minds, allowing us to
simulate the world around us and imagine different
strategies, particularly in social situations. “It teaches
[20] us about other people and it’s a practice in empathy
and theory of mind,” says Joseph Carroll at the
University of Missouri-St Louis.
    Providing some evidence for this theory, brain
scans have shown that reading or hearing stories
[25] activates various areas of the cortex that are known
to be involved in social and emotional processing, and
the more people read fiction, the easier they find it to
empathise with other people.
    Crucially, evolutionary psychologists believe that
[30] our prehistoric preoccupations still shape the form
of the stories we enjoy. As humans evolved to live in
bigger societies, for instance, we needed to learn how
to cooperate, without being a ‘free rider’ who takes too
much and gives nothing, or overbearing individuals
[35] abusing their dominance to the detriment of the
group’s welfare. Our capacity for storytelling – and the
tales we tell – may have therefore also evolved as a
way of communicating the right social norms.
    Along these lines, various studies have identified
[40] cooperation as a core theme in popular narratives
across the world. The anthropologist Daniel Smith of
University College London recently visited 18 groups
of hunter-gatherers of the Philippines. He found
nearly 80% of their tales concerned moral decision
[45] making and social dilemmas. Crucially, this then
appeared to translate to their real-life behaviour; the
groups that appeared to invest the most in storytelling
also proved to be the most cooperative during various
experimental tasks – exactly as the evolutionary
[50] theory would suggest.

    You might assume that our interest in cooperation
would have dwindled with the increasing individualism
of the Industrial Revolution, but these themes were
still prevalent in some of the most beloved British
[55] novels from the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
    Asking a panel of readers to rate the principal
characters in more than 200 novels, researchers
found that the antagonists’ major flaw was most
often a quest for social dominance at the expense of
[60] others or an abuse of their existing power, while the
protagonists appeared to be less individualistic and
ambitious.
    Evolutionary theory can also shed light on the
staples of romantic fiction, including the heroines’
[65] preferences for stable ‘dad’ figures or flighty ‘cads’.
The ‘dads’ might be the better choice for the long-term
security and protection of your children, but according
to an evolutionary theory known as the ‘sexy son
hypothesis’, falling for an unfaithful cad can have his
[70] own advantages since they can pass on their good
looks, cunning and charm to his own children, who
may then also enjoy greater sexual success.
    There are many more insights to be gained
from these readings, including, for instance, a recent
[75] analysis of the truly evil figures in fantasy and horror
stories. Common features include a grotesque
appearance and appear to be designed to trigger our
evolved fear of contagion and disease, and given our
innate tribalism, villains often carry signs that they are
[80] a member of an “out-group” – hence the reason that
so many Hollywood baddies have foreign accents.
Once again, the idea is that a brush with these evil
beings ultimately reinforces our own sense of altruism
and loyalty to the group.
[85]     The novelist Ian McEwan is one of the most
celebrated literary voices to have embraced these
evolutionary readings of literature, and argues that
many common elements of plot can even be found in
the machinations of our primate cousins. “If one reads
[90] accounts of the systematic nonintrusive observations
of troops of bonobo,” he wrote in a book of essays on
the subject, The Literary Animal, “one sees rehearsed
all the major themes of the English 19th-Century
novel: alliances made and broken, individuals rising
[95] while others fall, plots hatched, revenge, gratitude,
injured pride, successful and unsuccessful courtship,
bereavement and mourning.”
    McEwan argues we should celebrate these
evolved tendencies as the very source of fiction’s
[100] power to cross the continents and the centuries.
“It would not be possible to enjoy literature from
a time remote from our own, or from a culture that
was profoundly different from our own, unless we
shared some common emotional ground, some deep
[105] reservoir of assumptions, with the writer,” he added.

Available at: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180503-our-fi ction- -addiction-why-humans-need-stories. Retrieved on: 3 May 2018. Adapted.

Our fiction addiction: Why humans need stories

By David Robson

    Although we have no firm evidence of storytelling
before the advent of writing, we can assume that
narratives have been central to human life for
thousands of years. Cave paintings in France from
[5] 30,000 years ago appear to depict dramatic scenes
that were probably accompanied by oral storytelling.
Today, we may not gather around the camp fire, but
the average adult is still thought to spend at least 6%
of the waking day engrossed in fictional stories on our
[10] various screens.
    From an evolutionary point of view, that would be
an awful lot of time and energy to expend on pure
escapism, but psychologists and literary theorists
have now identified many potential benefits to this
[15] fiction addiction.
    One common idea is that storytelling is a form of
cognitive play that hones our minds, allowing us to
simulate the world around us and imagine different
strategies, particularly in social situations. “It teaches
[20] us about other people and it’s a practice in empathy
and theory of mind,” says Joseph Carroll at the
University of Missouri-St Louis.
    Providing some evidence for this theory, brain
scans have shown that reading or hearing stories
[25] activates various areas of the cortex that are known
to be involved in social and emotional processing, and
the more people read fiction, the easier they find it to
empathise with other people.
    Crucially, evolutionary psychologists believe that
[30] our prehistoric preoccupations still shape the form
of the stories we enjoy. As humans evolved to live in
bigger societies, for instance, we needed to learn how
to cooperate, without being a ‘free rider’ who takes too
much and gives nothing, or overbearing individuals
[35] abusing their dominance to the detriment of the
group’s welfare. Our capacity for storytelling – and the
tales we tell – may have therefore also evolved as a
way of communicating the right social norms.
    Along these lines, various studies have identified
[40] cooperation as a core theme in popular narratives
across the world. The anthropologist Daniel Smith of
University College London recently visited 18 groups
of hunter-gatherers of the Philippines. He found
nearly 80% of their tales concerned moral decision
[45] making and social dilemmas. Crucially, this then
appeared to translate to their real-life behaviour; the
groups that appeared to invest the most in storytelling
also proved to be the most cooperative during various
experimental tasks – exactly as the evolutionary
[50] theory would suggest.

    You might assume that our interest in cooperation
would have dwindled with the increasing individualism
of the Industrial Revolution, but these themes were
still prevalent in some of the most beloved British
[55] novels from the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
    Asking a panel of readers to rate the principal
characters in more than 200 novels, researchers
found that the antagonists’ major flaw was most
often a quest for social dominance at the expense of
[60] others or an abuse of their existing power, while the
protagonists appeared to be less individualistic and
ambitious.
    Evolutionary theory can also shed light on the
staples of romantic fiction, including the heroines’
[65] preferences for stable ‘dad’ figures or flighty ‘cads’.
The ‘dads’ might be the better choice for the long-term
security and protection of your children, but according
to an evolutionary theory known as the ‘sexy son
hypothesis’, falling for an unfaithful cad can have his
[70] own advantages since they can pass on their good
looks, cunning and charm to his own children, who
may then also enjoy greater sexual success.
    There are many more insights to be gained
from these readings, including, for instance, a recent
[75] analysis of the truly evil figures in fantasy and horror
stories. Common features include a grotesque
appearance and appear to be designed to trigger our
evolved fear of contagion and disease, and given our
innate tribalism, villains often carry signs that they are
[80] a member of an “out-group” – hence the reason that
so many Hollywood baddies have foreign accents.
Once again, the idea is that a brush with these evil
beings ultimately reinforces our own sense of altruism
and loyalty to the group.
[85]     The novelist Ian McEwan is one of the most
celebrated literary voices to have embraced these
evolutionary readings of literature, and argues that
many common elements of plot can even be found in
the machinations of our primate cousins. “If one reads
[90] accounts of the systematic nonintrusive observations
of troops of bonobo,” he wrote in a book of essays on
the subject, The Literary Animal, “one sees rehearsed
all the major themes of the English 19th-Century
novel: alliances made and broken, individuals rising
[95] while others fall, plots hatched, revenge, gratitude,
injured pride, successful and unsuccessful courtship,
bereavement and mourning.”
    McEwan argues we should celebrate these
evolved tendencies as the very source of fiction’s
[100] power to cross the continents and the centuries.
“It would not be possible to enjoy literature from
a time remote from our own, or from a culture that
was profoundly different from our own, unless we
shared some common emotional ground, some deep
[105] reservoir of assumptions, with the writer,” he added.

Available at: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180503-our-fi ction- -addiction-why-humans-need-stories. Retrieved on: 3 May 2018. Adapted.

Read the text below and answer the question that follow.

TEXT

The Rise of Fake news

By James Carson

"Fake news" was not a term many people used two years ago, but it is now seen as one of the greatest threats to democracy, free debate and the Western order. […]

Governments and powerful individuals have used information as a weapon for millennia, to boost their support and quash dissidence. […] However, before the internet, it was much more expensive to distribute information, building up trust took years, and there were much simpler definitions of what constituted news and media, making regulation easier.

But the rise of social media has broken down many of the boundaries that prevented fake news from spreading in democracies, as it has allowed anyone to create and disseminate information […].

Hoaxes and falsehoods have been associated with the internet since its early days, but it is only in the last two years that organised, systematic misinformation campaigns, often linked to governments, have emerged, and their effect on democracy and society scrutinised. The 2016 US election has been seen as providing a fertile breeding ground for fake news. Some credit Donald Trump's anti-establishment rhetoric and distrust of the mainstream media. Others blame widening partisanship, which meant readers were more prone to believe and share stories that fit their beliefs.

The rise of social media itself has also been seen as central. Sites like Facebook are accused of creating "filter bubbles", the phenomenon of showing people things that they like or tend to agree with, and hiding those that they don't.

Critics of Facebook and Twitter say the sites are purpose built for spreading misinformation, with the reach of a story dependent on its ability to go viral – something that often depends on sensationalism and emotional reactions more than truth itself. […]

An aggravating effect may have been that the sheer quantity of fake news stories may have reduced trust in mainstream media – if scepticism about what people read online increases, they may not know what to think. In these situations, people tend to stick to their prejudices.

(Source: Adapted from The Telegraph, UK - 30 October 2018)

Read the text below and answer the question that follow.

TEXT

The Rise of Fake news

By James Carson

"Fake news" was not a term many people used two years ago, but it is now seen as one of the greatest threats to democracy, free debate and the Western order. […]

Governments and powerful individuals have used information as a weapon for millennia, to boost their support and quash dissidence. […] However, before the internet, it was much more expensive to distribute information, building up trust took years, and there were much simpler definitions of what constituted news and media, making regulation easier.

But the rise of social media has broken down many of the boundaries that prevented fake news from spreading in democracies, as it has allowed anyone to create and disseminate information […].

Hoaxes and falsehoods have been associated with the internet since its early days, but it is only in the last two years that organised, systematic misinformation campaigns, often linked to governments, have emerged, and their effect on democracy and society scrutinised. The 2016 US election has been seen as providing a fertile breeding ground for fake news. Some credit Donald Trump's anti-establishment rhetoric and distrust of the mainstream media. Others blame widening partisanship, which meant readers were more prone to believe and share stories that fit their beliefs.

The rise of social media itself has also been seen as central. Sites like Facebook are accused of creating "filter bubbles", the phenomenon of showing people things that they like or tend to agree with, and hiding those that they don't.

Critics of Facebook and Twitter say the sites are purpose built for spreading misinformation, with the reach of a story dependent on its ability to go viral – something that often depends on sensationalism and emotional reactions more than truth itself. […]

An aggravating effect may have been that the sheer quantity of fake news stories may have reduced trust in mainstream media – if scepticism about what people read online increases, they may not know what to think. In these situations, people tend to stick to their prejudices.

(Source: Adapted from The Telegraph, UK - 30 October 2018)

Read the text to answer.

The Five Ways to Wellbeing are a wellbeing equivalent of ‘five fruit and vegetables a day’.

(Available: http://www.wales.nhs.)

Use the comic strip bellow to answer question

FoxTrot

(Disponivel em https://www.foxtrot.com/2015/07/19/too-cool. Acesso em 01/07/2019)