The Unexpected Influence of Stories Told at Work

Harvard Business Review:

Growing up on a Missouri farm, Walt Disney developed a love for drawing after his neighbor, a retired doctor known as “Doc” Sherwood, paid him to draw pictures of his horse. Disney later became a newspaper cartoonist and commercial artist, where he learned how to make commercials from cutout animations. His fascination with animation inspired him to establish his own cartoon studio and eventually become the face of the golden age of animation.

I heard this story during my onboarding process when I worked as a research consultant at Disney Imagineering a few years ago. In the weeks after I heard the story, I found my mind returning to it whenever I was feeling uninspired by the work I was doing.

That behavior is contagious is a well-known finding in psychological research, even in contexts in which we believe our actions are primarily determined by our internal motivation. Consider the case of dishonesty. Simply seeing another person cheat can lead us to cheat, even if we care about being honest. My colleagues Shahar Ayal, Dan Ariely, and I demonstrated this in a series of laboratory studies.

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