Not every story you make up is true
The narrative fallacy tricks us with causal illusions.
Our minds tend to find meaning where there is none, turning random events into convincing stories. You trip after a black cat crosses your path and blame the cat. A flipped coin lands on heads five times, so you’re sure it will land on tails next. A client signs a contract after you tweak your pitch, so you credit the change for the result.
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We make sense of the world by telling ourselves stories about why things happen. These stories help us navigate daily life. Most of the time they’re good enough, but they don’t always get the facts right. It’s the kind of mistake our minds make as we try to turn uncertainty into certainty.
The narrative fallacy is our tendency to make up causal stories that feel convincing but aren’t supported by evidence.
Imagine you get home from work and find your phone is missing. You’re sure you used it on the bus. You’ve heard stories about pickpockets on that route, so when your partner calls your number and there’s no sound, you jump to a conclusion. You decide the suspicious-looking man who stood near you must have stolen it. Five minutes later, your partner finds the phone in a side pocket of your bag. It was on silent. This is a classic narrative fallacy. You created a cause-and-effect story that felt right but had nothing to do with the facts.
In many ancient cultures, people believed lightning came from sky gods. That story was a narrative fallacy because Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment showed that lightning is a form of electricity.
Evolutionary origin
Humans lived as hunter-gatherers in small tribes of a few dozen for nearly two million years, about 99 percent of our history. Life was harsh and dangerous, and understanding cause and effect was key to survival. Those who figured out the right causal explanations were more likely to act in ways that let them pass on their genes. For example, they needed to know which foods caused illness or death, which herbs healed, that hitting a nut with a rock cracked it open, that a snapping twig could signal a predator, and what behavior pleased or angered other tribesmen. Because tribes were small, mobile, and without private property, the causal explanations needed to survive were simple, concrete, and linear. Complex systems of causes or statistical reasoning were not necessary.
Explanatory cause-and-effect stories
When something happens, we feel an immediate need to know why.
👉 Why was I anxious before my presentation? Why did my partner get upset when I forgot our anniversary? Why did my colleague get the promotion instead of me?
To make sense of events, our minds rush to connect them to causes. They rely on the few facts in front of us and treat them as if they are the whole story. They build the most coherent causal story they can from that limited information. If the story holds together, we believe it and use it to guide our thinking. The less we know, the easier it is to form a coherent story because there are fewer pieces to connect. These stories feel right even though we do not know if they are correct.
👉 I was anxious because I am bad at public speaking, my partner was upset because they think I do not care enough, and my colleague was promoted because my manager prefers them.
When something seems inexplicable, we naturally invent a cause, no matter how unlikely, to make sense of it. That’s why humans are drawn to supernatural beliefs such as spirits, ghosts, demons, angels, and gods. Many of these beliefs are narrative fallacies, like thinking disease is caused by demons. Yet believing in these beings can give the comforting illusion that we have some control in a dangerous, unpredictable world. We would rather feel there is order and that we can influence what happens than feel ruled by luck and randomness.
Our mind turns everything into a story
Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte argued that we perceive causality directly. He showed people simple animations where a moving black square hits another square and the second one starts moving. Viewers felt a strong sense of cause and effect even though they knew there was no real contact. Even six-month-old infants see these animations as cause-and-effect scenes and show surprise when the pattern changes.
Psychologists Fritz Heider and Mary-Ann Simmel created a short film where an aggressive large triangle seems to bully a smaller triangle and a frightened circle. Viewers immediately see intentions and emotions in the shapes even though the shapes have none. This shows how strongly our minds create causal and personal stories, a tendency at the heart of the narrative fallacy.
We usually don't question our stories
We tend to assume our causal stories are true without checking. Any event can be explained in multiple ways, each pointing to a different cause. But our minds save energy, so once a plausible story appears they stop searching for alternatives or counterexamples. And once we believe a story we naturally favor information that supports it and ignore or dismiss anything that contradicts it.
For example, a successful entrepreneur was adopted as a child. A convincing story might say he worked extra hard to prove himself worthy of his birth parents’ love. If we tried to falsify it, we’d notice that many adoptees don’t become successful entrepreneurs. The story would then appear as a classic narrative fallacy.
The same happens with stories about famous athletes. Their success is often attributed to supportive parents, natural talent, hard work, or excellent coaches. We rarely ask if those were the only reasons. Most athletes with similar backgrounds never reach the top, which shows these stories are narrative fallacies. Talent and effort matter, but luck and timing play a major role as well.
Causal story features
Persuasive explanatory stories usually share several features:
👉 They describe simple, linear, and concrete cause-and-effect relationships.
👉 They focus on the actions and intentions of humans, supernatural beings, or even inanimate objects. Our minds naturally think in terms of agents with traits and motives.
👉 They satisfy our need for coherence, because effects feel as if they should have clear causes.
👉 They pay attention only to what happened and ignore what did not happen.
👉 They downplay the role of luck, because luck is random and explains nothing. The more luck is involved, the less a story can teach us.
Narrative fallacy in action
The narrative fallacy pushes us to oversimplify a messy and complex reality where luck plays a major role. Here are a few examples of this bias at work.
👉 Regression to the mean. Every athlete has an expected level of performance. Luck sometimes boosts them above that level, but we rarely credit luck. Instead, we invent causes. When the lucky streak ends, we again provide explanations. For example, a football striker is expected to score 15 goals in a season. Thanks to some lucky breaks, he scores 25 and becomes the national top scorer. His performance is attributed to new training exercises and extra time in the gym. The next season, his luck runs out and he scores 12 goals, and the drop is explained by overconfidence and the pressure of high expectations.
👉 The same applies to books that explain why some companies succeed while others fail. Much of the difference is due to luck, which helps some companies thrive and holds others back. Because luck evens out over time, the average gap in success between companies tends to shrink, and that is exactly what happens.
👉 Correlation is not causation. Ice cream sales rise at the same time drowning rates increase in the summer. A narrative fallacy might claim that eating more ice cream causes more drownings. In reality, both are driven by a third factor: warm weather. Hot days make people swim more, which leads to more drownings, and also boost ice cream sales.
👉 Magical thinking. Many people believe in lucky numbers and use them when picking lottery numbers or important dates. Others avoid the number 13, thinking it brings bad luck. These beliefs are based on narrative fallacies, not on any real evidence that specific numbers affect luck.
👉 After ≠ Because. Some parents noticed signs of autism after their children received vaccines and assumed the shots caused it. In reality, autism symptoms often appear around the same age as routine vaccinations, so the timing was mistaken for cause. This misunderstanding led some to skip vaccines, putting children at risk of preventable diseases.
Consequences
Most of the time, our causal explanations are close enough to reality to guide reasonable decisions. But when we accept stories without checking them, we end up believing many that are false. These flawed stories distort how we see ourselves and the world, and we rarely notice it.
The narrative fallacy can make us believe we understand the world more than we do. It gives us the illusion that we understand the past, making us think the future can be predicted. But we understand the past far less than we think. The fallacy can make us believe that stories about successful companies or athletes reveal what it takes to succeed and that the same formulas will work again. This sense of learning is an illusion because these stories usually ignore the role of luck. Bad luck could have derailed any part of their path. Strategic choices, luck, and circumstances all played a part.
How to reduce the impact of the narrative fallacy
Watching for fallacies can be tiresome, but it pays off when the stakes are high. On a personal level, this means questioning stories about why you want to invest a large sum of money or move to another country. On a social level, it means testing whether a medicine really works or whether a new government policy has the intended effect.
⚒️ Increase your awareness of the narrative fallacy
The first step is noticing that we all tend to invent cause-and-effect stories, including the journalists and writers whose stories we read.
To train yourself to spot these stories, ask questions like:
🤔 What other plausible explanations exist?
🤔 What additional causes might be at play?
🤔 How much do luck, timing, or circumstances matter?
For success stories, you can also ask:
🤔 Which cases (such as companies or athletes) started in the same conditions but failed?
🤔 Which succeeded despite different conditions?
🤔 Which factors were truly necessary, which had no effect, and which might have even backfired?
Be as specific and detailed as you can.
⚒️ Test explanatory stories
Think of cause-and-effect stories as hypotheses you need to test. These questions can help.
Look for real evidence, not just a story that sounds right.
👉 What crucial details am I overlooking?
Spot gaps that could change the explanation or give a fuller picture.
Consider alternative interpretations; the same facts can support different stories.
👉 Am I jumping to conclusions?
Our minds push quick explanations. Pause and slow down to see the situation clearly.
👉 Which assumptions am I taking for granted?
Stories often rely on hidden assumptions. Questioning them stops automatic acceptance.
👉 Am I falling into confirmation bias?
We favor stories that fit what we already believe. Checking for bias helps evaluate the story objectively.
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Becoming aware of the narrative fallacy won’t make your mind stop creating stories, but it will help you question them. Slowing down, considering alternatives, and checking assumptions lets you make better decisions and see the world more clearly. The goal isn’t perfect understanding, just a more accurate one.
References
Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
Avoiding Falling Victim to The Narrative Fallacy, Farnam Street
Creatures of Coherence: Why We're So Obsessed With Causation, Pacific Standard, by Ross Pomeroy
The Story of Stories, Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam, featuring Tania Lombrozo
