Tyler Cowen has a good video describing why we shouldn’t be too influenced by stories. He exaggerates a bit when he says
There are only a few basic stories. If you think in stories, that means you are telling yourself the same thing over and over
but his point that stories allow storytellers to manipulate our minds deserves more emphasis. For me, one of the hardest parts of learning how to beat the stock market was to admit that I did poorly when I was influenced by stories, and did well mainly when I relied on numbers that are available and standardized for most companies, and on mechanical rules which varied little between companies (I sometimes use different rules for different industries, but beyond that I try to avoid adapting my approach to different circumstances).
For example, The stories I heard about Enron’s innovative management style gave me a gut feeling that it was a promising investment. But its numbers showed an uninteresting company, and persuaded me to postpone any investment.
But I’ve only told you a story here (it’s so much easier to do than provide rigorous evidence). If you really want good reasons, try testing for yourself story versus non-story approaches to something like the stock market.
(HT Patri).