“Kidnapped My Would-Be Mugger”: 35 Personal Truths That Might Sound Made Up

I must admit that I'd never heard of the Cocos Islands before scrolling through this listicle. And when I read the story about Nelson Mandela walking some kid to school on that particular island, I was tempted to call bullsh*t.

But then I told myself that anything is possible and decided to do a little deep dive into this mythical land where famous people get off the plane to escort random children to class. Suddenly, I want to visit the Cocos Islands. As it turns out, it does exist, and it's gorgeous.

Also known as the Keeling Islands, the little piece of paradise belongs to Australia. It actually has a road called.... Wait for it... Nelson Mandela Walk. So perhaps the person's tale isn't so far-fetched after all.

Many of us love a good story. So much so that sometimes we tend to believe just about anything, as long as it's told in a gripping and engaging way. "Stories persuade, at least in part, by disrupting the ability to evaluate facts, rather than just biasing a person to think positively," explains Rebecca Krause, who researches consumer psychology at Northwestern University.

Krause was interested in the interplay between facts, stories, and persuasion, so she and a colleague made up a fictitious brand of cell phone called Moonstone and selected 397 American adults to evaluate a set of either all strong or all weak facts about it. Half the group read only facts about the phone, while the other half read a story about the phone that had the facts embedded within it.

"The researchers found that when facts were weak, a story with the facts embedded within it led to greater persuasion than facts alone. But when facts were strong, the opposite effect occurred: facts alone led to more persuasion than a story with the facts embedded within it," explains Phys.org.

What this shows is that stories direct people away from weak information and reduce people's general processing of information. "As a consequence, stories help persuasion when facts are weak, but they hurt persuasion when facts are strong," reads the site.

"Knowing that stories may provide the most persuasive benefit to those with the least compelling arguments could be important given concerns about fake news," says Krause.

"But this does not mean a story is indicative of weak facts," she added. "Rather, when you feel especially compelled by a great story you might want to give more thought and consideration to the facts to determine how good they are."