"We’ve been telling stories about the nature of each other’s characters for tens of thousands of years, starting back when we were still living in large, co-operative hunter-gatherer tribes. Recent research suggests human language evolved principally so that members of a tribe could swap “social information” about each other. In other words, we’d gossip. We’d keep track of our tribe-mates, closely tallying their behaviour and telling tales of their moral rights and wrongs. When these gossipy stories concerned a person behaving selflessly – when they put the tribe’s needs before their own – listeners would experience a wash of positive emotions and an urge to celebrate and reward them. But when they were told tales of someone being selfish, listeners would experience moral outrage. They’d be motivated to act – to punish them, whether by mocking and humiliating, violently attacking or ostracising them from the group, which would have been a death sentence. This is how we policed our tribes and kept them functioning as highly co-operative groups. Tales of people being selflessly heroic or selfishly villainous, and the joy and outrage they triggered, were crucial to human survival. We’re wired to enjoy them. Such stories are designed to ask and answer the dramatic question: who is this person really?"