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Narrative Persuasion Theories
Abstract
Media-based narratives represent a unique form of persuasion. This is due, in part, to the distinct way in which individuals select and comprehend entertainment media narratives. Narratives foster a unique type of involvement that is characterized by getting swept up into a storyworld and engaging with the characters therein. This narrative engagement can increase one's susceptibility to persuasive messages by reducing various forms of resistance to persuasion. This entry addresses these and other ways in which narratives can foster persuasion. This includes a discussion of several major theories of narrative persuasion that highlight the processes by which stories shape attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
... Previous research on the role of counterarguing in narrative persuasion processes has been carried out especially in the entertainment-education field (de Graaf & van Leeuwen, 2017;Moyer-Gusé & Dale, 2017). In that context, complex audiovisual messages are used, incorporating attitudinal proposals that have clear benefits for individuals, such as preventing diseases by following medical recommendations (Moyer-Gusé et al., 2011;Moyer-Gusé & Nabi, 2010). ...
... However, serial mediation through transportation and counterarguing was only significant in one of the experiments (Study 1). Nevertheless, our work supports theoretical proposals indicating that the attitudinal impact of a narrative message is due to the inhibition of critical reflection processes when there is an involved reception (Green & Sestir, 2017;Moyer-Gusé & Dale, 2017). This work has several limitations requiring attention and additional research. ...
This work addresses the study of factors that increase the persuasive efficacy of testimonial messages aimed at improving intergroup attitudes. The results of two online experiments (N = 840) on the effect of empathy with, and similarity to, the protagonist in personal stories designed to improve attitudes towards immigrants are presented. In both studies, participants were given instructions to induce a
certain exposure condition (empathy vs. an objective or distanced perspective) immediately before reading a narrative whose protagonist was an immigrant with high or low similarity to the audience. The results of mediation analysis show that both empathy and similarity increased identification and narrative transportation, which in turn reduced counterarguing, thus resulting in a more positive attitude towards the outgroup and lower threat perception. The results are discussed in the context of research on narrative persuasion and the design of campaigns to reduce racism and xenophobia.
... This makes this pull strategy more effective because it induces less counter-argumentation. Moreover, as shown by narrative persuasion theories (Moyer & Dale, 2017;Hamby et al., 2018) and direct affect transfer (Mitchell & Nelson, 2018), exposure to these narrative advertainment products makes it possible to produce a process of transfer of positive affect towards the brand when the receiver experiences a satisfactory degree of entertainment. ...
... McGuire's attention-comprehension model, Chaiken's heuristic model, Petty and Cacioppo's ELM, etc.). Although different formats of indirect advertising are compatible with some persuasive models applied in advertising (such as the model of Friestad and Wright (1994) or the perspective of narrative persuasion (Moyer-Gusé & Dale (2017), in the case of masking, these are specific persuasive strategies of the advertising system that set-in motion different but complementary psychological mechanisms of user response (conscious-unconscious, focal or voluntary-peripheral or involuntary). This conception of advertising strategies is concerned not only with consumer attitudes but also with the biopsychosociocultural user (Bermejo-Berros, 1998) who participates in the interaction of the three dimensions of the advertising system and is immersed in a context characterized by the influence of the technological, sociocultural and advertising factors described above. ...
The transformation of the advertising system is the result of the dynamic interaction of three dimensions: advertising proposals, consumer response, and advertising effectiveness resulting from the interaction. The decrease in advertising effectiveness at the end of the last century, together with a set of technological and socio-cultural factors, has given rise to new advertising proposals distributed through new multidirectional communicational contexts and new formats that continue to privilege a type of direct advertising. However, these new advertising proposals have focused on the first dimension of the advertising system and have not sufficiently taken into account scientific advances on the psychological nature of the consumer. This has produced a series of imbalances whose analysis has led to the identification of a phenomenon of masking and transfiguration in a type of indirect advertising, emerging in the culture of digital entertainment, which benefits from scientific advances on the current conception of affective-cognitive processing.
... Previous research on the role of counterarguing in narrative persuasion processes has been carried out especially in the entertainment-education field (de Graaf & van Leeuwen, 2017;Moyer-Gusé & Dale, 2017). In that context, complex audiovisual messages are used, incorporating attitudinal proposals that have clear benefits for individuals, such as preventing diseases by following medical recommendations (Moyer-Gusé et al., 2011;Moyer-Gusé & Nabi, 2010). ...
... However, serial mediation through transportation and counterarguing was only significant in one of the experiments (Study 1). Nevertheless, our work supports theoretical proposals indicating that the attitudinal impact of a narrative message is due to the inhibition of critical reflection processes when there is an involved reception (Green & Sestir, 2017;Moyer-Gusé & Dale, 2017). This work has several limitations requiring attention and additional research. ...
This work addresses the study of factors that increase the persuasive efficacy of testimonial messages aimed at improving intergroup attitudes. The results of two online experiments ( N = 840) on the effect of empathy with, and similarity to, the protagonist in personal stories designed to improve attitudes towards immigrants are presented. In both studies, participants were given instructions to induce a certain exposure condition (empathy vs. an objective or distanced perspective) immediately before reading a narrative whose protagonist was an immigrant with high or low similarity to the audience. The results of mediation analysis show that both empathy and similarity increased identification and narrative transportation, which in turn reduced counterarguing, thus resulting in a more positive attitude towards the outgroup and lower threat perception. The results are discussed in the context of research on narrative persuasion and the design of campaigns to reduce racism and xenophobia.
... Using photo stories as educational tools is an example of 'entertainment education', where messages are purposely designed as narratives that both entertain and educate, in order to increase knowledge and to change behavior. As Moyer-Gusé and Dale [27] explained in their overview of narrative persuasion theories, narratives are processed differently from other message formats. Other than readers of more traditional health messages, readers (or viewers) of a narrative can get involved in the story world (a process called 'transportation') that is created, and in the characters that play a role ('identification'). ...
... In view of the advantages of narrative health communication reported in the literature [27,29,31,[42][43][44], we wanted to investigate whether the photo story booklet might outperform a non-narrative but otherwise highly similar brochure with respect to people's beliefs that they could perform the communication strategies that the booklet and the brochure referred to (self-efficacy), and with respect to their intention to engage in those communicative behaviors (i.e., behavioral intention). In line with McGuire's information-processing paradigm [45], paying attention to a message is a necessary first condition for any processing to take place. ...
Older adults often have limited health literacy and experience difficulties in communicating about their health. In view of the need for efficacious interventions, we compared a narrative photo story booklet regarding doctor-patient communication with a non-narrative but otherwise highly similar brochure. The photo story booklet included seven short picture-based stories about themes related to doctor-patient communication. The non-narrative brochure had comparable pictures and layout and dealt with the same themes, but it did not include any stories. We conducted two Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) among older adults with varying levels of health literacy: one RCT in Germany (N = 66) and one RCT in the Netherlands (N = 54); the latter one was followed by an in-depth interview study among a subset of the participants (81.5%; n = 44). In the RCTs, we did not find significant differences between the photo story booklet and the non-narrative brochure. In the interview study, a majority of the participants expressed a preference for the photo story booklet, which was perceived as recognizable, relevant, entertaining and engaging. We conclude that photo story booklets are a promising format but that there is room for improving their effectiveness.
... Narrative persuasion can be briefly defined as the impact of narratives on the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of individuals exposed to them (e.g., Green and Brock, 2000;Moyer-Gusé and Dale, 2017). Narratives, on the other hand, can be defined as "any cohesive and coherent story with an identifiable beginning, middle, and end that provides information about scene, characters, and conflict, raises unanswered questions or unresolved conflict, and provides solution" (Hinyard and Kreuter, 2007, p. 778). ...
... 701). Second, narratives are a powerful mean of persuasion (e.g., Fisher, 1984;Moyer-Gusé and Dale, 2017). Indeed, the phenomenon of narrative persuasion has been established in numerous empirical studies (e.g., Schofield and Pavelchak, 1989;Gerrig and Prentice, 1991;Butler et al., 1995;Prentice et al., 1997;Strange and Leung, 1999;Green and Brock, 2000;Marsh and Fazio, 2006;Fazio and Marsh, 2008). 1 To name a few: 3 Days of the Condor (Pollack, 1975), Enemy of the State (Scott, 1998), This Perfect Day (Levine, 1970), The Da Vinci Code (Brown, 2003), The Matrix (Wachowski and Wachowski, 1999), X-Files (Carter, 1993), Stranger Things (Duffer and Duffer, 2016), House of Cards (Willimon, 2013), Utopia (Kelly, 2013(Kelly, -2014, Lost (Lieber et al., 2004(Lieber et al., -2010, Bioshock Infinite (Irrational Games, 2013), Metal Gear Solid (Kojima, 1998). ...
Narrative persuasion, i.e., the impact of narratives on beliefs, behaviors and attitudes, and the mechanisms underpinning endorsement of conspiracy theories have both drawn substantial attention from social scientists. Yet, to date, these two fields have evolved separately, and to our knowledge no study has empirically examined the impact of conspiracy narratives on real-world conspiracy beliefs. In a first study, we exposed a group of participants (n = 37) to an X-Files episode before asking them to fill in a questionnaire related to their narrative experience and conspiracy beliefs. A control group (n = 41) had to answer the conspiracy beliefs items before watching the episode. Based on past findings of both the aforementioned fields of research, we hypothesized that the experimental group would show greater endorsement of conspiracy beliefs, an effect expected to be mediated by identification to the episodes' characters. We furthermore hypothesized that identification would be associated with cognitive elaboration of the topics developed in the narrative. The first two hypotheses were disproved since no narrative persuasion effect was observed. In a second study, we sought to replicate these results in a larger sample (n = 166). No persuasive effect was found in the new data and a Bayesian meta-analysis of the two studies strongly supports the absence of a positive effect of exposure to narrative material on endorsement of conspiracy theories. In both studies, a significant relation between conspiracy mentality and enjoyment was observed. In the second study, this relation was fully mediated by two dimensions of perceived realism, i.e., plausibility and narrative consistency. We discuss our results, based on theoretical models of narrative persuasion and compare our studies with previous narrative persuasion studies. Implications of these results for future research are also discussed.
... Several scholars have suggested that stories can be mobilized to change attitudes and behaviors [Dahlstrom, 2014;Davies et al., 2019;Deighton, Romer & McQueen, 1989;Fletcher, 2019;Green & Donahue, 2008;Moyer-Gusé & Dale, 2017;Riedlinger et al., 2019;Slater & Rouner, 2002], though the results are inconsistent [Allen & Preiss, 1997;Appel, 2008;Appel, Richter, Mara, Lindinger & Batinic, 2011;Bekalu, Bigman, McCloud, Lin & Viswanath, 2018;Borrayo et al., 2017;Prentice, Gerrig & Bailis, 1997;Shen, Sheer & Li, 2015;Sun, Lee & Qian, 2019;Wheeler, Green & Brock, 1999], with findings ranging from scientific facts or data being more persuasive than their narrative versions, to conditional superiority of one format over the other in terms of persuasion, to narrative format being more persuasive than the scientific version. Also, a combination of narrative and non-narrative formats has been reported to have a higher potential than each separate format [Nan, Dahlstrom, Richards & Rangarajan, 2015]. ...
People become familiar with stories as sources of information in their childhood, and, while they have recently received interest as potential science communication tools, few studies have considered aspects of story quality on science communication. We postulate that quality is an important, if challenging, facet that should be considered when exploring the potential of short stories in science communication. This essay argues that quality should be a key consideration of those interested in studying or working with short stories for science communication purposes and presents criteria for the `well-made' short story.
... Persuasive narratives are "stories with plots and a chronological sequence of events" (Shen et al., 2015, p. 105). According to narrative transportation theorists, individuals can imagine themselves in situations described by messages when narratives convey a story with vivid information (Moyer-Gusé & Dale, 2017). In the warning context, the application of narratives enables community members to consider a hazard before directly experiencing a disaster (Burgess, 2019). ...
This chapter provides a comprehensive review of message strategies that weather risk communicators can use to help alleviate the negative impacts of catastrophic weather in their communities. The review shows that we have a solid knowledge foundation for warning message design and dissemination. The review also indicates, though, that we need additional theorizing to unpack the nuances in various warning contexts and the related protective action behaviors. Additionally, the review highlights the importance of examining how organizations build and maintain relationships during both quiet and severe weather. We conclude with important areas for future research.
... The benefits of social media were particularly evident during the COVID-19 crisis and its pandemic restrictions [4], as social media was the predominant method of maintaining personal connections [5], and accessing information [6]. Nearly two-thirds of the world receives its news and information from social media [7]. Consequently, social networking sites have become a valuable tool for disseminating false information, such as phoney reviews, advertisements, political remarks and satire [8]. ...
Sharing of misinformation on social media platforms is a global concern, with research offering little insight into the motives behind such sharing. Drawing from the cognitive load theory and literature on cognitive ability, we developed and tested a research model hypothesising why people share misinformation. We also tested the moderating role of cognitive ability. We obtained data from 385 social media users in Nigeria using a chain referral technique with an online questionnaire as the instrument for data collection. Our findings suggest that information overload and social media fatigue are strong predictors of misinformation sharing. Information stress also contributed to misinformation sharing behaviour. Furthermore, cognitive ability moderated and weakened the effect information strain and information overload have on misinformation sharing in such a way that this effect is more pronounced among those with low cognitive ability. This indicates that those with low cognitive ability have a higher tendency to share misinformation. However, cognitive ability had no effect on the effect social media fatigue has on misinformation sharing behaviour. The study concluded with some theoretical and practical implications.
... Scholars began to make distinctions between narrative and non-narrative messages based on experimental work suggesting that individuals process the two formats differently (Zwaan, 1994). Since that time, a significant body of research has worked to compare the relative persuasiveness of narrative messages to non-narrative messages, particularly in health contexts where non-narrative information sharing is prevalent (e.g., Murphy et al., 2013;Moyer-Gusé and Dale, 2017). ...
Theory suggests that people are more persuaded by information presented within a narrative. We argue there is room for greater understanding about why this may be the case. Accordingly, we 1) examine whether narratives are indeed more persuasive than non-narratives and 2) evaluate two theoretical mechanisms that could be responsible for these effects. Results from a laboratory-based, preregistered experiment (N = 554) support our primary argument that narratives are processed more fluently (easily) than non-narratives, and when processing is eased, persuasion becomes more likely. This work offers a parsimonious and powerful explanation for the advantages of providing persuasive information within a narrative format and advances theory in narrative persuasion.
... It is not really clear how this finding may be explained. In future studies, attention could therefore perhaps shift to a more theoretical perspective to try and find an answer, for instance, focusing on the role of identification, transportation, and perceived similarity in overcoming resistance to persuasive messages contained in a narrative [53,54]. Recent empirical research suggests that, for instance, perceived age similarity of the reader to that of the protagonist can play an important role in how a message is received, with younger and older participants differing on a number of outcomes [55]. ...
Poor health literacy in the Western Cape Province of South Africa is one of the main factors hampering methamphetamine (MA) use prevention efforts in the area, where the abuse of this drug is a major health and social problem affecting especially previously disadvantaged communities. In the first part of a two-part study, we compared a health-related fotonovela about MA to an existing brochure group and a control group. Main findings show that the vast majority of readers preferred the fotonovela over the existing brochure. This included participants from all three age groups and for both levels of health literacy (low/high) distinguished (N = 372). Furthermore, specifically for older people with low levels of health literacy, the fotonovela outperformed the existing brochure condition for knowledge level. In the second part of the study, we found that healthcare providers (N = 75) strongly prefer a fotonovela over an existing brochure, while this cohort viewed the potential use of fotonovelas in a health care setting as very positive. Our findings add to the promising results of an earlier fotonovela study about MA use in South Africa, providing further support for considering using narratives in health communication as a serious option to effectively communicate convincing health information about this drug to target audiences in the Western Cape Province.
... Fiction's ability to create its own version of the truth is what makes it attractive to scientists looking for alternative ways to persuade otherwise resistant audiences about issues related to science. Research on narrative persuasion demonstrates how fictional stories are effective in altering attitudes and behaviours [Moyer-Gusé and Dale, 2017]. Narratives have a powerful persuasive capacity because they reduce various forms of resistance to persuasion. ...
The last three decades have seen extensive reflection concerning how science communication should be modelled and understood. In this essay we propose the value of a cultural approach to science communication — one that frames it primarily as a process of meaning-making. We outline the conceptual basis for this view of culture, drawing on cultural theory to suggest that it is valuable to see science communication as one aspect of (popular) culture, as storytelling or narrative, as ritual, and as collective meaning-making. We then explore four possible ways that a cultural approach might proceed: by mobilising ideas about experience; by framing science communication through identity work; by focusing on fiction; and by paying attention to emotion. We therefore present a view of science communication as always entangled within, and itself shaping, cultural stories and meanings. We close by suggesting that one benefit of this approach is to move beyond debates concerning ‘deficit or dialogue’ as the key frame for public communication of science.
... One explanation suggests that when individuals are thusly carried away, they are less able and motivated to contradict story points. Consequentially, when an individual is sufficiently transported, he or she is less likely to counter argue, in turn, making it more likely that narrativeconsistent attitudes are accepted (Moyer-Gusé & Dale, 2017). ...
In this report, the authors examine the extent to which counter-narrative initiatives via social media can be effective in preventing people from radicalization or can de-radicalize people.
Specifically, they formulate the following research questions:
(1) How can we conceptualize narratives and counter-narratives?
(2) How are narratives and counter-narratives used via social media?
(3) To what extent is it possible to use counter-narrative programs via social media to deradicalize individuals or prevent violent extremism?
(4) What are the pre-requisites for a counter-narrative program for it to be effective?
a. Which social media are most suitable and why?
b. What can we learn from examples of counter-narrative programs that have been operational in other democratic countries?
c. What can we learn from examples of social media campaigns in other domains, such as health care and environmental issues?
d. What are the potential risks for unwanted side effects?
(5) How can the potential effectiveness of such a counter-narrative program be determined?
(6) What can be the role of the government in such a counter-narrative program
... Research in the field of narrative persuasion suggests that entertainment media narratives have a powerful persuasive capacity (Moyer-Gusé and Dale 2017). Narratives are effective in altering attitudes and behaviors because they reduce various forms of resistance to persuasion. ...
Argument
As the deficit model's failure leaves scientists searching for more effective communicative approaches, science communication scholars have begun promoting narrative as a potent persuasive tool. Narratives can help the public make choices by setting out a scientific issue's contexts, establishing the stakes involved, and offering potential solutions. However, employing narrative for persuasion risks embracing the same top-down communication approach underlying deficit model thinking. This essay explores the parallels between movie censorship and the current use of narrative to influence public opinion by examining how the Hays Office and the Catholic Legion of Decency responded to science in movies. I argue that deploying narratives solely as public relations exercises demonstrates the same mistrust of audiences that provided the foundation of movie censorship. But the history of movie censorship reveals the dangers of using narrative to remove the public's agency and to coerce them towards a preferred position rather than fostering their ability to come to their own conclusions.
This book discusses the conditions under which stories we view on screens—movies, streamed series, and television—can lead to moral understanding in viewers. Moral understanding goes beyond moral knowledge; it is a complex cognitive achievement that may consist of the ability to understand why, to ask the right questions, to categorize, to apply general models to specific incidents, and/or to make connections between morally charged situations that have a common underlying meaning. The authors approach the topic from the disciplinary perspectives of communication, psychology, philosophy, and film and media studies. This book is a first attempt to initiate interdisciplinary cooperation in this area. The authors make different grounding assumptions and use different terminologies, all while making progress on this issue. This interdisciplinary coverage makes this book uniquely interesting. Part I considers the nature of moral understanding in relation to screen stories. Part II describes transfer and cultivation, the means by which moving-image fictions can transfer knowledge to and cultivate perspectives in viewers. This perspective also considers the particular visual and aural means of communication employed in screen stories. Part III describes the role of affect in generating moral understanding and the implications of the viewer’s engagement with fictional characters. Part IV examines the role of the viewer’s engagement with fictional characters in moral understanding. Part V considers what we do with screen stories after viewing them, and traces how various institutions encourage and direct postfilm reflection.
This chapter addresses fictional narratives as a specific kind of fiction capable of eliciting particular effects on their recipients. The first section of the chapter considers the status of climate fiction (cli-fi) as a literary genre, and identifies a set of standard properties that qualify most works in the category. The second section addresses the specific fictional engagement prompted by cli-fi and discusses its relationship with thought experiments. The third section examines, from a psychological angle, whether and how climate narratives can induce changes in the recipients’ beliefs and attitudes toward environmental issues. The chapter closes by listing some of the research questions raised by cli-fi that still await exploration. In the conclusion, it is tentatively suggested that, although the experience of consuming cli-fi will not change the planet, it might nonetheless heighten recipients’ concerns and willingness to take action against climate change.
Der Nutzungsdauer elektronischer Geräte wird in der Debatte um einen zukunftsfähigen, nachhaltigen Konsum eine zentrale Rolle beigemessen, da die Produktion von Geräten mit einer vergleichsweise hohen Umweltlast verbunden ist. Während in der aktuellen Forschung insbesondere das Produktdesign und Geschäftsmodelle fokussiert werden, wird in der vorliegenden Untersuchung die Nutzungsphase in den Blick genommen. Dabei wird den Fragen nachgegangen, welche Bedingungen den Umgang mit Geräten im Alltag prägen und wie soziale Praktiken gefördert werden können, die lange Nutzungsdauern stützen. Theoretisches Fundament bilden Praxistheorien, Narratologie und Bewertungssoziologie.
Das mittels der Grounded Theory entwickelte Modell Doing Value konzipiert die Nutzungsdauer als einen dynamischen, soziotechnischen Prozess, in dem elektronischen Geräten durch den Umgang mit ihnen Wert zugewiesen wird. Zentral für den Wertzuweisungsprozess sind Geschichten über Geräte, die durch den Akt des Erzählens reproduziert und zugleich mit den Narrativen des sozialen Umfeldes abgeglichen werden. Ob diese lebensweltlichen Technik-Narrative Bedarfe, geplante Obsoleszenz oder Reparaturen thematisieren, sie sind sowohl als interpretierte Erfahrungen Resultat der früheren Produktnutzung als auch Referenzmaßstab für die Sinnhaftigkeit zukünftiger Handlungen. Im Rahmen der Untersuchung werden zehn häufig vorkommende und für die Nutzungsdauer bedeutsame Narrative rekonstruiert und systematisiert sowie abgeleitet, wie darauf aufbauend Lebensdauer begünstigende Praktiken gestützt werden können. Basierend auf den Ergebnissen wurde eine Diskursintervention zum positiven Framing langlebiger Geräte (#LangLebeTechnik) konzipiert und in Kooperation mit Akteur*innen aus der Zivilgesellschaft umgesetzt. Parallel wurden berufliche Akteur*innen aus Politik und Verwaltung sowie Verbraucher- und Umweltschutz, die sich mit Kreislaufwirtschaft und Obsoleszenz befassen, dazu befragt, welche Ansatzpunkte sie sehen, um Lebensdauer begünstigende Praktiken im Alltag der Nutzer*innen zu stärken. Basierend auf einem Vergleich mit den Ergebnissen der Nutzer*innen-Befragung werden Empfehlungen für die strategische Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation abgeleitet, um suffiziente Konsummuster im Umgang mit elektronischen Geräten zu fördern. Dabei werden den Ansatzpunkten zugrundeliegende Menschenbilder reflektiert und aufgezeigt, dass Kooperationen zwischen Nutzer*innen bei technischen Anliegen bedeutsam für lange Nutzungsdauern sind.
Den Schwerpunkt des Mixed-Methods-Studien-Designs bilden problemzentrierte Interviews mit Nutzer*innen (In-Homes inklusive Tagebuchmethode und Fotodokumentation) und beruflichen Akteur*innen sowie online gesammelte Geräteschichten. Quantitative Daten (CAPI und CAWI) werden flankierend einbezogen. Die Dissertation wurde angefertigt im Rahmen der inter- und transdisziplinären Forschungsgruppe Obsoleszenz als Herausforderung für Nachhaltigkeit (https://langlebetechnik.de).
The connectivity concept within soil security posits that people need to have a connection to soil in order to properly value it. Showing how soil is important in everyday life can create connections to soil, because people care about things they see as impacting their quality of life. Education can demonstrate these connections and may take place in either formal or informal settings and over a wide range of age groups. Creating an effective educational environment is critical, which involves understanding the specific group being addressed, including their existing knowledge of and interest in soil. Soil scientists increasingly teach to student groups that need to know about soils within their chosen careers but are not necessarily training to be soil specialists. Within this formal setting, education that demonstrates the various functions that soils provide in support of human wellbeing may be important to connectivity because it clearly demonstrates the impact of soils on peoples’ lives. In less formal settings, it will be important to identify concepts that will resonate with the public or stakeholders, such as terroir, soil health, or soil security, and to effectively reach these groups with a message built around these concepts. Social marketing, social media, storytelling, soil apps, and soil games are all approaches that have promise to deliver the desired message, therefore creating connections between people and soil.
Voters make their decisions based on several factors; however, cognitive dissonance and ego-involvement are two forces that work to keep voters’ choices consistent over time. Despite these internal pressures, there are times when a particular candidate has disappointed a voter to such an extent that the voter considers voting for a different candidate in the next election. 170 young voters were asked about their feelings of regret and their need for permission to change their minds and vote differently in a future election. Findings suggest that women and Democrats are more likely to need permission to change their votes than men and Republicans. Furthermore, there is a significant relationship between regret and desire to change one’s vote with the need for permission to do so on election day. Lastly, the importance of having that permission will affect a voter’s feelings of obligation to cast a ballot for the same party. Open ended responses explore the idea of obligation versus making a change in more detail. Findings suggest that correct messaging about the ability one has to change one’s mind and also being granted permission to vote differently may be an effective campaign messaging strategy.
Service providers and consumer well-being advocates often share stories to promote audience interest in relevant behavior. This research examines how characters’ motivations for engaging in service-related behavior in such stories influence consumers’ interest in services. Across five studies, we show that audiences are more interested in services after reading about a character who acts for intrinsically (vs. extrinsically) motivated reasons. We show that this occurs because the audience identifies more with intrinsically motivated characters. We also examine how consequences of characters’ actions (both for others and for themselves when they make miscalibrated decisions) shape an audience’s service interest in targeted ways, specifically encouraging interest in services that help people while avoiding unintended negative consequences. The results of this work suggest that stories can be an effective way to encourage consumers’ interest in services that enhance personal and societal well-being and identify critical story elements that influence their success in doing so.
This book is a timely and significant examination of the role of counter-messaging via social media as a potential means of preventing or countering radicalization to violent extremism. In recent years, extremist groups have developed increasingly sophisticated online communication strategies to spread their propaganda and promote their cause, enabling messages to be spread more rapidly and effectively. Countermessaging has been promoted as one of the most important measures to neutralize online radicalizing influences and is intended to undermine the appeal of messages disseminated by violent extremist groups. While many such initiatives have been launched by Western governments, civil society actors, and private companies, there are many questions regarding their efficacy. Focusing predominantly on efforts countering Salafi-Jihadi extremism, this book examines how feasible it is to prevent or counter radicalization and violent extremism with counter-messaging efforts. It investigates important principles to consider when devising such a program. The authors provide both a comprehensive theoretical overview and a review of the available literature, as well as policy recommendations for governments and the role they can play in counter-narrative efforts. As this is the first book to critically examine the possibilities and pitfalls of using counter-messaging to prevent radicalization or stimulate de-radicalization, it is essential reading for policymakers and professionals dealing with this issue, as well as researchers in the field.
The morality of observed others is a central variable for many media effects research areas, including affective disposition theory, social cognitive theory, and entertainment-education. A scale designed to measure five distinct aspects of the morality of characters is validated in a series of six studies (N = 1,204). Findings suggest that the extended character morality questionnaire (CMFQ-X) possesses adequate statistical validity as indicated through confirmatory factory analysis. In addition, the subscales show good internal consistency. Convergent and discriminant validity were assessed through the measurement of other constructs. As expected, scores on the subscales of the CMFQ-X correlated substantially with related constructs and unsubstantially with unrelated constructs. Finally, the validity of a short-form version of the scale (CMFQ-S) for use in studies in which participant fatigue may be an issue is examined.
One of the enduring topics for persuasion research is motivated reasoning, when people respond to persuasive messages in ways other than seeking to form an accurate attitude. This essay advances the position that the existing research can be synthesized using the self-concept approach to cognitive dissonance with ego-involvement added as the key explanatory variable to indicate when an issue is likely tied to the individual’s self-concept and thus potentially produce cognitive dissonance. The research on motivated reasoning is reviewed with this theoretical lens with recommendations on how to use this theory to advance research on understanding and reducing maladaptive motivated reasoning.
Two experiments investigated the idea that individual differences in need for affect are critical for narrative persuasion. Need for affect, that is, the disposition to approach emotions, was assumed to facilitate the experience of being transported into the mental world of the narrative. An intense experience of transportation, in turn, should enhance the persuasive impact of narrative information on readers' beliefs. A mediated moderation analysis was used to test these assumptions. In both experiments (N = 314), need for affect (approach) and transportation moderated the persuasive effects of a fictional narrative compared to a belief-irrelevant control story (Experiment 1) and the persuasive effects of a story with high emotional content compared to a story with low emotional content (Experiment 2). The moderator effects of need for affect were shown to be mediated by the moderator effects of transportation. In sum, the magnitude of a person's need for affect determines whether and to what extent the person experiences transportation into the story world and is persuaded by the information presented in the narrative.
Across two studies, the authors examined the role of individual differences in transportability, the tendency to become transported into narratives, in predicting the degree of attitude change resulting from persuasive narratives. In Study 1 (N = 137), participants were persuaded by a story promoting tolerance toward homosexuals only to the extent that they self-rated as highly transportable. In Study 2 (N = 298), this finding was replicated using the topic of affirmative action. Study 2 further showed that the effects of transportability were unique to narratives and did not extend to rhetorical communications. Across both studies, the link between transportability and attitudes was found to be mediated by emotional, empathic responses as opposed to rationalistic appraisals. The theoretical and applied implications of this work are discussed.
Transportation was proposed as a mechanism whereby narratives can affect beliefs. Defined as absorption into a story, transportation entails imagery, affect, and attentional focus. A transportation scale was developed and validated. Experiment 1 (N = 97) demonstrated that extent of transportation augmented story-consistent beliefs and favorable evaluations of protagonists. Experiment 2 (N = 69) showed that highly transported readers found fewer false notes in a story than less-transported readers. Experiments 3 (N = 274) and 4 (N = 258) again replicated the effects of transportation on beliefs and evaluations; in the latter study, transportation was directly manipulated by using processing instructions. Reduced transportation led to reduced story-consistent beliefs and evaluations. The studies also showed that transportation and corresponding beliefs were generally unaffected by labeling a story as fact or as fiction.
Narrative is the basic mode of human interaction and a fundamental way of acquiring knowledge. In the rapidly growing field of health communication, narrative approaches are emerging as a promising set of tools for motivating and supporting health-behavior change. This article defines narrative communication and describes the rationale for using it in health-promotion programs, reviews theoretical explanations of narrative effects and research comparing narrative and nonnarrative approaches to persuasion, and makes recommendations for future research needs in narrative health communication.
The study of narrative persuasion has increased dramatically in the past decade. Whereas much of this research focuses on story and character involvement, the role of emotion—and emotional flow specifically—has been understudied. In this article, we explore the multiple ways that the desire for and the experience of emotional shifts may promote the persuasive influence of narratives. First, we propose that the desire for an emotional shift (e.g., mood management) can guide message selection. Then, the emotional flow, or the series of emotional shifts in response to the unfolding story, may promote and sustain continued engagement with the narrative world. As such, influence of the narrative is likely enhanced. We then argue that the heightened state of narrative engagement and its associated emotional states have implications for post-message attitudes, both short-term attitude change as well as over-time change via emotion-driven topic involvement and social sharing. A research agenda for greater integration of emotion into narrative research is proposed.
Fictional materials are commonly used in the classroom to teach course content. Both laboratory experiments and classroom demonstrations illustrate the benefits of using fiction to help students learn accurate information about the world. However, fictional sources often contain factually inaccurate content, making them a potent vehicle for learning misinformation about the world. We briefly review theoretical issues relevant to whether learners process fictional sources differently before exploring how individual differences, learning activities, and assessment characteristics may affect learning from fiction. This review focuses on our own experimental approaches for studying learning from fiction, including learning from short stories and from films, while connecting to a broader educational literature on learning from fictional sources. Throughout the review, implications for educational use and future directions for experimental research are noted.
Entertainment‐education interventions frequently include an explicit persuasive appeal, such as an epilogue, at their conclusion. This may help to overcome potential limitations of narrative persuasion by highlighting and clarifying the underlying message. Despite this potential, an explicit persuasive appeal may also undermine the subtle approach that distinguishes narrative persuasion and thereby induce reactance and/or counterarguing. The purpose of this study was to experimentally test these two possible outcomes. In particular, the effect of an explicit persuasive appeal in the context of a dramatic television program about the dangers of drinking and driving was examined. Overall, results revealed that the narrative and explicit persuasive appeal interact to influence drinking‐and‐driving attitudes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
In this article I argue that although the notion of identification with media characters is widely discussed in media research, it has not been carefully conceptualized or rig- orously tested in empirical audience studies. This study presents a theoretical discus- sion of identification, including a definition of identification and a discussion of the consequences of identification with media characters for the development of identity and socialization processes. It is suggested that a useful distinction can be made be- tween identification and other types of reactions that media audiences have to media characters. A critical look at media research involving identification exposes the in- herent conceptual problems in this research and leads to hypotheses regarding the antecedents and consequences of identification with media characters. The impor - tance of a theory of identification to media research and communication research, more broadly, is presented. When reading a novel or watching a film or a television program, audience members often become absorbed in the plot and identify with the characters portrayed. Unlike the more distanced mode of reception—that of spectatorship—identification is a mechanism through which audience members experience reception and interpreta- tion of the text from the inside, as if the events were happening to them. Identification is tied to the social effects of media in general (e.g., Basil, 1996; Maccoby & Wilson, 1957); to the learning of violence from violent films and television, specifically (Huesmann, Lagerspetz, & Eron, 1984); and is a central mechanism for explaining such effects. As Morley (1992) said: "One can hardly imagine any television text having any effect whatever without that identification" (p. 209). The most promi-
"Transportation into a narrative world" (Green & Brock, 2000, 2002) has been identified as a mechanism of narrative impact. A transported individual is cognitively and emotionally involved in the story and may experience vivid mental images. In the study reported here, undergraduate participants (N = 152) read a narrative about a homosexual man attending his college fraternity reunion, rated their transportation into the story, rated the perceived realism of the story, and responded to statements describing story-relevant beliefs. Transportation was positively correlated with perceived realism. Furthermore, individuals with prior knowledge or experience relevant to the themes of the story (e.g., had homosexual friends or family members, were knowledgeable about American fraternities) showed greater transportation into the story. Highly transported readers showed more story-consistent beliefs, and the positive relationship between transportation and story-consistent beliefs held for those both with and without previous relevant experience.
The tendency of subjects to employ a self-referencing strategy when processing messages was manipulated by varying message writing style. Recall of message content was higher in the high self-referencing than the low self-referencing condition. Self-referencing was also found to produce attitude and cognitive response effects similar to effects obtained in other research that employed involvement inductions. When self-referencing and argument strength were manipulated in a factorial design, it was found that arguments had a greater impact on attitude and cognitive responses under high self-referencing than under low self-referencing.
Can people comprehend assertions without believing them? Descartes (1644/1984) suggested that people can and should, whereas Spinoza (1677/1982) suggested that people should but cannot. Three experiments support the hypothesis that comprehension includes an initial belief in the information comprehended. Ss were exposed to false information about a criminal defendant (Experiments 1 and 2) or a college student (Experiment 3). Some Ss were exposed to this information while under load (Experiments 1 and 2) or time pressure (Experiment 3). Ss made judgments about the target (sentencing decisions or liking judgments). Both load and time pressure caused Ss to believe the false information and to use it in making consequential decisions about the target. In Spinozan terms, both manipulations prevented Ss from "unbelieving" the false information they automatically believed during comprehension.
Children aged 7 to 12 were interviewed about their favorite TV character. Nearly all boys and about half of the girls selected same‐sex favorites. Regression analyses used perceived character traits (attractiveness, strength, humor, intelligence, social behavior) to predict wishful identification and parasocial interaction with characters. For male characters, wishful identification was predicted by intelligence and (for girls only) humor; parasocial interaction was predicted by intelligence, attractiveness, and (for boys only) strength. In marked contrast, for female characters (chosen only by girls), attractiveness was the only significant predictor. Although girls rated female characters as more intelligent than male characters, this trait apparently was not an important determinant of attraction. Interpretations of the findings and implications for socialization effects are discussed.
Individuals often avoid discussing sexual history and safer sex with sexual partners, increasing the likelihood of negative health consequences. Research and theorizing on narrative influence suggest that television programs in which characters model conversations about safer sex may provide social scripts to viewers and influence behavior. This experiment tested this effect and examined the underlying mechanisms. Participants were randomly assigned to view a program that either did or did not depict characters modeling sexual discussion. Exposure to the modeled behavior motivated viewers to engage in sexual discussions over the next 2 weeks. Greater identification with these characters facilitated this effect by enhancing viewers' self-efficacy and reducing counterarguing. Implications for research on narrative influence more generally are discussed.
This article offers a theoretical framework to explain circumstances under which perceptions of "unrealness" affect engagement in narratives and subsequent perceived realism judgments. A mental models approach to narrative processing forms the foundation of a model that integrates narrative comprehension and phenomenological experiences such as transportation and identification. Three types of unrealness are discussed: fictionality, external realism (match with external reality), and narrative realism (coherence within a story). We gather evidence that fictionality does not affect narrative processing. On the other hand, violations of external and narrative realism are conceived as inconsistencies among the viewer's mental structures as they construct mental models of meaning to represent and comprehend the narrative. These inconsistencies may result in negative online evaluations of a narrative's realism, may disrupt engagement, and may negatively influence postexposure (reflective) realism judgments as well as lessen a narrative's persuasive power.
Research has examined the ability of entertainment-education (E-E) programs to influence behavior across a variety of health and social issues. However, less is known about the underlying mechanisms that account for these effects. In keeping with the extended elaboration likelihood model (E-ELM) and the entertainment overcoming resistance model (EORM), we examined how story features, such as narrative transportation and involvement with characters, may reduce three forms of resistance to persuasion - reactance, counterarguing, and perceived invulnerability. In a between-subjects experiment, 367 undergraduates viewed either a dramatic narrative or a nonnarrative program about the difficult consequences of an unplanned teen pregnancy. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing their reactions to the program immediately after viewing and again 2 weeks later. Consistent with predictions derived from the EORM and E-ELM, the dramatic narrative reduced reactance by fostering parasocial interaction with characters and decreasing perceptions of persuasive intent. Also as expected, identification with characters in the narrative reduced counterarguing and increased perceived vulnerability to unplanned pregnancy - although the latter occurred only at the delayed posttest 2 weeks after exposure. Unexpectedly, transportation into the dramatic narrative was associated with greater counterarguing. Taken together, this research demonstrates that investigating narrative influence from the perspective of overcoming resistance is a useful approach. Findings also suggest important differences in how individuals process narrative and nonnarrative messages.
The impact of entertainment—education messages on beliefs, attitudes, and behavior is typically explained in terms of social cognitive theory principles. However, important additional insights regarding reasons why entertainment—education messages have effects can be derived from the processing of persuasive content in narrative messages. Elaboration likelihood approaches suggest that absorption in a narrative, and response to characters in a narrative, should enhance persuasive effects and suppress counterarguing if the implicit persuasive content is counterattitudinal. Also, persuasion mediators and moderators such as topic involvement should be reduced in importance. Evidence in support of these propositions are reviewed in this article. Research needed to extend application of these findings to entertainment—education contexts, to further develop theory in the area of persuasion and narrative, and to better account for other persuasive effects of entertainment narrative, such as those hypothesized in cultivation theory, are discussed.
In this experiment, we examine effects of television dramas on support for controversial public policies (gay marriage and the death penalty) and explore mechanisms that may explain such effects. The dramas influenced support for death penalty but not gay marriage. As predicted, exposure to the relevant drama eliminated the relationship between prior ideology (conceptualized as a continuous variable) and death penalty support. Moreover, the valence of the relationship between prior (increasingly liberal) ideology and salience of a relevant value (perceived importance of a safe and crime-free society) went from negative in the comparison condition to positive after exposure to the relevant drama. These and other results suggest that a television narrative can influence policy support by reframing the dramatic situation to reduce the effect of prior ideology and values and by minimizing processing of the story as intentionally persuasive discourse.
A growing body of research indicates that entertainment-education programming can be an effective way to deliver prosocial and health messages. Some have even speculated that entertainment-education may be more effective than overtly persuasive messages in certain circumstances. Despite empirical advances in this area, more work is needed to understand fully what makes entertainment-education unique from a message-processing standpoint. To this end, the present article has three objectives. First, the article examines the involvement with narrative storylines and characters that is fostered by entertainment programming. This includes a much-needed explication and separation of several related constructs, such as identification, parasocial interaction, similarity, and others. Second, the article reviews and synthesizes existing theories that have addressed entertainment-education message processing. Third, the article builds on these theories, presenting an expanded theoretical framework. A set of propositions is advanced and directions for future research are discussed. In total, the article offers a clarification of existing concepts that are critical to the study of entertainment-education, a synthesis of relevant theory, and a set of propositions to guide future research in entertainment-education message effects.
The extended transportation-imagery model: A meta-analysis of the antecedents and consequences of consumers' narrative transportation
- T. Van Laer
- K. De Ruyter
- L. M. Visconti
- M. Wetzels
The SAGE handbook of persuasion: Developments in theory and practice
- H. Bilandzic
- R. Busselle
Narrative impact: Social and cognitive foundations
- M. C. Green
- J. J. Strange
- T. C. Brock