Explaining the Effects of Narrative in an Entertainment Television Program: Overcoming Resistance to Persuasion

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.     

Transportation and Need for Affect in Narrative Persuasion: A Mediated Moderation Model

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.     

Testing the Explanatory Power of Two Measures of Narrative Involvement: An Investigation of the Influence of Transportation and Narrative Engagement on the Process of Narrative Persuasion

Achieving a more sophisticated understanding of narrative persuasion requires an examination of how the experience of narrative involvement influences persuasive resistance. In this study, we used a multiple message design approach to test two models of narrative involvement, one with transportation and the other with narrative engagement, with programs featuring persuasive stories about sexual and reproductive topics from primetime television. Although both transportation and the narrative engagement influenced processes related to changes in participants’ (N = 362) beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions, the two scales influenced different cognitive and affective responses to the narratives. Transportation was positively related to enjoyment and the perception that the narrative topic was personally relevant. Narrative engagement predicted enjoyment and reduced reactance. Neither transportation nor narrative engagement significantly influenced cognitive elaboration or counterarguments, based on the application of a thought-listing procedure designed to measure counterarguments related to the realism of the narratives. Put together, these findings suggest that the study of narrative persuasion necessitates the use of different measurement instruments that can adequately assess the multidimensional nature and influence of narrative involvement.     

Too tired to tell the truth: Self-control resource depletion and dishonesty

The opportunity to profit from dishonesty evokes a motivational conflict between the temptation to cheat for selfish gain and the desire to act in a socially appropriate manner. Honesty may depend on self-control given that self-control is the capacity that enables people to override antisocial selfish responses in favor of socially desirable responses. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that dishonesty would increase when people’s self-control resources were depleted by an initial act of self-control. Depleted participants misrepresented their performance for monetary gain to a greater extent than did non-depleted participants (Experiment 1). Perhaps more troubling, depleted participants were more likely than non-depleted participants to expose themselves to the temptation to cheat, thereby aggravating the effects of depletion on cheating (Experiment 2). Results indicate that dishonesty increases when people’s capacity to exert self-control is impaired, and that people may be particularly vulnerable to this effect because they do not predict it.     

BROKEN NARRATIVES: TRAUMA,METACONSTRUCTIVE GAPS,AND THE AUDIENCE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

A constructivist model of posttraumatic psychotherapy is presented with particular attention to the metaphors of "narrative" and "audience." Metaconstruction, implicit construing, and narrative continuity are explored to conceptualize how persons story their experiences, and how some experiences (e.g., traumas) disrupt the storying process. Then the elements of posttraumatic psychotherapy are discussed with case examples illustrating how the therapist, as audience member and conarrator, facilitates the reconstruction and renarration of the client's life story.     

Unable to resist temptation: How self-control depletion promotes unethical behavior

Across four experimental studies, individuals who were depleted of their self-regulatory resources by an initial act of self-control were more likely to “impulsively cheat” than individuals whose self-regulatory resources were intact. Our results demonstrate that individuals depleted of self-control resources were more likely to behave dishonestly (Study 1). Depletion reduced people’s moral awareness when they faced the opportunity to cheat, which, in turn, was responsible for heightened cheating (Study 2). Individuals high in moral identity, however, did not show elevated levels of cheating when they were depleted (Study 3), supporting our hypothesis that self-control depletion increases cheating when it robs people of the executive resources necessary to identify an act as immoral or unethical. Our results also show that resisting unethical behavior both requires and depletes self-control resources (Study 4). Taken together, our findings help to explain how otherwise ethical individuals predictably engage in unethical behavior.     

叙事传输的说服机制

叙事传输是人们沉浸在故事情景中的独特心理过程,也是故事信息特有的说服机制.叙事传输会使决策者产生与现实世界脱离的感觉,体验到强烈的情绪,然后对故事产生认同,改变态度.本文在界定叙事加工、叙事传输等理论概念基础上,重点比较叙事传输与分析加工的差异,认为两者在信息内容组织、作用途径、判断逻辑、认知努力及问题距离上都有区别.进一步研究叙事传输与分析加工、自我控制、情景决策等理论领域的关系具有重要价值.     

Mechanisms of self-control failure: motivation and limited resources

Research has found that individuals who are lower in self-control strength because of previous self-control exertions perform more poorly on subsequent tests of self-control. The present studies suggest that this effect may be moderated by motivation. In particular, depletion and motivation jointly determine self-control performance. Individuals who were depleted and believed that the task would help others (Experiment 1) or believed that their efforts could benefit them (Experiment 2) performed better on a subsequent test of self-control than individuals who were depleted and lower in motivation. The results of Experiment 3 replicated these findings and suggested that depletion only affects performance on tasks that require self-control; tasks that are difficult but do not require self-control are immune to the effects of depletion. Hence, depleted individuals may compensate for their lack of self-control resources when sufficiently motivated. The results may help explain the nature of self-control strength.     

I,You, or He: Examining the Impact of Point of View on Narrative Persuasion

ABSTRACT

Narratives can be used to persuade individuals to change their attitudes and behaviors, and can be especially effective is in changing attitudes toward individuals that are stigmatized or otherwise labeled as outgroup members. One feature that can influence a story’s persuasive effectiveness is the story’s point of view (POV). This study experimentally investigated the relative impacts of 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-person POVs on attitudes toward, and beliefs about, gay people. Results showed that participants who read the 3rd-person story had significantly more positive attitudes toward gay people than those who read the 1st-person story. In all cases, POV appeared to have no impact upon narrative transportation or identification.     

Reviews,expectations, and the experience of stories

ABSTRACT

Theory suggests that information encountered prior to a story affects the actual experience of the story due to elicited expectations. In two experiments (N = 100; N = 167) short movies that were introduced with a positive review yielded higher transportation scores than the same movies introduced with a more negative (or neutral) review. Mediation analyses indicate that the reviews had an influence on recipients’ expectations, which in turn predicted the experience of the movie. Using the more fine-grained narrative engagement scale, we found evidence for a consistent effect on narrative presence, whereas the influence on emotional engagement, narrative understanding, and attentional focus varied between experiments. Moderation analyses (moderated mediation) showed that recipient’s opinion seeking and need for cognitive closure were unrelated to the influence of reviews on expectations and the link between expectations and narrative experience. Our findings add to the theory of story processing and they are of practical relevance for everyone who intends to influence recipients’ experience of narrative worlds.     

Death with a Story

This study investigates how game playing experience changes when a story is added to a first‐person shooter game. Dependent variables include identification, presence, emotional experiences and motivations. When story was present, game players felt greater identification, sense of presence, and physiological arousal. The presence of story did not affect self‐reported arousal or dominance. This study clearly demonstrates that story is something that video game players enjoy; it helps involve them in the game play, makes them feel more immersed in the virtual environment, and keeps them aroused. The greater character identification may be especially worrisome, as past research has shown that justified media violence disinhibits actual aggression on the part of the audience.     

Conserving self-control strength

Individuals may be motivated to limit their use of self-control resources, especially when they have depleted some of that resource. Expecting to need self-control strength in the future should heighten the motivation to conserve strength. In 4 experiments, it was found that depleted participants who anticipated exerting self-control in the future performed more poorly in an intervening test of self-control than participants who were not depleted, and more poorly than those who did not expect to exert self-control in the future. Conversely, those who conserved strength performed better on tasks that they conserved the strength for as compared with those who did not conserve. The underlying economic or conservation of resource model sheds some light on the operation of self-control strength.     

Fighting self-control failure: Overcoming ego depletion by increasing self-awareness

According to the limited strength model (Muraven, Tice & Baumeister, 1998), exerting self-control causes ego depletion: a depletion of cognitive resources resulting in poorer performance on later self-control tasks. Previous studies have demonstrated a positive effect of self-awareness on self-control performance. The present study examined whether the occurrence of ego depletion can be circumvented by increasing self-awareness. Initially depleted participants who received a neutral prime exhibited the classic ego depletion pattern: their performance on a subsequent physical self-control task decreased significantly. In contrast, no decrease in performance was observed for depleted participants who were exposed to a self-awareness prime. The latter group performed equally well compared to low depleted participants.     

The Role of Defense in the Life Story

In modern societies, adults typically provide their lives with some sense of unity and purpose by constructing self-defining life stories that serve as their identities. Such stories are told to others and to an internalized audience or listener who serves as an ultimate judge and interpreter of the narrative. Defense mechanisms specify narrative strategies that persons use to shape how their lives are told to others and to their internalized audiences. Life events and experiences are incorporated into a life story to the extent that the internalized audience can make sense of the telling. Defenses function to make some stories more tellable than they might otherwise be and to keep other potentially storied accounts from ever reaching the status of being told.     

How character goal pursuit “moves” audiences to share meaningful stories

ABSTRACT

Recent research has examined the theme-level determinants of how stories move readers. Our research examined what moves readers in more nuance. Specifically, we examined how readers’ perception of a character’s goal pursuit (i.e., their motivation to complete a goal, goal desire intensity, and goal pursuit struggle) leads to narrative engagement, which we posit is an antecedent to being moved. The degree to which readers are moved should then influence their intention to share the story. Across two studies, character motivation consistently influenced narrative engagement, particularly emotional engagement, which evokes the experience of being moved. Being moved by the story – but not enjoyment – increased readers’ intentions to share it with others. We argue that media psychology researchers should incorporate being moved into their broader models of narrative engagement for both basic and applied research.     

Narrative and the Stability of Intention

This paper addresses a problem concerning the rational stability of intention. When you form an intention to φ at some future time t, you thereby make it subjectively rational for you to follow through and φ at t, even if—hypothetically—you would abandon the intention were you to redeliberate at t. It is hard to understand how this is possible. Shouldn't the perspective of your acting self be what determines what is then subjectively rational for you? I aim to solve this problem by highlighting a role for narrative in intention. I'll argue that committing yourself to a course of action by intending to pursue it crucially involves the expectation that your acting self will be ‘swept along’ by its participation in a distinctively narrative form of self‐understanding. I'll motivate my approach by criticizing Richard Holton's and Michael Bratman's recent treatments of the stability of intention, though my account also borrows from Bratman's work. I'll likewise criticize and borrow from David Velleman's work on narrative and self‐intelligibility. When the pieces fall into place, we'll see how intending is akin to telling your future self a kind of story. My thesis is not that you address your acting self but that your acting self figures as a ‘character’ in the ‘story’ that you address to a still later self. Unlike other appeals to narrative in agency, mine will explain how as narrator you address a specifically intrapersonal audience.     

The Role of a Narrative's Emotional Flow in Promoting Persuasive Outcomes

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.     

(Don’t) Tell Me How It Ends: Spoilers,Enjoyment, and Involvement in Television and Film

ABSTRACT

As more people time shift their televsion viewing and engage in online discussions about entertainment media, public concern over spoilers, the premature disclosure of narrative outcomes, has increased. This article reports results from two experiments and a survey that reassess and extend recent findings about the impact of spoilers on enjoyment. Relying on audiovisual media, the studies test processing fluency as a mediator, and involvement, need for cognition, and need for affect as moderators. Study 1 suggested that genre and involvement can moderate negative effects of spoilers on enjoyment of scenes from television and film. Study 2 illustrated that spoilers for upcoming films are more likely to trigger psychological reactance than substantially impact enjoyment and viewing intentions. Finally, Study 3 showed that spoilers for a television series adapted from novels are beneficial for audience responses if the adaptation is faithful to the source. Partial support was obtained for mediation via processing fluency, and involvement and need for affect moderated some effects of spoilers. Taken as a whole, the findings illustrate that, just as in previous experiments using short stories, spoilers for television and film appear to have quite small and qualified effects on audience responses to these programs.     

Performance costs when emotion tunes inappropriate cognitive abilities: implications for mental resources and behavior

Emotion tunes cognition, such that approach-motivated positive states promote verbal cognition, whereas withdrawal-motivated negative states promote spatial cognition (Gray, 2001). The current research examined whether self-control resources become depleted and influence subsequent behavior when emotion tunes an inappropriate cognitive tendency. In 2 experiments, either an approach-motivated positive state or a withdrawal-motivated negative state was induced, and then participants completed a verbal or a spatial working memory task creating conditions of emotion-cognition alignment (e.g., approach/verbal) or misalignment (e.g., approach/spatial). A control condition was also included. To examine behavioral costs due to depleted self-control resources, participants completed either a Stroop task (Stroop, 1935; Experiment 1) or a Black/White implicit association test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Experiment 2). Participants in the misalignment conditions performed worse on the Stroop task, and they were worse at controlling their implicit attitude biases on the IAT. Thus, when emotion tunes inappropriate cognitive tendencies for one's current environment, self-control resources become depleted, impairing behavioral control.     

Extending Conceptualization and Measurement of Narrative Engagement After-the-Fact: Parasocial Relationship and Retrospective Imaginative Involvement

Engagement with narratives and identification with narrative characters is usually conceptualized as occurring during the narrative experience itself. However, much involvement with a story world and narrative characters may occur retrospectively and imaginatively. The present study, using a cross-sectional survey quota-sampled to represent U.S. demographic norms, provides conceptualization and measurement of parasocial relationships (PSR) that is clearly retrospective and conceptually distinct from parasocial interaction (PSI). Moreover, we distinguish PSR from another concept introduced and operationalized here, retrospective imaginative involvement (RII), and provide evidence for validity of these measures. We compare them to the related concepts of transportability and boundary expansion, and assess fit using measurement models and confirmatory factor analysis, refining measurement on half the data set and confirming fit on the other half. We demonstrate predictive validity with respect to a measure of self-reported effects of narratives on beliefs and behavior, controlling for these various related measures, and also validate short versions of these measures for greater ease of research use