Effects of Narrative Transportation on Personal Attitudes

Narratives are stories that can provide one of the ways we make sense of our own life trajectories when we personally construct them. A narrative is a structured account of events, often expressed through a story format conveying meaning, emotion, or information through a sequence of connected events involving characters, settings, and a plot. Our personal narratives frame sequences of life events giving structure and meaning that we use to make sense of new events and situations. The present research is directed at understanding the effects of narrative transportation on an audience. Is narrative transportation critical to the impact of a narrative or is it just an epiphenomenal state of greater absorption into a story, independent of whether the story has an impact? This study explored the relation between narrative transportation, message impact and personal attitudes, specifically prosociality. Does engaging the audience in a narrative that transports them have an effect on how much they incorporate a message? We know that narratives are effective tools of persuasion (Escalas, 2004), and are often used for the benefit of the one transmitting the narrative. Can a better understanding of narrative effect be used to the benefit of the society, such as to impart morals and values? Some work in the medical field has shown that narrative films can help increase participant's engagement with preventive care (Morgan et al., 2013) and that narratives can be effective means of transmitting information related to cancer (Green 2006).