Narrative Voice Matters! Improving Smoking Prevention with Testimonial Messages through Identification and Cognitive Processes

Abstract

Narrative messages are increasingly being used in the field of tobacco prevention. Our study is based on narrative persuasion and aims to analyze the psychological mechanisms that explain why the narrative voice is relevant to promote persuasive impact. An online experiment with a 2 (narrative voice) × 2 (message) factorial design was carried out. Participants (525 adult smokers) were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions (first-person versus third-person narrative message). To increase the external validity of the study, two different messages were used within each condition. After reading the narrative message the mediating and dependent variables were evaluated. Participants who read the narrative in the first person experienced greater identification. Moreover, mediational analysis showed that both counterarguing and cognitive elaboration played a significant role in the relationship between narrative voice, identification, and persuasive impact. This study confirm that narrative voice is not only an anecdotal formal choice but that it indirectly affects variables related to tobacco prevention, due to the fact that first-person messages activate a mechanism of affective connection with the message (increasing the identification with the protagonist) that decreases resistance to prevention (the counterarguing process) while simultaneously stimulating reflection or cognitive elaboration.

“It Happened to Me and It’s Serious”: Conditional Indirect Effects of Infection Severity Narrated in Testimonial Tweets on COVID-19 Prevention

“…The testimonial message elaborated for this study had a clear and causal structure, in such a way that a series of events were presented that were connected in space and time (see Table 2 ). It was narrated in the first person, since previous research had concluded that the use of the first person was more effective than the second- or third-person narrative voice [ 42 , 47 ]. The message’s protagonist was a 23-year-old individual named Alex Sanchez (@sanchez98_alex).…”

“…This process, in turn, would activate different routes to explain the persuasive impact: through identification with the protagonist, through narrative transportation and through reactance. However, in this work, we considered a fourth mechanism: cognitive elaboration [ 41 , 42 , 43 ]. Cognitive elaboration is defined as a process of reflection on the content of the message and constitutes a measure of the intensity of such reflection during the reception process [ 44 ].…”

Drivers and Consequences of Business-Reference-Content (Brc): The Role of Narrative Transportation in B2b Communication

“…First, BRC type, an independent variable, was coded as dummy variable (Narrative BRC = 1, non-narrative BRC = 0). This analysis provides the evaluation of the effect of experimental conditions on purchase intention, a dependent variable, through narrative transportation (primary mediator) and perceived purchase risks (secondary mediators) (Igartua & Rodríguez-Contreras, 2020). The results showed that BRC type significantly increased narrative transportation (b = 0.709, SE = 0.086, p < 0.001), and significantly lowered perceived financial risk (b = -0.178, SE = 0.069, p < 0.01).…”

Developing theory‐driven narrative messages with personal stories: A step‐by‐step guide

“…Exposure to narratives is positively associated with narrative‐consistent beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors 7 . Narrative interventions may be particularly beneficial for early detection and prevention of cancer; they have been shown to influence engagement in cancer prevention 8,9 and screening behaviors 10,11 …”

“…particularly beneficial for early detection and prevention of cancer; they have been shown to influence engagement in cancer prevention 8,9 and screening behaviors. 10,11 One method for increasing the effectiveness of narratives is incorporating behavior change theory.…”