Theorizing Foreshadowed Death Narratives: Examining the Impact of Character Death on Narrative Processing and Skin Self-Exam Intentions

Abstract

Narratives are common in health campaigns and interventions, with many depicting individuals battling a particular illness or disease. Past research has focused primarily on the form and effects of survivor stories, but considerably less attention has been devoted to stories in which 1 or more of the central characters passes away. The goal of the current study was to compare the relative persuasive impact of survivor and death narratives in influencing skin prevention behaviors and to test narrative mediators that might explicate underlying mechanisms of effect. To that end, adults (N = 635, M age = 32.43 [SD = 11.23]) were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 narrative intervention conditions in an online message experiment. Participants read 1 of 2 stories about a person with melanoma (Rusty or Diane) that was manipulated as a narrative depicting the survival, death, or foreshadowed death of the main character. Foreshadowed death narratives increased intentions to perform a skin self-exam (SSE), a relationship that was mediated by narrative transportation and perceived SSE benefits. The results support the central postulate of narrative transportation theory and the utility of using foreshadowed death narratives in communication-based interventions designed to increase SSE frequency.

Improving Adherence to Colorectal Cancer Screening: A Randomized Intervention to Compare Screener vs. Survivor Narratives

“…Bivariate analyses showed null effects and SEM results showed a small but significant negative association between information plus a narrative vs. information only with CRCS intentions, which fail to support Hypothesis 1. This is not the first narrative study with unexpected findings (e.g., Jensen et al, 2017;Nyhan, Reifler, Richey, & Freed, 2014). Consistent with prior reviews, we found small effect sizes, which may have limited the statistical differences found with our sample.…”

“…To contribute to the growing literature on the message processing and persuasion effects of narratives, we sought to complement previous studies testing path models (Jensen et al, 2014;Jensen, Yale, Krakow, John, & King, 2017;Krakow et al, 2017;McQueen et al, 2011;Moyer-Guse & Nabi, 2010;Murphy et al, 2011;Quintero Johnson et al, 2013). We expected to find support for the inter-correlations between model variables and indirect effects on intention and behavior in our conceptual model.…”

Prevención del tabaquismo con mensajes narrativos. Estudio experimental sobre el efecto conjunto de la similitud con el protagonista y la voz narrativa

“…Los mensajes construidos en clave narrativa se utilizan cada vez más en la comunicación sanitaria para alcanzar objetivos de salud pública, como la prevención y detección de enfermedades (Frank, Murphy, Chatterjee, Moran y Baezconde-Garbanati, 2015;Green, 2006;Jensen, Yale, Krakow, John y King, 2017;Thompson y Kreuter, 2014). Se ha observado que los mensajes narrativos de salud son capaces de provocar cambios de creencias y actitudes coherentes, así como estimular comportamientos saludables (De Graaf, Sanders y Hoeken, 2016).…”

Third-Person Perception of Science Narratives: The Case of Climate Change Denial

“…nonexpert audiences about science. A number of recent journal articles have explored the impact of narratives across a range of science communication contexts (Cooper & Nisbet, 2016;Jensen, Yale, Krakow, John, & King, 2017;Muurlink & McAllister, 2015;Shaffer et al, 2017) and the National Academy of Sciences devoted a recent workshop to explore how narratives can benefit science (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine, 2017). This interest extends outside of academic contexts.…”