University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Language Centre, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
PLoS One. 2019 Apr 18;14(4):e0215359. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0215359. eCollection 2019.
Stories are often used in health communication because of accumulating evidence of their potential to affect people's attitudes and health behavioral intentions. Similarity between the reader and the story's protagonist appears to positively influence narrative persuasion, but the exact role of similarity on persuasive outcomes is debated, as some research finds clear effects of similarity manipulations whereas others do not. Possibly, these mixed results were found because the similarity manipulations were not always relevant to the topic of the story. We conducted an experiment (N = 582) in which we varied the age and gender of the protagonist, features that were of central relevance to the story's topic, namely breast cancer versus testicular cancer. There were two groups of participants: 324 students (mean age: 21.46 years) and 258 older adults (mean age: 56.83 years). Age similarity (but not gender similarity) had an effect on identification with the protagonist, transportation (i.e. the experience of being absorbed into a story), and the intention to donate, but only for students. For older adults, age or gender of the protagonist did not seem to matter, as nearly no differences in persuasive measures were found. As far as the underlying mechanism is concerned, the results of structural equation modeling showed that the concept of 'perceived similarity' would be a relevant addition to models of narrative persuasion, as it was significantly related to the narrative processes of transportation and identification, which, in turn, predicted attitudes and behavioral intentions, both directly-in the case of transportation-or indirectly, via the emotion of compassion. We conclude that both manipulated and perceived similarity are important for narrative persuasion, and that it should be kept on the research agenda of health communication.
故事在健康传播中经常被使用，因为有越来越多的证据表明它们有可能影响人们的态度和健康行为意向。读者与故事主角之间的相似性似乎会对叙事说服产生积极影响，但相似性对说服结果的确切作用存在争议，因为一些研究发现相似性操纵的明显效果，而另一些研究则没有。可能是因为相似性操纵并不总是与故事的主题相关，所以才会得出这些混合的结果。我们进行了一项实验（N=582），其中我们改变了主角的年龄和性别，这些特征与故事主题密切相关，即乳腺癌与睾丸癌。参与者分为两组：324 名学生（平均年龄：21.46 岁）和 258 名老年人（平均年龄：56.83 岁）。年龄相似性（而不是性别相似性）对与主角的认同、代入感（即被故事吸引的体验）和捐赠意愿产生了影响，但仅对学生有影响。对于老年人来说，主角的年龄或性别似乎并不重要，因为在说服措施上几乎没有差异。就潜在机制而言，结构方程模型的结果表明，“感知相似性”的概念将是叙事说服模型的一个相关补充，因为它与代入感和认同等叙事过程显著相关，而代入感和认同又直接（在代入感的情况下）或间接（通过同情的情感）预测态度和行为意向。我们得出的结论是，无论是操纵的相似性还是感知的相似性，对于叙事说服都是重要的，并且应该在健康传播的研究议程中保留下来。
