Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Incorporating Psychological Distance Framing in Narrative Persuasion

科学家经常使用数字和统计数据与公众沟通健康和环境风险。然而，公众可能会发现这种类型的消息很难理解或没有吸引力。相比之下，叙事或故事可能提供了一种有效的选择。当阅读一篇精心设计的叙事时，人们可能会发现自己沉浸在一个想象的世界中，并对所描绘的人物产生了认同。这些过程被称为传递和认同，说明了叙事如何改变人们的态度和行为。值得注意的是，当人们在进行叙事时，他们可能会感觉更接近人物或场景，这也可能影响他们对故事中所描述的问题的看法。这项研究项目调查了叙事是否真的减少了人们对人物和场景的感知距离，从而影响了他们对海洋塑料污染和电子烟使用这两个风险话题的态度。具体地说，参与者将阅读一个叙事，它要么以近距离情景(例如海洋塑料污染损害自己的国家)为特色，要么以遥远的情景(例如海洋塑料污染损害外国)为特色，并描绘与他们相似或不同的人物。然后，我们考察了叙事中的这些差异是否影响了他们的运输和认同水平，更重要的是，他们是否报告了与叙事中促进的立场一致的态度变化。这个项目将帮助风险沟通专家制定叙述性说服信息，以更有效地针对不同的个人。本研究试图通过心理距离的视角来推进风险沟通中叙事说服的理论化。有两个主要目标。首先，本研究探讨了叙事如何影响风险沟通的结果。中心论点是，通过传递和认同的中介，叙事说服的有效性受到受众之间的感知距离和叙事中所呈现的风险的影响。其次，本研究旨在将距离框架融入到叙事信息设计中，以有效地沟通抽象和不确定的风险。具体地说，本研究试图找出与叙事特征和叙事场景相关的距离线索在说服效果实现中的作用。这两个实验的特点是基于性格和基于情景的距离线索不同。这些实验的重点是一个环境风险-海洋塑料污染，以及一个健康风险-电子烟的使用。公众对这两个话题的认知本质上都是心理距离的四个维度--社会、空间、时间和假设。通过在不同的环境和健康情境下对所提出的理论框架进行检验，本研究具有广泛的理论和实践意义。这个项目的发现有助于叙事说服和风险沟通的文献，并为在信息活动和娱乐教育中广泛使用的叙事信息的设计提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Scientists often use numbers and statistics to communicate health and environmental risks with the public. Members of the public, however, may find this type of messaging difficult to understand or unappealing. In contrast, narrative or stories may offer an effective alternative. When reading a well-crafted narrative, people may find themselves absorbed into an imaginary world and identify with the characters portrayed. These processes, termed as transportation and identification, illustrate how narratives may change people’s attitudes and behaviors. Notably, when people are engaged in a narrative, they may feel closer to the characters or the scenario, which may also influence their perception about the issue featured in the story. This research project examines whether narratives indeed reduce the distance people perceive toward the characters and the scenario and subsequently influence their attitudes toward two risk topics – ocean plastic pollution and e-cigarette use. Specifically, participants will read a narrative that features either a close scenario (e.g., ocean plastic pollution harming their own country) or a far scenario (e.g., ocean plastic pollution harming a foreign country), and portrays characters that are either similar or different from them. We then examine whether these differences in the narrative influence their transportation and identification levels, and more importantly, whether they report attitude changes that are consistent with the positions promoted in the narrative. This project will help risk communication experts craft narrative persuasion messages to target different individuals more effectively. This research project seeks to advance the theorization of narrative persuasion in risk communication through the lens of psychological distance. There are two main objectives. First, this research explores how using narrative can influence risk communication outcomes. The central argument is that via the mediation of transportation and identification, the effectiveness of narrative persuasion is influenced by the perceived distance between audience and the risk featured in the narrative. Second, the research aims to incorporate distance framing into narrative message design to effectively communicate about abstract and uncertain risks. Specifically, this research seeks to identify the impacts of distance cues associated with narrative character and narrative scenario in actualizing persuasion effects. The two experiments feature different character-based and scenario-based distance cues. The experiments focus on one environmental risk – ocean plastic pollution, and one health risk – e-cigarette use. Intrinsic to public perception of these two topics are all four dimensions of psychological distance – social, spatial, temporal, and hypothetical. By testing the proposed theoretical framework in different environmental and health contexts, this research has broad theoretical and practical implications. Findings from this project contribute to the literature on narrative persuasion and risk communication and inform the design of narrative messaging that is widely utilized in information campaigns and entertainment education.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.