The role of dimensions of narrative engagement in narrative persuasion

Several models o f narrative persuasion posit that a reader’s phenomenolog­ ical experience o f a narrative plays a mediating role in the persuasive ef­ fects o f the narrative. Because the narrative reading experience is multi­ dimensional, this experiment investigates which dimensions o f this experi­ ence referred to here as narrative engagement mediate between read­ ing a story and the persuasive effects o f the story. Narrative engagement was manipulated by giving participants a selection task to carry out while reading or by adding language errors to the story. Results showed that the task decreased the engagement dimension Being in Narrative World and the language errors decreased the dimension Attentional Focus. No corre­ sponding effects on attitudes were found. However, comparisons with a control group showed that reading the story rendered attitudes more consis­ tent with the story. Regression analysis indicated that this effect may be explained by readers’ emotions regarding the characters.