RESEARCH ARTICLE Acknowledging Individual Responsibility while Emphasizing Social Determinants in Narratives to Promote Obesity-Reducing Public Policy: A Randomized Experiment

This study tests whether policy narratives designed to increase support for obesity-reducing public policies should explicitly acknowledge individual responsibility while emphasizing so-cial, physical, and economic (social) determinants of obesity. We use a web-based, ran-domized experiment with a nationally representative sample of American adults (n = 718) to test hypotheses derived from theory and research on narrative persuasion. Respondents exposed to narratives that acknowledged individual responsibility while emphasizing obe-sity’s social determinants were less likely to engage in counterargument and felt more em-pathy for the story’s main character than those exposed to a message that did not acknowledge individual responsibility. Counterarguing and affective empathy fully mediated the relationship between message condition and support for policies to reduce rates of obe-sity. Failure to acknowledge individual responsibility in narratives emphasizing social deter-minants of obesity may undermine the persuasiveness of policy narratives. Omitting information about individual responsibility, a strongly-held American value, invites the public to engage in counterargument about the narratives and reduces feelings of empathy for a character that experiences the challenges and benefits of social determinants of obesity