This story is not for everyone: Transportability and narrative persuasion

Across two studies, the authors examined the role of individual differences in transportability, the tendency to become transported into narratives, in predicting the degree of attitude change resulting from persuasive narratives. In Study 1 (N 137), participants were persuaded by a story promoting tolerance toward homosexuals only to the extent that they self-rated as highly transportable. In Study 2 (N 298), this finding was replicated using the topic of affirmative action. Study 2 further showed that the effects of transportability were unique to narratives and did not extend to rhetorical communications. Across both studies, the link between transportability and attitudes was found to be mediated by emotional, empathic responses as opposed to rationalistic appraisals. The theoretical and applied implications of this work are discussed. Keywords persuasion, attitudes, social justice, emotion, applied social psychology It has long been assumed that gripping stories, or narratives, can function as effective vessels for persuasion. According to the transportation imagery model of narrative persuasion, nar-ratives will tend to be more persuasive when they elicit from recipients a state of psychological transportation (Green & Brock, 2000, 2002). Transportation can be thought of as an integrative melding of attention, imagery, and emotion, focused on story events (Gerrig, 1993; Green & Brock, 2000, 2002). Transported readers see the action of the story unfolding before them and respond emotionally to story events. Impor-tantly, past research has demonstrated that individuals who are more transported exhibit greater attitude and belief change i