Reflecting on the journey: Mechanisms in narrative persuasion

Abstract

Abstract Recent work demonstrates that narratives persuade via mechanisms distinct from other persuasive message formats. The present work draws from the discourse processing and communication literature to introduce a construct of retrospective reflection as an additional mediator in narrative persuasion. Retrospective reflection represents self or other‐relevant memories evoked by transportation into a story, which corroborates and extends story‐implied beliefs into the reader's world. The reported studies indicate that retrospective reflection is distinct from transportation, mediates the relationship between transportation and various persuasion‐related outcomes, and predicts these outcomes beyond transportation. The current work also examines the influence of personal relevance (Study 2) and cognitive load (Study 3) to better understand the role of retrospective reflection in narrative persuasion.