Death Narratives, Negative Emotion, and Counterarguing: Testing Fear, Anger, and Sadness as Mechanisms of Effect

Helen M. Lillie; Jakob D. Jensen; Manusheela Pokharel; Sean J. Upshaw

doi:10.1080/10810730.2021.1981495

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Death Narratives, Negative Emotion, and Counterarguing: Testing Fear, Anger, and Sadness as Mechanisms of Effect

Journal article

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Death Narratives, Negative Emotion, and Counterarguing: Testing Fear, Anger, and Sadness as Mechanisms of Effect

Helen M. Lillie, Jakob D. Jensen, Manusheela Pokharel and Sean J. Upshaw

Journal of health communication, Vol.26(8), pp.586-595

08/03/2021

DOI: 10.1080/10810730.2021.1981495

PMCID: PMC8631252

PMID: 34569434

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/8631252View

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Abstract

Narrative messaging research has demonstrated that story outcome (e.g., whether the main character lives or dies) can impact audience behavior, but more research explicating and testing mechanistic pathways is needed. The current study tests fear, anger, and sadness as mechanisms of persuasion, assessing effects on counterarguing, reading flow, and behavioral intention. The current study utilized a 2 (story outcome: death vs. survivor) × 4 (story character: Marla, Erin, Don, and Ray) between-participants experiment (N = 735) to test the effect of story outcome on behavioral intentions via discrete emotion. Death narratives generated greater fear, anger, and sadness. Fear was related to greater behavioral intention and reading flow and diminished counterarguing. Sadness had the opposite effect. Anger produced a mixed persuasive effect, increasing both counterarguing and reading flow. Results have implications for discrete emotions theorizing and underscore the importance of conceptualizing narrative stimuli along multiple affective dimensions rather than single dimensions.

Details

Title: Subtitle: Death Narratives, Negative Emotion, and Counterarguing: Testing Fear, Anger, and Sadness as Mechanisms of Effect
Creators: Helen M. Lillie - University of Utah
Jakob D. Jensen - University of Utah
Manusheela Pokharel - Texas State University
Sean J. Upshaw - The University of Texas at Austin
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Journal of health communication, Vol.26(8), pp.586-595
DOI: 10.1080/10810730.2021.1981495
PMID: 34569434
PMCID: PMC8631252
NLM abbreviation: J Health Commun
ISSN: 1081-0730
eISSN: 1087-0415
Publisher: Routledge
Grant note: DOI: 10.13039/100000002, name: National Institutes of Health, award: 1DP2EB022360-01, 3P30CA042014-29S7
Language: English
Date published: 08/03/2021
Academic Unit: Communication Studies
Record Identifier: 9984309653002771

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