ABSTRACT

The current article tests the metacognitive proposition that the relative ease or difficulty with which narrative messages are processed can affect subsequent judgment. Challenging the assertion that experienced disfluency is mostly negative and undesirable, it is argued that disfluent (difficult-to-process) narratives are well-positioned to facilitate narrative persuasion when people hold value-laden beliefs. Using the controversial context of physician-assisted suicide, two experiments (N₁ = 204, N₂ = 558) demonstrate that a metacognitive experience of difficulty is used to infer positions regarding the narrative message. The article then proceeds to test a theoretical model, showing that fluent narratives gain their strength by facilitating the experience of flow among ambivalent individuals, whereas disfluent narratives can challenge value-laden beliefs by attenuating attitude certainty. Implications are discussed and future directions for a metacognitive approach to narrative persuasion are offered.

摘要

当前文章测试了元认知命题，即处理叙事信息的相对难易程度会影响后续判断。对经历不流畅大多是负面和不受欢迎的断言提出质疑，有人认为，当人们持有价值负载信念时，不流畅（难以处理）的叙述可以很好地促进叙述说服。使用医生协助自杀的有争议的背景，两个实验（N ₁  =  204，N ₂  = 558）证明了困难的元认知体验被用来推断关于叙事信息的立场。然后，文章继续测试一个理论模型，表明流畅的叙事通过促进矛盾个体之间的流动体验而获得力量，而不流畅的叙事可以通过削弱态度确定性来挑战价值承载的信念。讨论了影响，并提供了叙事说服的元认知方法的未来方向。