Abstract

Most recent research examining the influence of story-based advertisements on persuasion leverages theories of narrative and character involvement. These theories emphasize emotional engagement as key to stories’ persuasive influence. Researchers who build on these theories tend to assume that an audience will experience the emotions depicted by a focal character and examine emotional engagement with respect to intensity (i.e., amount of emotion experienced). The current work integrates insights from the appraisal theory of emotion to develop a framework of audience emotional engagement in stories. We expand the current conceptualization of emotional engagement in narratives to include the discrete emotion experienced while involved in the story as well as the event appraisals that elicit the emotions. We highlight antecedents of an audience’s emotional response to a story and ways in which the appraisal theme associated with the discrete emotion experienced while emotionally engaged in a narrative ad explains variance in outcomes of importance to advertisers.

摘要

最近研究基于故事的广告对说服力的影响的研究利用了叙事和角色参与的理论。这些理论强调情感参与是故事说服力的关键。建立在这些理论基础上的研究人员倾向于假设观众将体验到焦点人物所描绘的情绪，并根据强度（即所体验的情绪量）检查情绪参与。目前的工作整合了情感评估理论的见解，以开发一个观众情感参与故事的框架。我们扩展了叙事中情感参与的当前概念化，以包括参与故事时经历的离散情感以及引发情感的事件评估。