"It Happened to Me and It's Serious": Conditional Indirect Effects of Infection Severity Narrated in Testimonial Tweets on COVID-19 Prevention

The health crisis caused by COVID-19 resulted in societal breakdowns around the world. Our research is based on determining which features of testimonial messages are most relevant in increasing persuasive impact. An online experiment with a 2 (severity infection narrative: low vs. high) × 2 (infection target: narrative's protagonist vs. protagonist's father) between-subject factorial design was carried out. Young people between 18 and 28 years (N = 278) were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions, where they were asked to read a narrative message in the form of a Twitter thread describing a COVID-19 infection (with mild or severe symptoms) that affected either the protagonist of the message (a 23-year-old young person) or their father. After reading the narrative message, the mediating and dependent variables were evaluated. A message describing a severe COVID-19 infection affecting their protagonist to increase the perception of personal risk increased the persuasive impact through an increase in cognitive elaboration and a reduction in reactance. Our study highlights that creating persuasive messages based on social media targeted at young people that describe a careless behavior resulting in a severe COVID-19 infection can be an appropriate strategy for designing prevention campaigns.

Does Internet Use Promote Subjective Well-Being? Evidence from the Different Age Groups Based on CGSS 2017 Data

Mobile Internet technology has developed so rapidly that the Internet has become indispensable in everyday life. There is a continuous debate about the relationship between internet use and subjective well-being. In contrast to observing whether one has Internet access, this paper focuses on three dimensions of Internet usage: frequency of use, online relationship size, and Internet proficiency. Based on the Chinese nationwide data collected in 2017, the results of the ordinary least squares regression model demonstrate that Internet use has a significant positive association with subjective well-being. In addition, this study also discovers that the effect of Internet use on the subjective well-being of individuals of different ages is heterogeneous; middle-aged individuals benefit from more frequent Internet use and larger-scale networks; the young and older adults benefit from organizing communication in groups. The results of this study can provide targeted suggestions for improving the subjective well-being of different age groups in Internet use.

Efectos de la modalidad de presentación de un mensaje de educación-entretenimiento de prevención del VIH

Introducción: Se presentan los resultados de un estudio experimental para contrastar el efecto de la modalidad de presentación de un mensaje de educación-entretenimiento (escrito versus audiovisual) en los procesos cognitivos de recepción, en función de la necesidad de cognición. Método: Participaron 109 hombres que tienen sexo con hombres (HSH), distribuidos aleatoriamente en dos condiciones experimentales (mensaje escrito versus mensaje audiovisual). Resultados: Se encontró que la necesidad de cognición moderó el efecto de la modalidad del mensaje sobre la elaboración cognitiva (el mensaje escrito incrementaba la elaboración cognitiva en participantes con baja necesidad de cognición) y sobre la contraargumentación (el formato escrito generó menor contraargumentación en participantes con alta necesidad de cognición),pero no sobre la reactancia. Conclusiones: La efectividad de un mensaje de educación-entretenimiento está determinada tanto por las características del mensaje (la modalidad de presentación) como por las diferencias individuales de las personas (la necesidad de cognición). De manera particular, la necesidad de cognición es una variable relevante para comprender los procesos cognitivos de recepción (la elaboración cognitiva y la contraargumentación) que desempeñan un papel fundamental en el estudio de la persuasión narrativa.

Personal migrant stories as persuasive devices: Effects of audience–character similarity and narrative voice

The design of campaigns for the improvement of intergroup attitudes requires innovative approaches that consider both the characteristics of the messages and the psychological processes they evoke. This work addresses the study of factors that increase the persuasive effectiveness of testimonial messages aimed at improving attitudes towards stigmatized immigrants. An experiment was conducted using a representative sample of 443 participants of Spanish origin on the effect of similarity to the protagonist and the narrative voice. Two mediating mechanisms (identification with the protagonist and cognitive elaboration) were evaluated, and the indirect effect of the two independent variables was studied with respect to two dependent variables: the attitude towards immigration and the intention to collaborate with NGOs to support immigrants. Similarity to the protagonist of the narrative message increased identification only when the participants read the version written in the first person. In addition, a conditional process model was tested, revealing that identification increased cognitive elaboration, which, in turn, was associated with a more favorable attitude towards immigration and a greater intention to collaborate with immigrant support organizations. This study highlights the relevance of the characteristics of narrative messages to increase affective (identification) and cognitive (elaboration) processes that explain their persuasive impact. The results are discussed in the context of research on narrative persuasion and the design of campaigns for the prevention of racism and xenophobia.

Personal narratives to improve attitudes towards stigmatized immigrants: A parallel-serial mediation model

This work addresses the study of factors that increase the persuasive efficacy of testimonial messages aimed at improving intergroup attitudes. The results of two online experiments ( N = 840) on the effect of empathy with, and similarity to, the protagonist in personal stories designed to improve attitudes towards immigrants are presented. In both studies, participants were given instructions to induce a certain exposure condition (empathy vs. an objective or distanced perspective) immediately before reading a narrative whose protagonist was an immigrant with high or low similarity to the audience. The results of mediation analysis show that both empathy and similarity increased identification and narrative transportation, which in turn reduced counterarguing, thus resulting in a more positive attitude towards the outgroup and lower threat perception. The results are discussed in the context of research on narrative persuasion and the design of campaigns to reduce racism and xenophobia.

Smoking prevention with narrative messages. An experimental study on the joint effect of audience-character similarity and narrative voice

This study focuses on smoking prevention using narrative messages. In particular, the role of two narrative attributes that can indirectly influence the intention to quit smoking, self-efficacy expectations and the perceived effectiveness of the preventive response were analysed. An experimental study was carried out (N = 680, 50% women and age range 18-55 years) with a 2 (narrative voice: first- vs. third-person message) x 2 (audience-protagonist similarity: low vs. high) between-subjects factorial design. Results showed that the optimal reception condition (first-person narrative with a highly similar protagonist to the audience) induced the highest levels of identification with the protagonist (a former smoker who described the process of quitting smoking and subsequent the improvements he has experienced). Mediational analyses showed that the optimal reception condition exerted significant indirect effects on the dependent variables, due to the increase in identification and reactance reduction. In addition, the optimal reception condition also exerted a significant indirect effect on the perceived effectiveness of the preventive response that was explained by stronger identification and weaker counterarguing. The present study opens an innovative line of research on the construction of narrative messages for smoking prevention. The relevance of the characteristics of these messages is highlighted in order to activate mediating processes that facilitate persuasion.

Narrative Voice Matters! Improving Smoking Prevention with Testimonial Messages through Identification and Cognitive Processes

Narrative messages are increasingly being used in the field of tobacco prevention. Our study is based on narrative persuasion and aims to analyze the psychological mechanisms that explain why the narrative voice is relevant to promote persuasive impact. An online experiment with a 2 (narrative voice) × 2 (message) factorial design was carried out. Participants (525 adult smokers) were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions (first-person versus third-person narrative message). To increase the external validity of the study, two different messages were used within each condition. After reading the narrative message the mediating and dependent variables were evaluated. Participants who read the narrative in the first person experienced greater identification. Moreover, mediational analysis showed that both counterarguing and cognitive elaboration played a significant role in the relationship between narrative voice, identification, and persuasive impact. This study confirm that narrative voice is not only an anecdotal formal choice but that it indirectly affects variables related to tobacco prevention, due to the fact that first-person messages activate a mechanism of affective connection with the message (increasing the identification with the protagonist) that decreases resistance to prevention (the counterarguing process) while simultaneously stimulating reflection or cognitive elaboration.

Identification With Characters, Elaboration, and Counterarguing in Entertainment-Education Interventions Through Audiovisual Fiction

The aim of this article is to further knowledge of the explanatory processes of narrative persuasion in the field of health communication, using data obtained in a research study of entertainment-education based on audiovisual fiction. Participating in the study were 208 young persons between the ages of 14 and 20, randomly distributed to three different groups. Each of the groups was exposed to a different episode of the Colombian television series Revelados, desde todas las posiciones. The results showed that greater identification with the main character of the episode transmitting a prevention message was associated with greater cognitive elaboration, which in turn led to more favorable attitudes toward the topics addressed. However, counterarguing was not observed to play a significant mediating role. The findings of this study allow us to conclude that getting people to think and reflect can help persuade them, which suggests that narrative persuasion models and dual models of rhetorical persuasion can be compatible in certain contexts, such as when messages are designed in such a way that characters make explicit arguments that endorse a prosocial message through dialogues.

Skills of Digital Literacy to Address the Risks of Interactive Communication

New technologies are fully integrated into the lives of children, so every day they spend more and more time using them. It is noteworthy that technologies offer many opportunities and benefits for children, but they are also associated with disadvantages and dangers. For this reason, parents and educators fear that children could suffer any of the network risks: exposure to pornography, cyberbullying, sexual harassment or grooming, sexting, contact with strangers, and impersonation. In this situation, the authors should not deprive minors of the use of digital technologies. Nevertheless, the solution is to provide them with digital skills so they become digital literate and can use these tools safely. Therefore, through this study they sought to identify the skills that compound digital literacy: technological or instrumental, communication, information, critical, and security. Finally, the authors propose the implementation of a literacy intervention with the aim of providing the children with these skills.

Language use depending on news frame and immigrant origin

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of the media on individuals' specific language use in relation to a news story on immigration: the influence of the news frame and group cue. Abstraction, complexity of language use, and negative affective language were evaluated. The 523 participants were randomly distributed to each of the four experimental conditions: news frame (crime versus economic contribution) by group cue (geographical origin of the immigrants involved: Moroccans versus Latin Americans). Through content analysis of the ideas and reflections that arose after the participants read the different news stories, using the Linguistic Category Model (LCM; Semin & Fiedler, 1991) to measure abstract language and the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2007) to analyze complex language and negative affective language, it emerged that abstract language and negative affective language were more frequent in the participants assigned to the news frame on crime. Complex language was more commonly used when the news frame referred to the economic contribution of immigrants. Regression analyses showed the mediating role of attitude to immigration in the effects of news frame on negative affective language. The bootstrap method was used to assess the magnitude of the indirect effect. A significant mediator effect was also found through structural equation modeling. Analyses of covariance showed one interaction between news frame and group cue: Among those who read the news story in a frame linking immigration to crime and Moroccan origin, abstract language was more characteristic. The results are discussed from the theoretical perspective of framing.