CHAPTER 16

Stories for Good: Transportation into Narrative Worlds

Kaitlin Fitzgerald and Melanie C. Green

Abstract

Narratives and literary works have delighted and enchanted audiences for centuries. This chapter explores how stepping into a narrative world can contribute to human flourishing. Engaging in stories can provide an escape from the mundane into a realm where one can safely discover new and otherwise inaccessible experiences; stories can also help create meaning and provide a framework for interpreting events in one’s world. The authors review research on narrative transportation: the experience of “losing oneself” in the world of story. They describe the antecedents and consequences of this state, and the ways in which transporting narratives may change attitudes and beliefs. They also examine the link between narratives and empathy, including research suggesting that reading fiction or literature may be associated with better social skills. Finally, they discuss the potential benefits of restorative narratives, a type of story focused on recovery and resilience.

Key Words: theatre, containment, embodiment, flourishing, psychological mechanism, transfer

Literature has been an enduring part of human culture since the days of oral storytelling traditions. Narratives and literature can contribute to the good life in a variety of ways. On a mundane level, they can help individuals escape from boredom or trouble in their everyday lives, providing fun or relief from stress. At a more profound level, narratives help individuals create meaning in their lives and provide ways for people to describe and interpret their experiences. Stories and the characters within them can provide a form of comfort and companionship, helping individuals feel less alone as they navigate common human experiences such as love, loss, or challenges. Literary works can be a source of beauty through their use of language, as well as allowing readers to see the world in a new and different way. Furthermore, stories can be a way for individuals to vicariously experience other lives. Stepping into these narrative worlds can both build empathy for other perspectives and expand individuals’ own horizons, providing glimpses into other possible realities, some of which may be incorporated into readers’ actual selves.

Narratives and literature provide imagined worlds for readers and viewers. These story worlds are likely to have the most effect when individuals are completely immersed or absorbed in them: transported into the narrative worlds. In this chapter, we will describe theory and research on transportation into narrative worlds, the state of being fully cognitively and emotionally absorbed in a story. These stories can come in the form of written works, spoken/audio stories, films, or even interactive narratives or story games. Furthermore, although we are focusing here on narratives and literature, some of the same broad ideas may potentially apply to other humanities areas, such as immersion into works of art or music.

Transportation into Narrative Worlds

Transportation as an Enjoyable and Sought-After State

Imagine you are sitting in a dark movie theater, completely mentally and emotionally immersed in the story unfolding on screen. For just a few hours, the stressors of day-to-day life dissipate. Every day, mass audiences eagerly escape into the alternate universes of movies, television, and books. The desire to replace mundane reality with new and exciting narrative worlds, even just for a short time, is evidenced by the thriving industry of entertainment media.

The capacity for entertaining narratives to immerse audiences within the world of a story is described by narrative transportation. The experience of transportation can be understood as an integrative melding of cognitive, emotional, and imagery involvement within a narrative world (Green & Brock, 2000; Green & Brock, 2002). This state is not only desirable and highly sought-after by audiences, it can foster narrative-based attitude and behavior change. While transported, individuals may become less likely to counterargue with the story, so as not to disrupt their own transportation and enjoyment (see Vorderer, Klimmt, & Ritterfeld, 2004); reduced counterarguing can lead to greater persuasion. (Literary scholars may recognize this tendency to accept claims in the narrative as a state that Coleridge (1817) termed the “willing suspension of disbelief.”) The elements involved in transportation itself—such as connections with story characters, mental imagery, and emotional engagement—can also affect persuasion.

Although transportation has long been used as a metaphor for narrative experience, psychological investigation of the concept of being “transported” to a narrative world was given special attention by cognitive psychologist Richard Gerrig (1993), who highlighted the analogy of traveling to a new place and returning somewhat changed by the journey. Gerrig (1993), and later Green and Brock (2000), drew a parallel between this experience and the experience of entering a story world, becoming immersed, and returning somewhat changed as a result (Green & Brock, 2000).

More generally, Narrative Transportation Theory describes the phenomenological experience of immersion in a narrative world, as well as the mechanisms underlying transportation effects and the circumstances under which transportation is enhanced or reduced (see Green & Brock, 2002; see also Green, Brock, & Kaufman, 2004).

Measurement of Transportation

The extent to which one is transported into a narrative can be measured using the fifteen-item Transportation Scale (TS; Green & Brock, 2000). The scale assesses the broad dimensions of transportation, including emotional involvement, cognitive attention, suspense, lack of awareness of surroundings, and mental imagery. The first eleven items capture the overall experience of being transported. Example items include, “While I was reading the narrative, I could easily picture the events in it taking place,” “I was mentally involved in the narrative while reading it,” and “While I was reading the narrative, activity going on in the room around me was on my mind” (reverse-coded). Four items assess imagery relative to the particular story; for example, having a vivid image of the story’s main character or setting. All items are assessed on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much).

The scale is useful for both written and audio/visual (AV) narratives, though the wording should be modified when necessary (e.g., “reading” would become “viewing” in AV narratives). A six-item short-form version of the TS (TS-SF; see Appel, Gnambs, Richter, & Green, 2015, for scale validation) may be especially useful in contexts where brevity is important or participant fatigue is a concern.

Related Concepts (e.g., Identification, Flow, Presence)

Transportation is related to other concepts such as identification with story characters (Cohen, 2001; see also Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008; Sestir & Green, 2010). Identification has been described in many ways, but in general it relates to experiencing narrative events from the perspective of the character, as if they were happening to readers themselves. Although transportation and identification tap unique experiences, the two tend to be highly correlated (e.g., measures of identification include items such as “While viewing [the program], I forgot myself and was fully absorbed”; Cohen, 2001). The same is also true for transportation and one’s general enjoyment of a narrative. Transportation and enjoyment tend to be positively correlated, but the two are conceptually different (see Green et al., 2004).

Other experiences that are conceptually similar to transportation include Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) flow, brought about by absorption in an activity that is optimally challenging to the individual and their level of skill, and presence (Klimmt & Vorderer, 2003), or perceived physical presence in a mediated world (a concept most often used in studies of virtual reality). Although these states share some characteristics with transportation (e.g., loss of time and spatial awareness), transportation is an experience specific to narratives. However, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) notes that reading is a common flow experience, and some of the flourishing benefits of transportation may overlap with those of flow.

Overview of Research on Transportation

The antecedents and outcomes of transportation have been studied extensively by media and narrative researchers (for a meta-analysis on transportation studies, see van Laer, de Ruyter, Visconti, & Wetzels, 2014). Studies on transportation tend to be experimental, in which certain aspects of a story are manipulated to assess their impact on transportation and, subsequently, the overall experience and persuasive effects. In a typical study, participants will read or view a story and then complete the transportation scale to assess their transportation into the story, as well as other survey items that assess, for example, changes in attitudes or beliefs relevant to the narrative. Transportation can also be experimentally manipulated through reading instructions or pre-story information, although these manipulations are not always successful (see Tukachinsky, 2014, for a review of experimental manipulations of transportation and related concepts).

Influences on Transportation

The likelihood of becoming transported varies from story to story, person to person, and across person and story (e.g., an interaction between story and person, as with story genre preferences). First, the features of a particular story can affect its likelihood to be transportive. Poor quality of the narrative text, such as a lack of coherence in the storyline, can decrease the likelihood that a reader will be transported. A distracting setting can also decrease transportation, whereas a quiet, controlled setting can increase a story message’s impact (Zwarun & Hall, 2012). Transportation is also less likely to occur in instances where the narrative text uses confusing language or is uninterpretable by the reader (see Kreuter et al., 2007, for further discussion of elements of narrative quality).

The extent to which the story, characters, and/or conflicts are understood can also relate to a reader’s narrative comprehension ability, which may differ across individuals. More broadly, some individuals have a higher tendency to be transported than others (Mazzocco, Green, Sasota, & Jones, 2010). The propensity of being transported has been described as one’s “transportability” (Dal Cin, Zanna, & Fong, 2004). Tendencies toward mental imagery production (e.g., how well readers can mentally imagine the story characters and events) and emotional responding should influence one’s transportability. Further, individuals high in need for affect (having a strong motivation to approach emotions) and those high in need for cognition (who enjoy exerting cognitive effort) are more susceptible to being transported (e.g., see Appel & Richter, 2010; Zwarun & Hall, 2012). Recent research also suggests that some individuals are uniquely motivated to engage with the minds and perspectives of others, including narrative characters (mind-reading motivation; Carpenter, Green, & Fitzgerald, 2018). Individuals with higher mind-reading motivation, who are innately curious about the perspectives of others, are more likely to be transported than those with lower mind-reading motivation.

Persuasive Outcomes of Transportation

In addition to the different influences on transportation, considerable research has provided evidence of the capacity for engaging narratives to persuade readers across a variety of social, psychological, and health domains (for a review, see de Graaf, Sanders, & Hoeken, 2016; Shen, Sheer, & Li, 2015; van Laer et al., 2014). In particular, public health organizations often use storytelling strategies to disseminate health-related messages (Kreuter et al., 2007; Merchant, Ford, & Sargeant, 2010). Transporting stories have been shown to be particularly effective in these contexts, as they can evoke self-relevant emotions which in turn can influence risk perceptions and screening or prevention behaviors (Dunlop, Wakefield, & Kashima, 2008, 2010). For example, one study found that more transportation into a story about the risks of tobacco was associated with higher reports to quit smoking at a two-week follow-up (Williams et al., 2011). Transportation can also aid in the retention of new health knowledge, and can influence subsequent health-related behaviors (Kim et al., 2012; Murphy et al., 2011; Murphy et al., 2013).

Although narratives are sometimes used by persuaders to increase flourishing through encouraging healthy or beneficial life choices, it is important to note, however, that unhealthy behaviors can also be modeled by transporting narratives. Research has shown that movies that depict a character smoking can increase smokers’ desire and intentions to smoke (Dal Cin et al., 2007). Thus, although research has tended to focus on the positive effects of transportation, future research may consider the instances when transportation and narrative persuasion could be used to promote negative or dangerous ideas.

Transportation, Literature, and Empathy

Beyond persuasion, one potential way that literature could contribute to flourishing is by helping in the development and exercise of empathy. Although a variety of definitions of empathy have been proposed, empathy is typically understood as understanding the perspectives of others and sharing their emotional experience (e.g., Davis, 1983).

The importance of connecting with narrative characters has been a theme throughout narrative psychology research, including topics such as identification with story characters (e.g., Cohen, 2001; Sestir & Green, 2010), social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), and parasocial interaction (e.g., Giles, 2002). Social cognitive theory focuses on characters as role models who can help individuals learn through vicarious experience; by seeing a character make choices and experience the rewards or punishments that flow from those choices, individuals can gain knowledge about the social world. Parasocial interaction refers to the “one-way” interaction that individuals might have with celebrities, television personalities, or story characters. Individuals may feel like the characters or celebrities are friends, but there is no direct interaction with them. These processes may draw upon individuals’ empathic abilities.

Connecting with others is a central part of the human experience, and similarly, perspective-taking is a key aspect of narrative processing. In fact, Zunshine (2006) proposed that fiction reading is rewarding primarily because it allows individuals to exercise their theory of mind or perspective-taking abilities. Theory of mind refers to the ability to impute mental states to oneself and to others, and to recognize that others may hold different views of the world than oneself (e.g., Premack & Woodruff, 1978).

Research has explored the link between reading and empathy in two ways: through experimental studies of the immediate link between different types of texts and empathy, and through longitudinal or correlational studies of the relationship between fiction-reading and social skills.

In one of the pioneering studies on this topic, Mar and colleagues have shown that, despite the common “bookworm” stereotype of the socially awkward reader, individuals who frequently read fiction (as indicated by recognizing the names of authors) appear to have stronger social skills, at least on some measures (Mar, Oatley, Hirsh, de la Paz, & Peterson, 2006). In particular, frequent fiction-readers demonstrated a greater ability to read the emotions of others through the “mind in the eyes” task (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001), a well-established instrument that measures a person’s ability to interpret emotion given a limited amount of social information (individuals must identify an emotion from a picture showing only a person’s eyes). However, other related measures in the study (a video-based interpersonal perception task and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index empathy measure) did not show statistically significant effects.

Additional research on the relationship between reading fiction or literature and social cognition generally confirmed this relationship, suggesting that lifetime exposure to fiction is associated with slightly higher social-cognitive skills (Bal & Veltkamp, 2013; Mar et al., 2006; Mar, Oatley, & Peterson, 2009; Panero et al., 2016; see Mumper & Gerrig, 2017, for a meta-analysis). Some initial experimental work suggested that exposure to a literary work (as compared to nonliterary reading) led to immediate improvements in social abilities (Kidd & Castano, 2013; see also Kidd, Ongis, & Castano, 2016); the authors argued that the complexity of literary reading, which requires intellectual engagement and creative thought, might put individuals in a mindset that attunes them to social information. However, despite these promising early results, a number of later experiments have failed to replicate the findings about short-term influences of reading a work of fiction or literature (e.g., Black & Barnes, 2015; De Mulder, Hakemulder, van den Berghe, Klaassen, & van Berkum, 2017). These failures to replicate included a well-powered direct replication attempt (Camerer et al., 2018). However, taken as a whole, this research suggests that despite the absence of significant immediate or short-term influence, the repeated practice of mental simulation through narratives is associated with real-world social skills.

One area for future research is how exactly this empathy effect occurs. Are particular elements of literature or fiction necessary for creating better social awareness? It is possible that individuals who read literature are better able to identify their own emotions and those of others, and that being able to put these experiences into words leads to greater social skill.

Transportation as a Way of Escaping and/or Expanding the Self

In addition to creating connections with others through empathy, transporting stories or literature can also directly affect the self. Some lines of research have focused on the idea that stories can be a distraction from negative situations or negative self-thoughts (Moskalenko & Heine, 2003), or can temporarily relieve the burdens of self-regulation (Slater et al., 2014). These experiences can promote well-being by reducing negative experiences.

In addition to serving as a form of relief from negative psychological states, stories can also contribute more directly to flourishing by providing a pathway for individuals to try on new identities or have vicarious experiences (Green, 2005). The experience of transportation may loosen the boundaries of the self, allowing individuals to more easily take on the experiences of characters. These experiences may then help individuals construct their future selves, by modeling themselves after a character’s bravery or independence, for example; having positive role models can help lead to well-being or flourishing.

Restorative Narratives: Narratives of Recovery from Trauma or Difficulty

The benefits of narrative engagement extend beyond stories read purely for fun. Narratives about recovery from trauma or difficulty, such as restorative narratives (Tenore, 2015; see also Dahmen, 2019; Fitzgerald, Paravati, Green, Moore, & Qian, 2020), may provide an especially positive emotional state and, as a result, promote audience well-being.

Restorative narratives share instances of trauma while highlighting themes of hope and perseverance. This shift in focus allows audiences to emotionally engage with negative content—content that might otherwise generate a need to regulate emotions to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Sharing a story that is restorative rather than problem-focused could also increase empathic responses to those suffering in the story and promote a desire to help. Helping might include aiding those directly affected by the event in the story, or individuals affected by related issues (e.g., donating to a disaster relief fund after reading a restorative narrative about a hurricane victim). Moreover, because restorative narratives illustrate the value of resilience in the face of adversity, they may allow audiences themselves to feel more resilient (Fitzgerald et al., 2020).

Restorative narratives initially emerged as a journalistic approach to counteract negative news, which, rather than motivating a sense of urgency and need for action, could emotionally overwhelm and exhaust its audiences (e.g., see Pfefferbaum et al., 2014). Images & Voices of Hope (ivoh, now a part of The Peace Studio; see ivoh.org for more information) is a nonprofit organization which first proposed the term “restorative narrative,” as well as several characteristics and outcomes of the restorative narrative genre. In particular, ivoh identified certain restorative narrative features (e.g., they capture hard truths, they are sustained inquiries, they show meaningful progression; see Tenore, 2015, for a list and description of all proposed features). Although little empirical research has examined restorative narratives, Fitzgerald et al. (2020) utilized the features proposed by ivoh to create a working definition and two testable features of restorative narratives: restorative narrative is a story that provides an authentic sharing of negative experiences while highlighting the strength and meaningful progression of the individual. Thus, a restorative narrative should contain elements of (a) strength, such as resilience, and (b) a meaningful progression of the individual or community experiencing the hardship.

Fitzgerald et al. (2020) further provided some initial evidence of the unique effects of restorative narratives. In their study, the researchers compared a restorative narrative to a negative narrative about a woman’s diagnosis and treatment of a rare disease. The restorative version of the story featured strengths of the narrative character (e.g., perseverance despite setbacks), and her progression through treatment throughout the story.

Results suggested that the restorative narrative, compared to a negative version of the same story—that is, a version nearly identical to the restorative narrative other than a few sentences and sections that, instead of strengths or progression, focused on problems or negative aspects of the diagnosis and treatment—led to more positive and prosocial outcomes. In particular, the restorative narrative evoked more positive emotions and a greater desire to read and share the story as compared to the negative version. The restorative narrative also increased the willingness to help through these emotions. These effects have also been replicated with different stories (e.g., recovery from natural disasters; addiction; Fitzgerald, Green, & Paravati, 2020). Additional research has explored restorative narrative specifically in the context of journalism (Abdenour, McIntyre, & Dahmen, 2017; Dahmen, 2019; McIntyre, Dahmen, & Abdenour, 2018), for example, assessing how restorative narratives may fit into the landscape of modern journalistic reporting.

Future research should continue to examine how restorative narratives can impact audiences’ well-being, particularly through repeated exposure to restorative narratives over time.

Conclusion

Narratives and literature not only record the human experience, they can also enhance it. Individuals who are transported into story worlds can relieve the stresses of their lives, find new senses of meaning, experience beauty, and even transform themselves. Becoming absorbed into works of literature can contribute to flourishing in multiple ways. Although research has provided important insights into how these processes occur, future studies can continue to illuminate the types of content, literary forms, and other variations that create positive psychological effects.

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