2. Narrative Persuasion with Testimonial Messages: Advancing the Study of Psychological Mechanisms
infection, guilt, ’s illness, COVID-19 infection
INFECTION, DISEASE, COVID-19 INFECTION, SECONDARY
Empirical evidence has demonstrated the effectiveness of narrative messages for health communication [The main theoretical models of narrative persuasion [Identification with the protagonist is defined as a multidimensional construct linked to emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, the feeling of merging with the character and adopting their goals [In the context of our research, the testimonial message manipulated who was infected with COVID-19 (either the young protagonist narrating the story or their father). However, both versions of the story mentioned that the infection had resulted from the protagonist’s imprudent behavior. Engaging in imprudent behavior that could result in a family member’s illness can be regarded as a negative attribute of the story’s protagonist. Therefore, it could be expected that identification with the protagonist of the message would be lower when the person infected by COVID-19 was the protagonist’s father, especially when the symptoms caused by the disease were severe. This led to the first hypothesis of the study:
Narrative transportation is a psychological process that involves a state of immersion in the story and integrates three components: the focusing of attention on the story, affective induction and the formation of highly vivid mental images of the characters and situations described in the message. It is also one of the main mechanisms that explain how stories persuade people [
Reactance is a process associated with resistance to persuasion attempts that is activated when the individual perceives that their freedom of choice is being threatened [Taking as reference the role of guilt and reactance and their effect on the younger population, we proposed that reactance may be an important process in the prevention of COVID-19 through testimonial messages. We assumed that a narrative that attributed to the protagonist the responsibility for the COVID-19 infection of a family member (the protagonist’s father) would induce greater reactance than a narrative that alluded that the target of the contagion was the person who committed the irresponsible behavior, and this effect would be greater when the narrative mentioned that the infection symptoms were severe.
According to the extended parallel processing model (EPPM), which has previously been applied to explain the effects of fear appeals, the degree to which a person feels threatened by a health problem determines their motivation to act preventively. Thus, the greater the perceived threat, the greater that motivation [
A recent study found that the components of the EPPM (perceived efficacy and perceived threat) positively influenced the intention to stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic [Therefore, we assumed that for the message to exert a significant effect on prevention measures, it had to elicit the perception that the COVID-19 infection narrated in the message was serious and that the person suffering from it was the young protagonist. This process, in turn, would activate different At this point, we held the assumption that in order for a narrative message to have a persuasive impact, it had to trigger a sequence of psychological processes that acted as mediator mechanisms. In this context, the proposed relevant mediators were the perception of the severity of the infection described in the message (primary mediator), identification with the protagonist, narrative transportation, reactance and cognitive elaboration (secondary mediators). In this given context, it was proposed that when the testimonial narrative described a severe COVID-19 infection (as opposed to a mild one), in which the person telling the story was directly involved (the young protagonist versus their father), the perceived severity of the infection would increase. This heightened perception, in turn, would be associated with a greater identification with the protagonist, increased narrative transportation, lower reactance and greater cognitive elaboration. In turn, these processes would be associated with a greater perceived personal risk of contracting COVID-19, a greater perceived severity of the disease and a greater intention to engage in preventive behavior. Therefore, our fifth hypothesis proposed a moderated serial–parallel mediation model (see 
