Effects of Film Music on Psychological Transportation and Narrative Persuasion

Abstract

Two experiments examined the effect of film music on the narrative persuasion. In Experiment 1, participants viewed a short film with its original musical soundtrack or with soundtrack muted. In Experiment 2, musical soundtrack was added to a film that was originally produced without music. Findings indicated that participants reported greater transportation into the film and greater agreement with film-relevant beliefs when soundtrack was presented but only when music was congruent with the film's affective tone. In support of the transportation-imagery model (Green & Brock, 2000), the effect of film music on beliefs was mediated by transportation into the film.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project was inspired by the tremendous research on narrative transportation by Timothy C. Brock. We thank Derek Rhoades for his help in preparing stimulus materials and collecting data. Preparation of this work was supported in part by an NIMH postdoctoral training grant awarded to the first author and the Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Scholarship awarded to the second author.

Notes

¹The specific musical structures that cue emotional expression and increase attention in the present stimuli were too numerous and complicated to fully explore here. However, the basic findings regarding musical factors such as pitch, mode, tempo, dynamics, rhythm, and timbre would support the prediction that the music used in the present experiment adds meaning to the film's visual elements.

Note. Transportation, Favorability, and Identification scales range from 1 to 7. Belief scores were calculated by averaging scores on standardized items. Standard deviations are presented in parentheses. Superscripts indicate differences between conditions in each column, p < .05.

Note. Standard deviations are presented in parentheses. Superscripts indicate differences between conditions in each column using Fisher's least significant difference test, p < .05.

²Because the results of the ANOVAs revealed no reliable differences between viewers in the film + incongruent music and film only conditions on ratings of transportation or beliefs, analyses were also conducted with those conditions collapsed such that 1 = Film + Incongruent Music, 1 = Film Only, and 2 = Film + Congruent Music. As predicted, congruent film music predicted transportation, b = .28, SE = .10, t(109) = 2.83, p < .01; transportation predicted film-relevant beliefs, b = .19, SE = .06, t(109) = 3.11, p < .01; and the bootstrapped estimate of the indirect effect (M = .05, SE = .02) was positive and statistically different from zero, 95% CI [.02, .11]. In addition, transportation predicted protagonist identification, b = .30, SE = .11, t(109) = 2.73, p = .001, and bootstrapping analyses revealed a reliable indirect effect, b = .10, SE = .05, with a 95% CI [.02, .23], indicating that transportation mediated the relationship between condition and identification.

Note. All nine items were standardized and averaged into a single index of film-relevant beliefs. R = reverse scored.

Note. R = reverse scored.