Does Character Similarity Increase Identification and Persuasion?

ABSTRACT

The identity of protagonists in persuasive narratives was varied to test the impact of audience-character demographic similarity on identification. In Study 1, sex and nationality, both traits that were pretested to be important to participants’ self-identity, were varied, but demographic similarity did not increase perceived similarity, identification or persuasion. In Study 2, age and city of residence, traits that were central to the story, were varied, but again similarity on these demographic traits had no effects. Given previous research, these were surprising findings. The failure to find the expected effect of demographic similarity on identification and its implications for the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the development of identification are discussed within the framework of narrative response theory.

Notes

1. Although political attitudes and political involvement were related to some of the dependent variables, including them in the main analyses testing the hypotheses did not change the pattern of results in any meaningful way. For the sake of parsimony, thus, we did not report the models controlling for these variables.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this manuscript was funded by the Israel Science Foundation (grant # 780/12) awarded to the first author.