Megumi KOMORI

Abstract This study investigated the relationship between individual differences in narrative transportation and attitude robustness. A total of 840 respondents participated in a web survey. In the first phase of the survey, respondents indicated their attitudes toward social issues after reading supporting or opposing texts with narrative and persuasive messages. After two weeks, the same participants read another text expressing the opposite perspective on the same issue, and again indicated their attitudes. Attitude robustness (i.e., degree of change in attitude between phases) was significantly predicted by transportability and mediated by transportation-related concepts of situational involvement. Additionally, whereas situational involvement with narrative text was predicted by transportability, situational involvement with persuasive text was consistently predicted by self-involvement with the issues. Implications of the findings for narrative transportation and persuasion research and limitations of the study are discussed.

According to Transportation-Imagery Model of Narrative Persuasion, the transportation (absorption into text) into the story affects audiences' attitude towards the content of the story. However, it is doubtful that all the narrative persuasion is effective in every aspect of the narrative. It was predicted that those who transported into the story would prefer only items which had strong relationship with the character's goal pursuit, because narrative transportation would enhance audiences' positive affect caused by the character's goal achievement. As a result of experimental investigation, those who imagined the events during reading showed higher transportation, and preferred the ad with the central item compared with those who looked for the erratum in the text. The attitude towards the peripheral item ad was not affected by transportation. Additional analysis showed that the effect of transportation on the evaluation of the central item ad was mediated by the positive affect.

This study distinguished between subjective and objective knowledge of scientific technology whose influence on health is yet to be defined, and explored the effect of each type of knowledge on risk perception. A web-based survey among the Japanese population (N＝1,110) was conducted. It assessed the subjective and objective knowledge of electromagnetic field (EMF), interest in EMF, risk perception, and trust on the related organizations. The results indicated that respondents’ objective knowledge about EMF was generally poor. Their subjective knowledge and objective knowledge were significantly correlated, but the strength of correlation was moderate. Multiple regression analysis yielded significant subjective×objective knowledge interaction on risk perception. While objective knowledge consistently attenuated risk perception, subjective knowledge boosted risk perception only when respondents’ objective knowledge level was low. The possibility of the potential influence of reputation of EMF on the boosted subjective knowledge about EMF was discussed.

This study attempted to replicate Kamise, Hori, and Okamoto’s (2010) survey on perceived occupational stigma among Japanese workers by conducting a survey with employees in a host club—a male cabaret club—in the Kansai region, Japan, to investigate their perceived occupational stigma, coping strategies, occupational self-esteem, and egalitarian sex-role attitudes. The results showed that host-club employees perceived extreme occupational stigma, where novices, part-time workers, and those with fewer work assignments showed higher levels of perceived stigma. Regarding coping strategies, attribution of discrimination and disengagement were used frequently, while valuing and group identification were used only rarely. Structural equation modeling showed that group identification positively enhanced occupational self-esteem. However, contrary to previous research, individuals who perceived more stereotyping rarely used group identification. Stigma awareness facilitated attribution of discrimination, resulting in lowered occupational self-esteem, and egalitarian sex-role attitude significantly influenced valuing and attribution of discrimination.

To clarify the role of the institutional trust in risk management in regard to electromagnetic fields (EMF), this study investigated the antecedents and consequences of institutional trust that was moderated by knowledge. A web based survey among the Japanese population was conducted. Respondents answered small quiz on EMF, then rated their trust and other attributes on 10 EMF-related institutions. The results showed that each institution was moderately trusted, and perceived sincerity was the strongest predictor of the institutional trusts regardless of its difference in name recognition. On average, people perceived medium level of risk about EMF, and most people had poor knowledge of EMF. It was also revealed that the relation between trust and risk perception was only significant when knowledge level was high. Implications for risk communication are discussed.

Quantitative studies and process models of narrative persuasion published since 2000 were reviewed in order to identify influences of narratives on readers’ attitudes that result from changes in thinking and affect. Firstly, characteristics of narrative persuasion research were briefly introduced by summarizing definitions of narratives and attitudes, and by illustrating typical methodologies of narrative persuasion research. Secondly, theories on the process of narrative persuasion and narrative experiences were reviewed. These models were then integrated and the process of narrative persuasion was categorized into thinking and affective routes, and each process was explained with reference to supportive studies. It was suggested that the affective route currently has stronger empirical support than the thinking route. Finally, topics for future research were suggested, which include closely examining each process, improving methodologies, and comprehensively investigating relationships between narrative persuasions and narrative experiences.

We investigated whether we could spontaneously (i.e. without effort) infer other person's emotional state from his/her situational information, using the verbal recognition confirmation task. Participants first listened to verbal descriptions of a situation that induced irritation or anxiety, but the descriptions did not include emotional words. Then, participants were shown a series of written descriptions with congruent or incongruent emotional mimetic words. They responded if the descriptions were identical to the ones that they heard. As expected, the situational descriptions that included congruent emotional words were falsely confirmed as identical to the ones that they heard, whereas descriptions with incongruent words were not. However, the same result was observed under the condition of descriptions that included emotional words at the listening phase. Therefore it is suggested that the procedure of the experiment should be improved in order to reject the alternate interpretation.

This study examined whether people could spontaneously infer other people's emotions from situational information, and how perspective taking would influence such inference using a memory task. In study 1, participants were presented episodes in which characters go through a variety of emotion-provoking situations. Their recall of emotions was higher when the emotional descriptive words were presented as recall cues, than without cues. In study 2, people recalled emotional face-name pairs better if previously exposed to an emotion-congruent episode featuring the same target names. Instructions on perspective taking given before the episodes promoted recall (study 1), and focusing on situations generally improved memory (study 2). The facilitation effect revealed in these studies suggests that we could spontaneously infer other's emotion from information about their surroundings, along with the possibility that perspective taking focuses the perceiver's attention to the situation, resulting in the enhancement of spontaneous emotion inference.<br>