{"title":"Creating Character Identification and Liking in Narratives: The Impact of Protagonist Motivations on Real-Time Audience Responses","authors":"John M. Tchernev","doi":"10.1080/15213269.2022.2067878","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Popular narratives can have a significant cultural and persuasive impact. Audience identification with a protagonist and liking of the protagonist are two important types of audience engagement. The present study proposes that character motivations play a central role in the establishment of both identification and liking. Two typologies of motivations are tested (one from a hierarchy of psychological needs perspective, and the other from the professional field of screenwriting) as predictors of dynamic fluctuations in audience identification and liking. Three professional screenwriters served as “expert coders” of three randomly selected films and identified key moments that were of particular importance for establishing character motivation. N = 308 participants viewed the first 35 minutes of one of the three films and provided real-time ratings of either liking or identification. Results indicated that the establishment of character motivations does indeed have a major impact on shaping identification and liking in real time.","PeriodicalId":47932,"journal":{"name":"Media Psychology","volume":"25 1","pages":"740 - 761"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Media Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2022.2067878","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
ABSTRACT Popular narratives can have a significant cultural and persuasive impact. Audience identification with a protagonist and liking of the protagonist are two important types of audience engagement. The present study proposes that character motivations play a central role in the establishment of both identification and liking. Two typologies of motivations are tested (one from a hierarchy of psychological needs perspective, and the other from the professional field of screenwriting) as predictors of dynamic fluctuations in audience identification and liking. Three professional screenwriters served as “expert coders” of three randomly selected films and identified key moments that were of particular importance for establishing character motivation. N = 308 participants viewed the first 35 minutes of one of the three films and provided real-time ratings of either liking or identification. Results indicated that the establishment of character motivations does indeed have a major impact on shaping identification and liking in real time.
期刊介绍：
Media Psychology is an interdisciplinary journal devoted to publishing theoretically-oriented empirical research that is at the intersection of psychology and media communication. These topics include media uses, processes, and effects. Such research is already well represented in mainstream journals in psychology and communication, but its publication is dispersed across many sources. Therefore, scholars working on common issues and problems in various disciplines often cannot fully utilize the contributions of kindred spirits in cognate disciplines.
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