Creating Character Identification and Liking in Narratives: The Impact of Protagonist Motivations on Real-Time Audience Responses

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.