DU Health COmmunication Effects of Narratives and Behavioural Involvement On Adolescents Essay

Detailed guideline on this assignment can be found under the files folder!

[Part I] Research article analysis draft (40 pts),

In general, your draft should include 1)Introduction, 2) literature review,3) study method, and 4) study results. In other words, your draft does not need to include study discussion and reflection on your learning(yet!).The draft should include all of the four sections mentioned above and a heading for each section.As you work on writing the draft, refer to the evaluation criteria for the paper and follow the instructions (see below). However, the grade for the draft will not follow the rubric for the final paper. I will grade the draft based on its overall quality See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347507677
Effects of Narratives and Behavioral Involvement on Adolescents’ Attitudes
toward Gaming Disorder
Article in Health Communication · December 2020
DOI: 10.1080/10410236.2020.1862397
CITATIONS
READS
2
82
2 authors:
Yuchen Ren
Fuyuan Shen
Shenzhen University
Pennsylvania State University
4 PUBLICATIONS 46 CITATIONS
62 PUBLICATIONS 1,611 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
mHealth approach to promoting physical activity View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Fuyuan Shen on 19 December 2021.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.
SEE PROFILE
Health Communication
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hhth20
Effects of Narratives and Behavioral Involvement
on Adolescents’ Attitudes toward Gaming Disorder
Yuchen Ren & Fuyuan Shen
To cite this article: Yuchen Ren & Fuyuan Shen (2020): Effects of Narratives and Behavioral
Involvement on Adolescents’ Attitudes toward Gaming Disorder, Health Communication, DOI:
10.1080/10410236.2020.1862397
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1862397
Published online: 17 Dec 2020.
Submit your article to this journal
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=hhth20
HEALTH COMMUNICATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1862397
Effects of Narratives and Behavioral Involvement on Adolescents’ Attitudes toward
Gaming Disorder
Yuchen Ren
a
and Fuyuan Shenb
a
School of Media and Communication, Shenzhen University; bDonald P. Bellisario College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the impact of using narratives to communicate a controversial health issue, gaming
disorder, on adolescents’ issue attitudes. In a between-subjects experiment, 115 adolescent participants
read either a narrative or an informational message on gaming disorder. Results indicated that compared
to the informational message, the narrative health message generated more positive attitudes toward the
medical view of problematic gaming and greater attitude certainty. Transportation mediated the narra­
tive’s effect on attitudes. Behavioral involvement moderated the narrative’s effect on attitudes and
attitude certainty, such that the positive effects of the narrative on attitudes and attitude certainty were
more pronounced for high-involvement adolescents than for low-involvement adolescents. In addition,
behavioral involvement also enhanced the effect of message absorption on attitudes. By extending our
research on narrative effects to the adolescent population, this study presents findings with both
theoretical and practical implications.
In recent years, much research has examined the role of narra­
tives in the fields of advertising, journalism, and health com­
munication (Oliver et al., 2012; Redondo et al., 2018; Shen
et al., 2017; van Krieken & Sanders, 2019). Although there
exists some variations in narrative effects that can be attributed
to individual differences (Slater et al., 2006; Thompson &
Haddock, 2012), there is a general belief that narratives are
effective in producing message-consistent attitudes in audi­
ences by increasing engagement, reducing counterarguing,
and evoking specific feelings (Green & Clark, 2013; Ooms
et al., 2017; Shen et al., 2014). This belief has been validated
in various health communication contexts, such as communi­
cating health risk (Janssen et al., 2013), reducing stigma (Heley
et al., 2020), and promoting detective and preventive health
behaviors (Dillard et al., 2010; Volkman & Parrott, 2012).
In studying the persuasive effects of narratives, the existing
body of research, including that on entertainment-education,
has often focused on adults (for reviews, see Braddock &
Dillard, 2016; Shen & Han, 2014). Little is known, however,
about whether the effects of narratives and the underlying
psychological mechanisms can be generalized to adolescents,
who differ from adults both biologically and psychologically.
Further investigations are therefore clearly warranted to better
understand the impact of narrative messages among adoles­
cents. To contribute to the current literature on narrative
persuasion, the present study will go beyond the adult popula­
tion and examine how narrative messages, as compared to
informational messages, influence adolescents’ attitudes and
attitude certainty. Additionally, this study will also examine
the moderating role of adolescents’ behavioral involvement in
relation to the narrative’s effects. In doing so, it will extend
prior research on the individual differences in narrative
CONTACT Fuyuan Shen
fus1@psu.edu
© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
persuasion. Finally, this study will explore the above research
issues within the important and controversial health context of
gaming disorder.
In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially
included gaming disorder in its latest version of the
International Classification of Diseases as a mental disorder.
It defines gaming behavior as a disorder when it takes pre­
cedence over other daily activities and starts to impair
a person’s relationships, school or work responsibilities for
at least a year (World Health Organization, 2019). The med­
ical transformation of problematic video game playing has
huge economic consequences for the gaming industry. It can
also affect the way in which individuals with these types of
behaviors are viewed and treated by their friends, parents, and
teachers. Before discussing these possible social outcomes, it
is important to note that this new classification drew criti­
cisms from some scholars and the gaming industry, who have
argued that the medical view of problematic gaming lacks
clear diagnostic criteria and scientific evidence (Electronic
Software Association, n.d.; Wang et al., 2019). More impor­
tantly, the public may not accept this medical view of proble­
matic gaming that has been promoted by the public health
authority (i.e., WHO). Adolescents may be especially reluc­
tant to accept this medical view because they are thought to be
particularly vulnerable to gaming disorder (World Health
Organization, 2019) and may suffer stigmas and even be
forced to receive inappropriate medical treatments (Hu &
Qin, 2009). Because gaming disorder is an important and
controversial health concern for adolescents, it is essential to
understand how media messages influence adolescents’ atti­
tudes toward gaming disorder (i.e., the extent to which they
agree with the medical view of excessive gaming).
Bellisario College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University, PA 16802, USA
2
Y. REN AND F. SHEN
In the next section, we will review the relevant literature and
propose a set of research questions. This will be followed by
a detailed description of the research method for our study. We
will then present the results and discuss the implications of our
research findings.
Literature review
Impacts of narratives
Narratives are the stories we tell. Hinyard and Kreuter (2007)
defined a narrative as “any cohesive and coherent story with an
identifiable beginning, middle, and end that provides informa­
tion about scene, characters, and conflict; raises unanswered
questions or unresolved conflict; and provides resolution” (p.
778). Researchers have long noted that messages presented in
the narrative format are often more persuasive than those
presented in the informational format (Oliver et al., 2012;
Shen et al., 2017; van Krieken & Sanders, 2019). Several models
have been proposed to explain the advantages of narratives in
persuasion, such as the Extended Elaboration Likelihood
Model (Slater & Rouner, 2002) and the Entertainment
Overcoming Resistance Model (Moyer-Gusé, 2008). Despite
the differences in the specific constructs used, both models
emphasize the role of narrative immersion, reduced negative
cognition, and affective factors as potential mechanisms under­
lying narrative persuasion.
Compared with informational messages, narrative messages
are more absorbing. The story structure enables readers to be
fully absorbed in the message and makes them feel connected
with the characters in the story (Shen et al., 2014; van Krieken
et al., 2015). The absorption can be described at two levels. At
the story level, narrative messages induce transportation, “an
integrative melding of attention, imagery, and feelings, focused
on story events” (Green, 2006, p. 164). At the character level,
narrative messages induce identification, whereby readers take
on thoughts and feelings of characters and imagine being one
of the characters in the text (Cohen, 2001). Both transportation
and identification “highlight how people lose themselves in the
story [. . .] and subsequently accept story-related beliefs without
thought” (Hamby et al., 2018, p. 114).
Narratives may also reduce counterarguing against the mes­
sage (Hoeken & Fikkers, 2014). Considering the hedonic nat­
ure of narratives, readers of narratives are prone to becoming
involved in the enjoyment of the storyline and thus are less
likely to engage in critical thinking (Slater, 2002). Narratives
also do not usually have a clear and explicit standpoint. As
a result, readers do not know what exactly to counterargue (Dal
Cin et al., 2004). In addition, it is difficult to perceive the intent
of a narrative to influence or persuade, and hence readers may
be less defensive against the influence of narratives because
they do not need to engage in critical thinking (Slater, 2002).
Taken together, reduced counterarguing makes it easier for
narratives to generate influences (Shen et al., 2014).
Additionally, compared with non-narrative informational
messages, narratives are more likely to evoke specific
responses, such as fear, sadness, and surprise (Ooms et al.,
2017; Yoo et al., 2014). Given that narratives are based on
individual experience, they are easier for the readers to relate
to characters in an experiential way and to have specific feel­
ings than informational messages (Oliver et al., 2012). By
taking the protagonists’ perspective and perceiving their suffer­
ing, readers can feel compassion (Goetz et al., 2010; Lazarus,
1991). Oliver et al. (2012) found that news stories about mem­
bers of stigmatized groups were more effective than the nonnarratives at inducing compassion toward the stigmatized
group, which positively changed their attitudes toward stigma­
tized groups.
In summary, narrative messages are effective in generating
story-consistent attitudes toward important social issues.
Although some scholars have suggested that there are signifi­
cant variations in the impacts of narratives (Nan et al., 2017),
there is a general belief that narratives can shape people’s issue
attitudes by increasing their transportation and identification
(e.g., Green & Clark, 2013), decreasing counterarguments (e.g.,
Shen et al., 2014), and evoking specific affective responses (e.g.,
Ooms et al., 2017). Narratives are particularly suitable for
framing controversial issues by immersing the participants in
a particular perspective (e.g., Shen et al., 2014). Prior studies
have found narrative to be effective in communicating health
risk (Janssen et al., 2013), reducing stigma (Heley et al., 2020),
and promoting detective and preventive health behaviors
(Dillard et al., 2010; Volkman & Parrott, 2012). However,
extant research is predominantly focused on adults. It remains
unknown whether the effects of narratives and the hidden
psychological mechanisms can be generalized to adolescents.
Narrative messages and adolescents
Despite the paucity of research on the impact of narratives
among adolescents, research in developmental psychology and
media studies has suggested that adolescents process messages
in several unique ways. First, adolescents are at a stage of
exploring identity and particularly vulnerable to peer influ­
ences (Steinberg & Monahan, 2007). By identifying with char­
acters in the story, they would be tempted to, consciously or
not, take on the beliefs and attitudes endorsed by these
characters (Green & Clark, 2013). Second, adolescents are
more emotional than adults and are prone to consult their
feelings as a source of information in judgment making
(Albert & Steinberg, 2011). As narratives are more emotion­
ally engaging, adolescents may be more influenced by them.
Finally, adolescents have a more limited cognitive capacity
than adults (Rushton & Ankney, 1996). Prior research sug­
gests that the inverted pyramid structure, which is often used
by informational news, heavily taxes cognitive resources, while
a chronological sequencing of events, which is often used by
narrative news, demands fewer cognitive resources (Sternadori
& Wise, 2010). In this sense, narrative messages may fit the
cognitive needs of adolescents and outperform informational
messages in influencing their attitudes. Perhaps this is why
entertainment-education has been found to be effective in
health interventions that target youth (Glik et al., 2002).
It therefore seems plausible that the positive effect of narra­
tive messages can be generalized to adolescents. However,
empirical evidence tends to be mixed across the few existing
studies. In one experiment conducted among 706 German
adolescents (Emde et al., 2016), those exposed to narrative
HEALTH COMMUNICATION
news about the minimum wage were found to have more
affective and cognitive involvement than those exposed to its
non-narrative counterpart, but this effect was not observed for
news on youth protests with the same group of participants.
Adding to the ambiguity, scholars in health communication
found that narrative and non-narrative messages in the written
form were, at best, equally effective in influencing adolescents’
issue attitude toward alcohol drinking (Zebregs et al., 2015)
and smoking (de Graaf et al., 2017); narrative materials could
even have an unintended effect for adolescents by making
attitudes toward smoking more positive (de Graaf et al.,
2017). Beyond the written communication context, scholars
have found that various forms of entertainment-education,
including live performance (Lalonde et al., 1997) and TV series
(Hecht et al., 1993; Moyer-Gusé et al., 2020), could help pro­
duce message-consistent attitudes among adolescents.
However, these studies did not directly compare the effective­
ness of narratives against non-narrative control groups.
Further investigations are therefore clearly warranted in
order for us to better understand the impact of narrative health
messages among adolescents.
In addition, prior studies have not explored the impact of
narratives on attitude certainty. Attitude certainty refers to
the extent to which an individual is sure that his or her
attitude is correct (Gross et al., 1995). As research suggests,
attitude certainty may be equally, if not more, predictive of
future actions than attitude itself, and it is more resistant to
change when challenged (Petty & Krosnick, 1995). As people
need to infer valuable information from narratives, they could
have less confidence in their judgment than those who obtain
explicit information from informational messages. This may
be of special concern with adolescents who tend to have lower
comprehension ability than adults. Thus, we also explore
whether a narrative message affects attitude certainty among
adolescents. Taken together, our first research question
explores whether a narrative message about gaming disorder
will be more effective than an informational message in chan­
ging transportation, identification, counterarguing, compas­
sion, attitudes, and attitude certainty regarding gaming
disorder among adolescents.
RQ1: Will a narrative message (vs. an informational message)
about gaming disorder induce (a) more transportation, (b) more
identification, (c) less counterarguing, (d) more compassion, (e)
more positive attitudes toward the medical view of gaming disor­
der, and (f) greater attitude certainty among adolescents?
Moreover, to our knowledge, no prior research has systematically
examined the mechanisms underlying the impact of narratives
on adolescents’ issue attitudes. Given the differences between the
two groups, it is possible that some mechanisms demonstrated
among adults are not applicable to adolescents. For instance,
adolescents tend to depend on emotions rather than systematic
thinking to make judgments (Albert & Steinberg, 2011). They
also may place less weight on the amount of counterarguing
during attitude formation. Our second research question will
therefore explore the mechanisms of the narrative’s effect on
attitudes among adolescents.
RQ2: Will (a) transportation, (b) identification, (c) reduced coun­
terarguing, or (d) compassion mediate the effect of a narrative
3
message (vs. an informational message) on attitudes toward gam­
ing disorder among adolescents?
Individual difference, behavioral involvement, and
narrative effects
Narratives’ effects may differ due to individual differences.
These differences can be issue relevance and familiarity
(Slater et al., 2006), preexisting attitudes (Shen et al., 2017),
the need for cognition (Braverman, 2008), and individual dif­
ferences in transportability into the narrative (Mazzocco et al.,
2010). To extend the prior research on the individual differ­
ences and narrative effects, we aim to examine whether the
behavioral involvement of individuals might moderate
a narrative’s influence on attitude and attitude certainty.
According to the motivated reasoning perspective, what
people do can define who they are, thus determining how
they see events, figures, other people, and themselves (Kunda,
1990). Considerable research in social psychology has shown
that past behaviors may bias information processing through
biased memory searches, biased scanning of information,
biased information interpretation, and biased belief construc­
tion (Kunda, 1990). In this vein, the individuals’ past behavior
may influence the information processing of narrative and
non-narrative messages and contribute to variations in narra­
tive effects.
In the present paper, behavioral involvement refers to past
video game playing. It is possible that the frequent players
may have experiences similar to those depicted in the story.
As a result, they may be more likely than the low-involvement
individuals to experience specific emotional responses, take
on thoughts and feelings of the character, and immerse them­
selves in the narratives. Consequently, these individuals are
more likely to be influenced by narratives than the lowinvolvement individuals. Since there has been limited prior
research regarding the moderating role of behavioral involve­
ment in predicting narrative effects, our next research ques­
tion will explore whether behavioral involvement moderates
the effects of narrative messages about gaming disorder.
RQ3: Will behavioral involvement moderate the effect of
a narrative message (vs. an informational message) on (a) attitudes
toward the medical view of gaming disorder and (b) attitude
certainty?
Behavioral involvement and the effect of absorption
As a central mechanism of narrative persuasion, the role of
absorption (i.e., transportation and identification) could be
moderated by issue involvement. Basically, two opposing
views exist regarding how absorption can affect the attitudes
of individuals with different levels of prior behavioral involve­
ment. Some scholars contend that behavioral involvement
would enhance the impact of absorption on attitudes because
the high-involvement individuals would perceive the message
as more relevant and thus is more likely to externalize atti­
tudes/beliefs shaped by the transportation or identification
experiences to the real world (Hamby et al., 2018). In compar­
ison, the low-involvement individuals may make a clear
4
Y. REN AND F. SHEN
distinction between the media world and the real world, and
thus they are less likely to apply the ideas embedded in the
media coverage to the real-life context regardless of absorption.
This view echoes the “reflection” perspective, which proposes
that the impact of a narrative is dependent on realistic reflec­
tion afterward (Dunlop et al., 2010; Hamby et al., 2018).
However, others have suggested that behavioral involvement
may attenuate the impact of absorption on attitude because
high-involvement individuals have a robust attitude that is
“immune” to external stimuli (Shen et al., 2015). For example,
when exposed to anti-smoking narratives the heavy smokers
may have well-established attitudes toward smoking with
nuanced justifications; therefore, their attitudes may barely
change regardless of the extent of absorption into the message.
In comparison, light smokers may engage in self-exploration,
and their attitudes toward smoking is likely to be consistent
with the extent of absorption. This view is aligned with the
motivated reasoning perspective. According to this perspec­
tive, how people weigh their thoughts and feelings in belief
construction is dependent on who they are and the groups to
which they belong (Kunda, 1990).
While the two competing views both have plausible theore­
tical rationales, there is a lack of empirical research evaluating
their validity. Therefore, this study will examine the role of
prior behavioral involvement in moderating the impact of
absorption on attitude.
RQ4: How will behavioral involvement moderate the relationship
between absorption (transportation and identification) and the
attitudes toward the medical view of gaming disorder?
Method
Design and procedures
To explore the research questions, we conducted a controlled
experiment with a between-subjects design to investigate the
effects of message format (narrative vs. informational news
articles) and the moderating role of behavioral involvement.
The experiment was conducted in the students’ classrooms.
Participants were first informed of the study’s purpose (i.e.,
studying adolescents’ online behaviors), its approximate
duration, and their right to withdraw from the study at any
time. They were then randomly assigned to one of two news
articles about gaming disorder. They were asked to indicate
their behavioral involvement with video games. Following
that, they were instructed to read the assigned article at
their normal pace. After that, they were asked to complete
a questionnaire measuring their responses to the article and
the issue of gaming disorder. The study was approved by the
Institutional Review Board of the first author’s home
institution.
Participants
Participants (N = 115, 48.0% males) were adolescents from
a public middle school in a large southern Chinese city. They
ranged in age from 12 to 16 years (M = 12.96, SD = 0.84), with
47.8% in Grade 7 and 52.2% in Grade 8.
Manipulations
We manipulated the message formats by creating narrative and
informational news articles on the issue of gaming disorder.
Both articles focused on the medical framing of problematic
gaming behaviors. For the informational news article, we used
the standard news format that begins with an introductory
section to establish the concept of problematic gaming as
a medical issue, namely gaming disorder, as defined by the
WHO. The second section introduced the diagnostic criteria
for gaming disorder, listed the vulnerable populations, and
provided the prevalence information. The third section sum­
marized the consequences that gaming disorder could have on
individuals and families, especially for adolescents. The fourth
section explained the medical and biological causes of gaming
disorder and compared it to other addictions. The next section
explained how to solve gaming disorder, including joint efforts
by the family, school, industry, government, and medical com­
munity. Finally, it warned the readers of the dangers of gaming
disorder and asked them to seek help when necessary.
The narrative news article was created using the structure of
an initiating event, an exposition, conflicts confronted by the
characters, a climax, and a resolution or outcome at the end
(Knobloch et al., 2004). The story depicted an adolescent
struggling to control his problematic video game playing and
used the five-section structure described above. The initiating
event and the exposition established that the character was
addicted to a video game “King Glory,” which greatly affected
his academic performance. The conflict was that he and his
parents tried in vain to save him from the video game using
every possible method. The story climaxed with him dropping
out of school and then starting to read articles about gaming
disorder. Through reading, he obtained knowledge about his
problem from a medical perspective, including the medical
definition of gaming disorder provided by the WHO. The
resolution was that he decided to transfer to a new high school
and hoped the new environment could help him overcome
gaming disorder. The two articles were of similar length
(between 1450 and 1490 Chinese words) and from the same
news source.
Measurements
Behavioral involvement was measured with one single item
(M = 2.70, SD = 3.84) by asking participants to estimate the
number of video gaming sessions they participated in on
a weekly basis. Participants were told that one session could
be defined as from the start of play until the console was
turned off.
Transportation was measured with a 5-item self-reported
scale (Cronbach’s α = .80, M = 4.46, SD = 1.19) adopted from
Ooms et al. (2017). Items relevant to the study were used.
Participants answered each item on a scale of 1 (strongly
disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Example items include “My
attention was completely absorbed by the article” and “When
reading the article, I forgot everything around me.”
Identification was measured with a 3-item self-reported
scale (Cronbach’s α = .83, M = 4.28, SD = 1.50) adopted from
Tal-Or and Cohen (2010). Items relevant to the study were
HEALTH COMMUNICATION
5
used and slightly modified to fit its context. Participants
answered each item on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7
(strongly agree). These items were the following: “While read­
ing the narrative, I could feel the emotions the character
portrayed,” “I have a good understanding of the character,”
and “I felt I could really get inside the character’s head.”
Counterarguing was measured with a 3-item self-reported
scale (Cronbach’s α = .75, M = 3.28, SD = 1.24) adopted from
Donné et al. (2017). Participants answered each item on a scale
of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). These items were:
“When reading the article, I was looking for flaws in the
information that was presented,” “When reading the article,
I felt that some information was incorrect,” and “When reading
the article, I felt that some information was misleading.”
Compassion was measured using a 3-item scale (Cronbach’s
α = .91, M = 2.70, SD = 1.09) about the extent to which
respondents felt pity, compassion, and sympathy (Oliver
et al., 2012). Participants answered each item on a scale of 1
(not at all) to 7 (very much).
Attitudes toward gaming disorder were operationalized as
the extent to which one agreed with the medical framing of
gaming disorder, one of the two competing perspectives in
understanding this controversial issue. According to Entman
(1993), definition, causal explanation, and solution are impor­
tant elements of a frame. Therefore, attitudes were measured
with a 7-item self-reported scale (Cronbach’s α = .79, M = 4.71,
SD = 1.07) about the extent to which participants agreed with
the medical definition, medical explanation, and medical treat­
ment with regard to gaming disorder, ranging from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Example items include the
following: “Playing video games beyond a reasonable extent is
a mental disorder,” “There is a medical explanation for playing
video games beyond a reasonable extent,” and “There is
a medical solution for excessive video game playing.”
Attitude certainty was measured by asking participants to
rate their level of certainty in answering the seven attitude
items (Cronbach’s α = .90, M = 5.17, SD = 1.21) on a scale of
1 (completely uncertain) to 7 (completely certain).
In addition, we also measured the perceived credibility of
the articles and participants’ prior exposure to media coverage
on this issue. Credibility was measured by a 2-item, 7-point
scale that was anchored by not credible/very credible and not
truthful/very truthful (r = .73, M = 4.78, SD = 1.10). Prior
exposure to media coverage was measured with one single
item (M = 1.97, SD = 0.89) by asking participants how often
they had “read about the issue of gaming disorder recently,”
ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always).
indeed perceived the article to be more story-based than
those reading the informational message (M = 4.00),
t (107) = 2.90, p = .005, Cohen’s d = .56.
Results
Table 2. Message outcomes by experimental condition.
Answering research questions
Zero-order correlations among the variables used in the analysis
are listed in Table 1. Means and standard deviations of the
dependent variables across the experimental conditions are
listed in Table 2. RQ1 asks whether narrative will generate (a)
more transportation, (b) more identification (c) less counter­
arguing, (d) more compassion, (e) more positive attitudes
toward the medical view of gaming disorder, and (f) greater
attitude certainty among adolescents. To answer RQ1, we first
conducted a multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) with
message format (narrative vs. informational) as the betweensubjects factor to address participants’ general responses to the
various dependent variables. Results revealed a statistically sig­
nificant difference in participants’ general responses across con­
ditions, F(6, 97) = 3.24, p = .006, Wilks’ λ = .83, partial η2 = .17.
Subsequent independent-sample t-tests were run to explore the
differences in specific dependent variables across conditions. As
shown in Table 2, results indicated that compared to adoles­
cents exposed to the informational message, those exposed to
the narrative message reported significantly more transporta­
tion (M = 4.73 vs. 4.12, t(108) = 2.74, p = .004, Cohen’s d = .53),
more identification (M = 4.65 vs. 3.84, t(113) = 3.00, p = .002,
Cohen’s d = .56), more compassion (M = 2.91 vs. 2.44,
t(110) = 2.31, p = .012, Cohen’s d = .44), more positive attitudes
toward the medical view of problematic gaming (M = 4.89 vs.
4.50, t(106) = 1.80, p = .037, Cohen’s d = .37), and greater
certainty in their attitude (M = 5.45 vs. 4.77, t(105) = 2.97,
p = .002, Cohen’s d = .58). However, although those exposed
to the narrative message reported slightly less counterarguing
than those to the informational message, this difference was not
Table 1. Zero-order correlations among variables used in the analysis.
Variables
1. Transportation
2. Identification
3. Counterarguing
4. Compassion
5. Attitude
6. Attitude
certainty
7. Behavioral
involvement
−.049
2
3
1
.202*
1
.249** −.101
.374*** .074
.289**
.006
−.062
4
5
1
.204*
.091
−.021 −.038
6
1
.685***
−.144
7
1
−.011 1
Note. * p