Trial reportPsychology & health2022
Does it matter if a story character lives or dies?: a message experiment comparing survivor and death narratives.
Trial report in Psychology & health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Missing Mechanism of Effect: How People Who Habitually Replot Stories React Differently (Or Not so Differently) to Melanoma Narratives.Journal of health communication · 2025Trial
- The importance of structural elements in narrative persuasion: Using the narrative immersion model to promote melanoma prevention.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2025Article
- Intention to Screen for Hepatitis C Among University Students: Influence of Different Communicative Scenarios.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Death Narratives, Negative Emotion, and Counterarguing: Testing Fear, Anger, and Sadness as Mechanisms of Effect.Journal of health communication · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveIn narratives, characters often face threats where they either live (survivor narratives) or die (death narratives). Both outcomes have the potential to persuade, and are frequently utilised in mass communication campaigns, yet more research is needed examining the relative effectiveness and underlying mechanisms of each strategy.
designU.S. adults (
main outcome measuresIntentions to engage in sun safe behaviour and skin self-examination behaviour were assessed in the pre- and posttest, and then transformed into change scores.
resultsDeath narratives increased sun safe behaviour intentions. Consistent with the entertainment overcoming resistance model, foreshadowed death narratives were found to increase sun safe behaviour intentions via increased transportation and decreased counterarguing.
conclusionCompared to survivor narratives, death narratives increase intentions to engage in sun safe behaviour. The findings offer support for character death as a key feature of narrative persuasion, and narrative transportation and counterarguing as important mediational pathways.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.