Can narrative help people engage with and understand information without being persuasive? An empirical study.

Stories have been shown to be engaging and aid the comprehension and retention of information. However, the persuasive power of storytelling is well-recognized. Is this an inherent property? Can a narrative be constructed that helps people engage with information but does not persuade them? We presented participants (n = 1309) with information about a fictional new drug and asked them whether they would license it on the basis of this. All saw the same information, in either a bullet-pointed list or as a 'process narrative'-a journalist's 'journey of discovery', designed to avoid persuasive language. Participants rated the narrative format a little more engaging than the non-narrative (p = 0.033, d = 0.12) and remembered the information in it slightly better (p = 0.040, d = 0.11). They did not rate the narrative version as more persuasive, but those reading it were on average more opposed to licensing the drug than those reading the non-narrative (p < 0.001, d = 0.18). Based on participants' responses to other questions, we speculate this may be owing to the increased salience of risks of the drug, arising from subtle differences in wording. Thus, while narratives may have useful properties, they must be carefully constructed to avoid unintentional effects.

COVID-19 risk perception and hoax beliefs in the US immediately before and after the announcement of President Trump's diagnosis.

A notable challenge of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been public scepticism over the severity of the disease, or even its existence. Such scepticism is politically skewed in the USA, with conservatives more likely to downplay or deny the risks of the virus. However, the hospitalization of President Trump with COVID-19 in October 2020 served as a high-profile exemplar of the reality and risks of the virus, and as such may have influenced opinions, particularly for US conservatives. We investigate whether President Trump testing positive was associated with changes in public attitudes towards the virus. In two studies, we surveyed independent representative US samples before and after the announcement of Trump's illness. In Study 1, measuring risk perceptions of the virus, we find that participants surveyed before and after the announcement did not differ in their risk perception regardless of political orientation. In Study 2, measuring belief that the virus is a hoax, we find that among those on the far right of the political spectrum, hoax belief was lower for those surveyed after the announcement, suggesting that Trump's hospitalization may have affected the beliefs of those most receptive to the President's earlier suggestions that the virus might be a hoax.