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Narrative and Collective Action: The Power of Public Stories
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repeated. As Lee and Leets find in a study in which subjects’ beliefs were altered by
racist narratives, such beliefs can decay fairly rapidly unless there is repeated exposure.
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Related to the power to change beliefs is the power to alter attitudes. As noted earlier, there is a very close relationship between beliefs and attitudes. Indeed, there is good
reason to believe that attitude change often comes first, and that beliefs follow. When we feel positively towards something or someone, we are more likely to believe good things
about them, and vice versa. As Escalas has shown, narrative engagement with advertising is highly effective in creating positive attitudes towards products.
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Through
stories we identify with the plight of characters, imagine ourselves in their shoes, and care about what happens to them. Identification with sympathetic characters may well
explain the impact of the Ryan White story on attitudes about AIDs, To Kill a Mockingbird on white Southern readers, or in a much earlier period Uncle Tom’s Cabin
on attitudes about slavery.
But attitude change is not simply a matter of affect, it is also a matter of perspective or stance. Coles describes a young man who found himself captivated by Catcher in the
Rye. Phil strongly identified with Holden Caulfield, the alienated protagonist of Salinger’s classic. Soon, Phil was talking about “what it means to be honest and decent
in a world full of ‘phoniness.’” As Coles observes, “Holden’s voice (Salinger’s) had become Phil’s and uncannily, Holden’s dreams of escape, of rescue (to save not only
himself but others), had become Phil’s. The novel had, as he put it, ‘got’ to him.”
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Now, Phil saw “phoniness” everywhere. Through narrative identification he had
assumed the perspective, the stance, the attitude of another, and that identification enabled “an emerging angle of vision in himself….”
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It seems to me that what is going on here might be usefully described as reframing, or
reorientation, a perspective-altering experience. In the sway of a powerful narrative, we become for a time Holden Caulfield, or Huck Finn, or Atticus Finch, or Yossarian, or
Frodo of the Shire, and see things through their eyes, from their angle of vision. And if
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Lee and Leets, 2002, 950.
68
Escalas, 2004.
69
Coles, 1989, 38.
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Ibid, 39.
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| | Authors: Mayer, Frederick. |
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repeated. As Lee and Leets find in a study in which subjects’ beliefs were altered by
racist narratives, such beliefs can decay fairly rapidly unless there is repeated exposure.
Related to the power to change beliefs is the power to alter attitudes. As noted earlier,
there is a very close relationship between beliefs and attitudes. Indeed, there is good
reason to believe that attitude change often comes first, and that beliefs follow. When we
feel positively towards something or someone, we are more likely to believe good things
about them, and vice versa. As Escalas has shown, narrative engagement with
advertising is highly effective in creating positive attitudes towards products.
stories we identify with the plight of characters, imagine ourselves in their shoes, and
care about what happens to them. Identification with sympathetic characters may well
explain the impact of the Ryan White story on attitudes about AIDs, To Kill a
Mockingbird on white Southern readers, or in a much earlier period Uncle Tom’s Cabin
on attitudes about slavery.
But attitude change is not simply a matter of affect, it is also a matter of perspective or
stance. Coles describes a young man who found himself captivated by Catcher in the
Rye. Phil strongly identified with Holden Caulfield, the alienated protagonist of
Salinger’s classic. Soon, Phil was talking about “what it means to be honest and decent
in a world full of ‘phoniness.’” As Coles observes, “Holden’s voice (Salinger’s) had
become Phil’s and uncannily, Holden’s dreams of escape, of rescue (to save not only
himself but others), had become Phil’s. The novel had, as he put it, ‘got’ to him.”
Now, Phil saw “phoniness” everywhere. Through narrative identification he had
assumed the perspective, the stance, the attitude of another, and that identification
enabled “an emerging angle of vision in himself….”
It seems to me that what is going on here might be usefully described as reframing, or
reorientation, a perspective-altering experience. In the sway of a powerful narrative, we
become for a time Holden Caulfield, or Huck Finn, or Atticus Finch, or Yossarian, or
Frodo of the Shire, and see things through their eyes, from their angle of vision. And if
67
Lee and Leets, 2002, 950.
68
Escalas, 2004.
69
Coles, 1989, 38.
70
Ibid, 39.
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