Summary
Summary Decision-making during a crisis: the interplay of narratives and statistical information before and after crisis communication
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Narratives and their effect on human behaviour.
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A narrative has stronger effects when (information about) the actual situation matches thenarrative’s content. In contrast with our expectations, affective response did not mediate the
relationship between narrative information and moving victims. An alternative explanation would be
that narratives trigger a more heuristic way of information processing.
When confronted with a crisis, individuals make several considerations before they act upon the
situation. First an assessment of the situation is made, to learn what is going on. This may be quite
difficult when individuals lack the knowledge and skills required
Warning messages that included protective action guidance together with hazard impact, location
and message source were more influential on taking protective actions, compared with messages
that only provided situational updates without any protective action guidance
People with flood experience tend to overestimate the potential danger of floods. In addition to a
direct effect of personal experience on decision-making, there can also be an indirect effect through
narratives of others. As noted by Wachinger et al. (2013), by hearing a narrative, people are able to
empathize with the experiences of others, which helps them to envisage the negative consequences
of a risk. This visualization of what may happen, leads to stronger intentions to act upon a crisis.
Narratives of others may therefore influence individuals’ decision-making during a crisis.
When narratives overrule statistical information, probabilities can be ignored, resulting in suboptimal
decisions. A number of studies have compared narrative to non-narrative messages, but there is no
consensus to date about their effect on human behavior. In come cases narratives have more
influence, in others statistical information. this might be caused by the fact that narratives are
generally seen as homogeneous. However, narratives may differ in format and content potentially
leading to different results.
Narrative transportation means that people mentally enter a world that a story evokes. When people
lose themselves in a story, their affective and cognitive responses, beliefs, attitudes, and intentions
changes
- Transportation may lead to persuasion through two mechanisms. First, transportation may
inhibit cognitive responding. Transported people may lose access to some real-world facts in
favor of accepting the world of the narrative that has been created by the author
- Second, through transportation the narrative may feel like a real experience. Transported
people are able to take the perspective of a character and see the narrative through this
character’s eyes. A consequence of such mental imagery is that people are able to deeply
understand the emotions and the motivations of a character to behave in a certain way.
Therefore, narrative transportation may influence the generation of affective responses, such
that larger levels of transportation cause people to perceive the narrative as more realistic
and, thus, to elicit stronger affective responses
The exemplification theory addresses the formation and changes in beliefs on the basis of specific
cases as examples
When narrative and statistical information are both present within a message, such as a news
message that describes a general phenomenon, but also provides specific narratives, people’s
perceptions were more influenced by the specific narratives.
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