Why Narrative Matters

A Brief Introduction Narrative Transportation Theory

Preamble

What follows is a modified excerpt from my chapter to be published in Peter Bolt and James R. Harrison (ed’s), The Impact of Jesus of Nazareth: Historical, Theological and Pastoral Perspectives, vol. 2, CGAR Series 1 (Sydney: Sydney College of Divinity Press, forthcoming). If you’re interested in Gospels/Acts research, you can purchase volume 1 here. It has some excellent chapters by Darrell Bock, Peter Bolt, James Harrison, Francis Maloney, among others, as well as a couple by some I’m pleased to call friends including Lyn Kidson and Chris Seglenieks, and Debra Snoddy.

If you’ve ever wondered about why narratives/stories have the power to change the way people believe, live, and act in the real world, this should be of interest to you. My feeling is that it provides a framework through which we are able to understand more about why stories resonate and shape us as people. (If you are skeptical, simply think about how narratives are shaped by news networks: e.g., Fox or CNN, and how those narratives form the worldviews and subsequent beliefs and actions of their audience, or how an advertisment convinces you to buy their product.)

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Narrative Transportation Theory

Narrative Transportation Theory (NTT) is a social-psychological theory advanced by Michelle Green and Timothy Brock who suggest that people may be absorbed into narratives to the degree that they impact on their beliefs in the real world, irrespective of those stories being fictional or factual.¹ Their theory is established on a metaphor found in the work of Richard Gerrig whom they quote in full:

Someone (‘the traveler’) is transported, by some means of transportation, as a result of performing certain actions. The traveler goes some distance from his or her world of origin, which makes some aspects of the world of origin inaccessible. The traveler returns to the world of origin, somewhat changed by the journey.²

The metaphor implies that a story well-told and subsequently imbibed by its recipient(s) has the power to shape one’s whole way of life, from their beliefs through to their actions. It is no overstatement then, when Tom Van Laer et al., remark that ‘nothing is less innocent than a story’.³ For narrative transportation to occur, three aspects prove especially pertinent:⁴ (1) stories must be received and interpreted, which assumes a level of engagement on behalf of the recipient(s); (2) transportation is likely to occur when the recipient of the story experiences empathy and/or mental imagery.⁵ Concerning empathy, the recipient of the story seeks to embrace the experience of a character, so that they ‘know and feel the world in the same way’.⁶ Mental imagery, by contrast, incorporates vivid images created in the mind of the recipient to the degree that they feel they are experiencing the event(s) of the story themselves.⁷ (3) Finally, the narrative world temporarily, becomes ‘more real’ than the real world for the recipient of the story, such that they lose track of reality.

Narrative transportation may also have persuasive influence by impacting emotional and cognitive responses that catalyse changes in belief, attitude, and intentions, with the potential of leading to life transformation.⁸ Such persuasion may appear in two forms: (1) narrative persuasion, specifically, ‘refers to attitudes and intentions developed from processing narrative messages that are not overtly persuasive, such as novels, movies, or video games’ which stands in contrast to (2) analytical persuasion, which is the result of processing messages that are more explicitly persuasive, such as news reports or speeches.⁹ Two reasons may be offered as to how narrative can have such a lasting impact on people or communities. Firstly, narrative is capable of constructing reality as well as imitating it. Over time, such a narrative has the potential to become increasingly internalised.¹⁰ Secondly, narratives are conducive towards bringing about an emotional response, making it more probable that the recipient of the story will be transported, thus leading to narrative persuasion.¹¹

Interestingly, 1 Peter appears to blur the lines between these distinctions. On the one hand, 1 Peter is undoubtedly explicit in seeking to persuade its recipients towards a particular way of life in light of their present troubles, bringing analytical persuasion to the fore. Conversely, the frequent use of OT narratives within 1 Peter—sometimes explicitly; sometimes more subtly—lends itself to the process of narrative persuasion. The latter point is noteworthy because it has been shown that repeated acquaintance with a story impacts one’s self-efficacy, that is, a person’s capacity to live as they believe they should.¹² Indeed, stories often integrate a vital point, or trigger, which recipients may recall in order to exercise control over their conduct so that their life aligns with the story’s main thrust.¹³ Thus, 1 Peter’s deployment of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant in order to promote a particular way of life in the face of suffering and opposition, suggests that NTT may be of value in bringing fresh understanding to the epistle.

Finally, proponents of narrative persuasion have determined that three antecedents are particularly pertinent for a storyteller (and for our reading of 1 Pet. 2:18–25), (1) identifiable characters; (2) an imaginable plot; and (3) verisimilitude.¹⁴ An identifiable character is one whom the story recipient is able to pinpoint on the basis of what the storyteller provides in any given context.¹⁵ To be ‘identifiable’, the story-teller must present characters in a way that recipients of the story share in the experiences and feelings of the character, as if they were their own.¹⁶ Thus, the more ‘identifiable’ a character is, the more likely the recipient of the story is to embrace that character’s bias in relation to the overall narrative being presented.¹⁷

An imaginable plot refers to a story’s ability to stimulate mental imagery in the mind of the recipient.¹⁸ In short, the greater the level of mental imagery encouraged by the narrative, the greater the level of narrative transportation and/or persuasion is likely. The final antecedent on the part of the storyteller is verisimilitude, which refers to the realism or believability of a story, that is, its ‘lifelikeness’.¹⁹ The events described in a story must be likely to happen (or to have happened) in real life. It must also be noted at this point that narratives must also have a storyline in which questions are raised and subsequently answered.²⁰ Pertinent for our own investigation, J. de Waal Dryden observes that stories or narratives can be used to both communicate and construct worldviews by ‘depicting all of reality as a single unfolding meta-narrative—a universal history with a beginning, middle and end’.²¹ He goes on to note that a well-constructed narrative worldview provides ‘a teleological structure to reality, since it points towards a specific fulfilment/conclusion that embodies the worldview’s fundamental values’.²² In other words, one of the challenges that any story or narrative faces is whether or not it can account for trials and tribulations faced in everyday life. Can it provide meaning, and shape values and actions that will allow one to live fruit-fully, not only in prosperous times but also in the face of adversity?

And while Green and Brock go so far as to suggest that a recipient may lose access to ‘real-world facts’ as a result of their transportation into a given narrative,²³ the value of the theory is not diminished for our purposes: namely, to assist in our exploration of how Peter’s use Isaiah’s Suffering Servant acts as a summons to share in both the history of Israel and the person and work of Christ, particularly as a means of shaping their identity and mission without seeking escape from the ‘real-world’.

In fact, contrary to Green and Brock, J. R. R. Tolkien pointed out (long before the advent of NTT) that, even in the case of eucatastrophic events²⁴—such as the Anatolian believers have undergone via their conversion²⁵—there is no denial of reality, no matter how perilous life may become. By contrast, the joy that Christians experience resulting from their conversion (1:3–9),

does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.²⁶

In utilising NTT, then, our goal is not to deny the ‘real-world facts’ or the ‘dyscatastrophe’ faced by these new Anatolian converts, but rather to show how Peter’s use of the Isaiah’s Suffering Servant grafts these Christians into the history of Israel and of Christ in such a way as to make sense of their new identity and mission in the world.

1. Green and Brock, ‘The Role of Transportation’, 703, 707.

2. Gerrig, Experiencing Narrative Worlds, 10–11.

3. Van Laer, Tom, Ko de Ruyter, Luca M. Visconti, and Martin Wetzels ‘ The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model: A Meta-Analysis of the Antecedents and Consequences of Consumers’ Narrative Transportation’, Journal of Consumer Research 40.5 (2014), 797–817 (see esp. 798). Much of the outline that follows is derived from this article which is the most thorough review of literature covering two decades of research.

4. Van Laer, et al., ‘The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model’, 799 for the three main points.

5. On empathy, see Slater and Rouner, ‘Entertainment-Education and Elaboration Likelihood’, 185–87; on mental imagery, see Green and Brock ‘In the Mind’s Eye’, 316–317.

6. Van Laer, et al., ‘The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model’, 799.

7. Cf. Green and Brock, ‘In the Mind’s Eye’, 323.

8. Van Laer et al., ‘The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model’, 800; following Phillips and McQuarrie, ‘Narrative and Persuasion’.

9. Van Laer et al., ‘The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model’, 800.

10. Ibid.

11. Van Laer et al., 801.

12. Van Laer et al., 801; following, Bandura, ‘Health Promotion’, 151, who observes the impact of story on Tanzanian people exposed to dramatisations concerning the importance of safe sex practices.

13. Van Laer et al., ‘The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model’, 811.

14. Van Laer et al., 802–03.

15. Van Laer et al., 802; following Küntay, ‘Development of the Expression of Indefiniteness’.

16. Van Laer et al., ‘The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model’, 802; drawing on Escalas and Stern, ‘Sympathy and Empathy’, 575–76; cf. Slater and Rouner, ‘Entertainment-Education and Elaboration Likelihood’, 178, who show that identifiable characters influence narrative transportation because the recipients vicariously experience that which the characters also experience.

17. Van Laer et al., ‘The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model’, 802; following Hoffner, Levine, and Toohey, ‘Socialization to Work in Late Adolescence’, ‘favorite characters [...] to which viewers feel closely connected, can have an influence on values and beliefs’ (p. 297).

18. Van Laer et al., ‘The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model’, 802.

19. Ibid, quoting Bruner, Actual Minds, 11.

20. Green and Brock, ‘In the Mind’s Eye’, 319.

21. Dryden, Theology and Ethics in 1 Peter, 56.

22. Ibid.

23. Green and Brock, ‘The Role of Transportation’, 702–3.

24. Tolkien, ‘On Fairy-Stories’, 153, uses the terms ‘eucatastrophe’ and ‘eucatastrophic’ to refer to event(s) that bring about a ‘sudden joyous turn’ from tragedy to triumph.

25. According to Tolkien, ‘On Fairy-Stories’, 156, ‘The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation’. This is the account of history that the Anatolian Christians have come to believe in, yet this does not lead to a disconnect with ‘real-world facts’. Rather, ‘[t]he Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation’.

26. Tolkien, ‘On Fairy-Stories’, 153, italics original.