Narrative Processing of Entertainment Media and Mental Illness Stigma

This study examined the narrative effects of familiarity, transportation, whether a story is factual or fiction, and perceived realism on the stigmatizing behavior of social distancing behavior. A sample of N = 137 participants watched a commercial movie about mental illness. Genre was manipulated to determine whether fiction or nonfiction impacted social distancing behavior. Although there was no effect of the genre manipulation, transportation was found to have a relationship with social distancing, with the more relevant the participants found the story, the lower they demonstrated social distancing behavior. How much participants identified with the main character was found to have a partial mediating effect between perceived story relevance and social distancing behavior.