Rated measures of narrative structure for written smoking-cessation texts.

This article describes the effect of a series of rated measures of narrative structure on recognition memory, agreement on story-relevant beliefs, and intention to engage in a health-related behavior-in this case smoking cessation. Using short smoking-cessation stories as stimuli, data were collected in a nationally representative sample of adult smokers (n = 1,312). Results suggested that messages rated as more sequential improved encoding and messages rated as containing more context decreased encoding. Messages rated high in transportation were associated with increased recognition, agreement with story-relevant beliefs, and intention to quit. Both positive and negative emotion were positively associated with intention to quit, but were negatively associated with recognition memory.