Bedtime Stories that Work: The Effect of Protagonist Liking on Narrative Persuasion

The experiment described in this article draws on affective disposition theory to clarify how protagonist likeability influences participants’ sleep hygiene-related self-efficacy and outcome expectations immediately after media exposure and 3 days later. Results indicate that protagonist likeability is an important factor in narrative persuasion. Protagonist likeability did not directly affect participants’ sleep hygiene-related self-efficacy immediately postexposure, but it did influence self-efficacy 3 days later. The dislikeable protagonist influenced self-efficacy more than the likeable protagonist. Further, protagonist likeability did not directly affect outcome expectations either immediately postexposure or 3 days later. However, mediation analyses demonstrated that protagonist likeability indirectly influenced both self-efficacy and outcome expectations via perceived liking of the protagonist immediately after exposure and 3 days later. Implications of these findings are further discussed.