(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
Narrative Persuasion
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdp/dpaper/0039.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Narrative Persuasion

Author

Listed:
  • Kai Barron
  • Tilman Fries

Abstract

We study how one person may shape the way another person interprets objective information. They do this by proposing a sense-making explanation (or narrative). Using a theory-driven experiment, we investigate the mechanics of such narrative persuasion. Our results reveal several insights. First, narratives are persuasive: We find that they systematically shift beliefs. Second, narrative fit (coherence with the facts) is a key determinant of persuasiveness. Third, this fit-heuristic is anticipated by narrative-senders, who systematically tailor their narratives to the facts. Fourth, the features of a competing narrative predictably influence both narrative construction and adoption.

Suggested Citation

  • Kai Barron & Tilman Fries, 2024. "Narrative Persuasion," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0039, Berlin School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdp:dpaper:0039
    DOI: 10.48462/opus4-5426
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-hsog/files/5426/BSoE_DP_0039.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.48462/opus4-5426?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ran Spiegler, 2020. "Can Agents with Causal Misperceptions be Systematically Fooled?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 583-617.
    2. Robert J. Shiller, 2020. "Popular Economic Narratives Advancing the Longest U.S. Economic Expansion 2009-2019," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2223, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    3. Akerlof, George A. & Snower, Dennis J., 2016. "Bread and bullets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PB), pages 58-71.
    4. Kai Barron & Heike Harmgart & Steffen Huck & Sebastian O. Schneider & Matthias Sutter, 2023. "Discrimination, Narratives, and Family History: An Experiment with Jordanian Host and Syrian Refugee Children," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 1008-1016, July.
    5. Blume, Andreas, et al, 1998. "Experimental Evidence on the Evolution of Meaning of Messages in Sender-Receiver Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1323-1340, December.
    6. Peter Andrebriq & Carlo Pizzinelli & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence From Experts and Representative Samples," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2958-2991.
    7. Benjamin Enke, 2020. "What You See Is All There Is," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(3), pages 1363-1398.
    8. Uri Gneezy & Agne Kajackaite & Joel Sobel, 2018. "Lying Aversion and the Size of the Lie," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 419-453, February.
    9. Andrew T Little, 2023. "Bayesian explanations for persuasion," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 35(3), pages 147-181, July.
    10. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    11. Roland Bénabou & Armin Falk & Jean Tirole, 2020. "Narratives, Imperatives, and Moral Persuasion," Working Papers 2020-49, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    12. Hagenbach, Jeanne & Perez-Richet, Eduardo, 2018. "Communication with evidence in the lab," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 139-165.
    13. Abeler, Johannes & Becker, Anke & Falk, Armin, 2014. "Representative evidence on lying costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 96-104.
    14. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
    15. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2019. "Preferences for Truth‐Telling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1115-1153, July.
    16. Ran Spiegler, 2020. "Behavioral Implications of Causal Misperceptions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 81-106, August.
    17. Philippe Jehiel, 2018. "Investment Strategy and Selection Bias: An Equilibrium Perspective on Overoptimism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(6), pages 1582-1597, June.
    18. Robert J. Shiller, 2020. "Popular Economic Narratives Advancing the Longest U.S. Economic Expansion 2009-2019," NBER Working Papers 26857, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Rick Harbaugh & Eric Rasmusen, 2018. "Coarse Grades: Informing the Public by Withholding Information," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 210-235, February.
    20. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Amy Finkelstein & Lawrence F. Katz & Benjamin A. Olken & Anja Sautmann, 2020. "In Praise of Moderation: Suggestions for the Scope and Use of Pre-Analysis Plans for RCTs in Economics," NBER Working Papers 26993, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Paul Heidhues & Botond Kőszegi & Philipp Strack, 2018. "Unrealistic Expectations and Misguided Learning," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(4), pages 1159-1214, July.
    22. Christine Laudenbach & Annika Weber & Rüdiger Weber & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Beliefs about the Stock Market and Investment Choices: Evidence from a Survey and a Field Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 9427, CESifo.
    23. Benjamin Enke & Florian Zimmermann, 2019. "Correlation Neglect in Belief Formation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 313-332.
    24. George J. Mailath & Larry Samuelson, 2020. "Learning under Diverse World Views: Model-Based Inference," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(5), pages 1464-1501, May.
    25. Luca Braghieri & Ro'ee Levy & Alexey Makarin, 2022. "Social Media and Mental Health," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(11), pages 3660-3693, November.
    26. Ran Spiegler, 2016. "Bayesian Networks and Boundedly Rational Expectations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1243-1290.
    27. Kai Barron & Steffen Huck & Philippe Jehiel, 2024. "Everyday Econometricians: Selection Neglect and Overoptimism When Learning from Others," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 162-198, August.
    28. Manuel Foerster & Joël J van der Weele, 2021. "Casting Doubt: Image Concerns and the Communication of Social Impact," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(639), pages 2887-2919.
    29. Kfir Eliaz & Ran Spiegler, 2020. "A Model of Competing Narratives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(12), pages 3786-3816, December.
    30. Ginger Zhe Jin & Michael Luca & Daniel Martin, 2021. "Is No News (Perceived As) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 141-173, May.
    31. Joshua Schwartzstein & Adi Sunderam, 2021. "Using Models to Persuade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(1), pages 276-323, January.
    32. Allcott, Hunt & Boxell, Levi & Conway, Jacob & Gentzkow, Matthew & Thaler, Michael & Yang, David, 2020. "Polarization and public health: Partisan differences in social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    33. Tanjim Hossain & Ryo Okui, 2013. "The Binarized Scoring Rule," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 984-1001.
    34. Weber, Martin & Laudenbach, Christine & Ungeheuer, Michael, 2019. "How to Alleviate Correlation Neglect," CEPR Discussion Papers 13737, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    35. Shiller, Robert J., 2020. "Popular economic narratives advancing the longest U.S. expansion 2009–2019," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 791-798.
    36. McKelvey Richard D. & Palfrey Thomas R., 1995. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Normal Form Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 6-38, July.
    37. Chen, Ying, 2011. "Perturbed communication games with honest senders and naive receivers," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 401-424, March.
    38. Schumacher, Heiner & Thysen, Heidi Christina, 2022. "Equilibrium contracts and boundedly rational expectations," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(1), January.
    39. Luke M. Froeb & Bernhard Ganglmair & Steven Tschantz, 2016. "Adversarial Decision Making: Choosing between Models Constructed by Interested Parties," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 527-548.
    40. Little, Andrew T., 2022. "Bayesian Explanations for Persuasion," OSF Preprints ygw8e, Center for Open Science.
    41. Meng-Jhang Fong & Po-Hsuan Lin & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2023. "Cursed Sequential Equilibrium," Papers 2301.11971, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    42. Chater, Nick & Loewenstein, George, 2016. "The under-appreciated drive for sense-making," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PB), pages 137-154.
    43. Hagenbach, Jeanne & Perez-Richet, Eduardo, 2018. "Communication with evidence in the lab," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 139-165.
    44. Christine Laudenbach & Annika Weber & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Beliefs About the Stock Market and Investment Choices: Evidence from a Field Experiment," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 128, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    45. Kartik, Navin & Ottaviani, Marco & Squintani, Francesco, 2007. "Credulity, lies, and costly talk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 93-116, May.
    46. Andreas Blume & Douglas V. DeJong & George R. Neumann & N. E. Savin, 2002. "Learning and communication in sender-receiver games: an econometric investigation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(3), pages 225-247.
    47. Joseph Tao-yi Wang & Michael Spezio & Colin F. Camerer, 2010. "Pinocchio's Pupil: Using Eyetracking and Pupil Dilation to Understand Truth Telling and Deception in Sender-Receiver Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 984-1007, June.
    48. Aristotelis Boukouras & Theodore Alysandratos & Sotiris Georganas & Zacharias Maniadis, 2020. "The Expert and The Charlatan: an Experimental Study in Economic Advice," Discussion Papers in Economics 20/06, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    49. Cai, Hongbin & Wang, Joseph Tao-Yi, 2006. "Overcommunication in strategic information transmission games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 7-36, July.
    50. Rüdiger Weber & Annika Weber & Christine Laudenbach & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Beliefs About the Stock Market and Investment Choices: Evidence from a Field Experiment," CEBI working paper series 21-17, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    51. Shani Cohen & Shengwu Li, 2022. "Sequential Cursed Equilibrium," Papers 2212.06025, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    52. Ronald R. King & David E. Wallin, 1991. "Market†induced information disclosures: An experimental markets investigation," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(1), pages 170-197, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Graeber & Christopher Roth & Constantin Schesch & Thomas W. Graeber, 2024. "Explanations," CESifo Working Paper Series 11131, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chloe Tergiman & Marie Claire Villeval, 2023. "The Way People Lie in Markets: Detectable vs. Deniable Lies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3340-3357, June.
    2. Albertazzi, Andrea & Ploner, Matteo & Vaccari, Federico, 2021. "Welfare in Experimental News Markets," SocArXiv 5j2w8, Center for Open Science.
    3. Albertazzi, Andrea & Ploner, Matteo & Vaccari, Federico, 2024. "Welfare and competition in expert advice markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 74-103.
    4. Hagenbach, Jeanne & Perez-Richet, Eduardo, 2018. "Communication with evidence in the lab," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 139-165.
    5. Ertac, Seda & Koçkesen, Levent & Ozdemir, Duygu, 2016. "The role of verifiability and privacy in the strategic provision of performance feedback: Theory and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 24-45.
    6. Philippe Jehiel, 2022. "Analogy-Based Expectation Equilibrium and Related Concepts:Theory, Applications, and Beyond," Working Papers halshs-03735680, HAL.
    7. Burdea, Valeria & Montero, Maria & Sefton, Martin, 2023. "Communication with partially verifiable information: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 113-149.
    8. Au, Pak Hung & Lim, Wooyoung & Zhang, Jipeng, 2022. "In vino veritas? Communication under the influence—An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 325-340.
    9. Dugar, Subhasish & Shahriar, Quazi, 2023. "Lying for votes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 46-72.
    10. Lafky, Jonathan & Lai, Ernest K. & Lim, Wooyoung, 2022. "Preferences vs. strategic thinking: An investigation of the causes of overcommunication," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 92-116.
    11. Lee, Yong-Ju & Lim, Wooyoung & Zhao, Chen, 2023. "Cheap talk with prior-biased inferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 254-280.
    12. Daniel H. Wood, 2022. "Communication-Enhancing Vagueness," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-27, June.
    13. , & Frechette, Guilaume & Perego, Jacopo, 2019. "Rules and Commitment in Communication," CEPR Discussion Papers 14085, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Wonsuk Chung & Rick Harbaugh, 2019. "Biased recommendations from biased and unbiased experts," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 520-540, June.
    15. Alistair J. Wilson & Emanuel Vespa, 2012. "Communication With Multiple Senders and Multiple Dimensions: An Experiment," Working Paper 384, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Mar 2012.
    16. Alistair J. Wilson & Emanuel Vespa, 2012. "Communication With Multiple Senders and Multiple Dimensions: An Experiment," Working Paper 401, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Mar 2012.
    17. Burro, Giovanni & Castagnetti, Alessandro, 2022. "Will I tell you that you are smart (dumb)? Deceiving Others about their IQ or about a Random Draw," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    18. Blume, Andreas & Lai, Ernest K. & Lim, Wooyoung, 2019. "Eliciting private information with noise: The case of randomized response," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 356-380.
    19. Wonsuk Chung & Rick Harbaugh, 2012. "Biased Recommendations," Working Papers 2012-02, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    20. Alistair Wilson & Emanuel Vespa, 2012. "Communication With Multiple Senders and Multiple Dimensions: An Experiment," Working Paper 461, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Sep 2012.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Narratives; beliefs; explanations; mental models; experiment; financial advice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G40 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - General
    • G50 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - General
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdp:dpaper:0039. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Reiter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdpemde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.