Transportation Theory

MELANIE C. GREEN
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Transportation into a narrative world refers to the feeling of being lost in the world
of a narrative, of being completely immersed in a story and leaving the real world
behind. This experience is a key mechanism underlying the influence of stories or narra-
tives on individuals’ attitudes and beliefs, and is also associated with media enjoyment.
Although transportation has long been used as a metaphor for narrative experience,
psychologists have conceptualized transportation into a narrative world as a distinct
mental process, an integrative melding of → attention, imagery, and → emotions (Ger-
rig 1993; Green & Brock 2000, 701; see also Nell 1988). Transportation is a form of
experiential response to narratives. It is psychologically similar to flow (Csikszentmi-
halyi 1990) or absorption, although both flow and absorption are more general con-
cepts (individuals can experience flow in a variety of activities; absorption is a disposi-
tional tendency to become immersed in experiences). Transportation is also similar to
Vorderer’s high involvement (→ Involvement with Media Content).
Transported readers may lose track of time, fail to notice events going on around
them, or experience strong emotions. Such readers may experience participatory
responses – the desire to communicate with narrative characters or help them toward
their goals (Polichak & Gerrig 2002).
The key psychological ingredients of transportation are assumed to take place
across different communication media, including text, audio, video, or any means of
transmitting a narrative account. Individuals may be transported into both factual and
fictional narratives (→ Fiction; Storytelling and Narration); transportation does not
depend on whether a narrative reflects real-world truth. Indeed, fiction can be a cue to
engage in more immersive, less critical processing (Green et al. 2004b; → Suspension
of Disbelief).
Although individuals may become engaged in non-narrative media (for example,
science programs), transportation per se occurs solely or primarily in response to
narrative communications. Narratives present a sequence of connected events and
characters, typically in a causal chain that moves from beginning to end. In contrast,
non-narrative persuasive communications (→ Persuasion; Argumentative Discourse)

The International Encyclopedia of Communication, First Edition. Edited by Wolfgang Donsbach.

© 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781405186407.wbiect058
2 TR A N S P O R TAT I O N TH E O R Y

present propositions or evidence in support of a claim. Note that narrative does not
necessarily mean fictional. Documentaries, news reports (→ Narrative News Story),
and other nonfiction media products may have a narrative structure, or they may not.
Non-narratives do not create alternative worlds for individuals to enter, and thus they
may be less likely to engage emotions or create mental imagery.
Transportation is a pleasant state, yet individuals are frequently transported into
narratives that evoke negative emotions (fear, sadness, or anger). The enjoyment of
a transportation experience does not necessarily stem from the particular emotions
evoked by a narrative, but from the process of temporarily leaving one’s one reality
behind (Green et al. 2004a; → Enjoyment/Entertainment Seeking).
The transportation-imagery model (Green & Brock 2002) highlights the role of visual
imagery in transportation-based belief change. Images take on → meaning from their
role in a story. Individuals’ imagery ability and situations that allow for the formation of
rich mental images increase the persuasive power of a story. The transportation expe-
rience links the vivid images with beliefs implied by the story. Over time, recalling the
image may re-evoke large parts of the original communication, thus reinforcing the
story-relevant beliefs.

MEASUREMENT AND MANIPULATION

Transportation can be measured with a 15-item self-report scale (Green & Brock 2000;
→ Scales; Scales and Indices). Participants answer each item on a scale of 1 (not at
all) to 7 (very much). Example items include “I was emotionally involved in the narra-
tive while reading it” and “I could picture myself in the scene of the events described
in the narrative.” The scale has shown good internal consistency, as well as discrimi-
nant and convergent → validity. Transportation can be manipulated by varying story
quality or the instructions given to readers. For example, instructions to focus on the
surface aspects of the story, such as difficulty and grammar, produce lower transporta-
tion (Green & Brock 2000; for a related discussion, see Oatley 1994).
Pre-existing familiarity with an aspect of the narrative world can increase trans-
portation. For example, individuals who reported greater knowledge about the
fraternity/sorority system were more transported into a story about a man attending
his fraternity reunion (Green 2004). Additional research is needed to determine the
boundary conditions of this effect; some types of similarity or familiarity do not
seem to consistently increase transportation (e.g., matching reader gender with main
character gender).
The quality or craftsmanship of a text also influences transportation. Well-written
and well-structured texts are more transporting. Bestsellers or classic texts are rated as
more transporting than stories created by psychologists for experiments, for instance
(Green & Brock 2000). Although structural elements such as → suspense can lead to
transportation, mystery or surprise per se are not necessary ingredients of transporta-
tion. Individuals can be transported when rereading or rewatching a narrative, espe-
cially a high-quality narrative.
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RESEARCH FINDINGS

Relationships to Other Variables

Transportation has a moderate positive correlation with empathy (as measured by the
Interpersonal Reactivity Index [Davis 1983]; → Empathy Theory). Transportation also
has a moderate positive correlation with Tellegen’s (1982) “absorption,” a more general
tendency to become immersed in a range of experiences. Absorption is associated with
susceptibility to hypnosis.
Need for cognition is an individual difference variable frequently used in persua-
sion studies (Cacioppo et al. 1984). It measures dispositional tendencies to engage in
and enjoy effortful cognitive activity. Correlations between transportation and need for
cognition vary across studies, but range from no correlation to a low positive one.

Transportation and Belief Change

Individuals who are transported into a narrative are likely to change their beliefs in
response to events or claims in a story. For example, transported readers of a story
about a child being attacked in a shopping mall by a psychiatric patient were more
likely than less-transported readers to believe that psychiatric patient freedoms should
be restricted and that the world was unjust (Green & Brock 2000). Theoretically, atti-
tudes formed or changed via transportation should be strong (persistent over time and
resistant to counterpersuasion).
Transportation may aid in belief change in three ways. First, transportation reduces
counterarguing about the issues raised in the story. Next, transportation may affect
beliefs by making narrative events seem more like personal experience (Green 2004).
If a reader or viewer feels as if she or he has been part of narrative events, the lessons
implied by those events may seem more powerful. Finally, attachment to characters may
play a critical role in narrative-based belief change. If a viewer likes or identifies with a
character (→ Identification), statements made by the character or implications of events
experienced by that character may carry special weight.

Reduced Counterarguing

Transported readers identify fewer “false notes” in a narrative, indicating greater accep-
tance of story content (Green & Brock 2000). Research on mental correction suggests
that individuals need both motivation and ability to reject information that they do not
wish to believe (e.g., Gilbert 1991). Transportation may reduce individuals’ ability to
counterargue assertions or events in the story because the reader’s cognitive capacity
is committed to imagining story events. Transportation may also reduce motivation to
counterargue. Transportation is typically a pleasurable experience, and interrupting this
experience to critique the narrative or dispute the author’s claims would detract from
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story enjoyment. Even when individuals have finished a story, they may be unlikely to
go back and critically evaluate story events, especially if they do not believe that the
story has influenced them.
It may also be more difficult to discount narratives because stories tend to be concrete,
presenting the experience of particular (real or fictional) others, rather than abstrac-
tions. Indeed, people tend to generalize from a narrative exemplar even when the pre-
sented case is not typical (Strange & Leung 1999), especially if they are engaged in the
narrative.

Feelings of Real Experience

Direct experience with attitude objects can result in strong and enduring attitudes.
Through vivid imagery and emotional involvement, transporting narratives approach
direct experience more than other forms of persuasive messages.
Beyond their impressions of the → Realism of the content of the story, individuals
who are immersed in a story may also fail to recall whether a story was fact or fiction.
If a fictional story is misremembered as fact, it may be even more likely to influence
real-world beliefs.

Attachment to Characters

Attachment to a protagonist may be an important determinant of the persuasiveness of

a story. Individuals may develop deep affection for protagonists (liking, sympathy, or
empathy), and hatred for story villains. They may develop parasocial relationships with
the characters (→ Parasocial Interactions and Relationships), such that characters come
to seem like friends. An additional dimension of connectedness may occur if individu-
als identify with a character. Identification is “a process that consists of increasing loss of
self-awareness and its temporary replacement with heightened emotional and cognitive
connections with a character” (Cohen 2001, 251). Identification may entail adopting a
character’s goals as one’s own, and may make the character a model for desired behavior
(as in social learning theory; → Learning and Communication; Observational Learn-
ing). Thus, attachment to characters may make the story more personally relevant to
the recipient, and more powerful in changing real-world beliefs. (This process is in con-
trast to traditional forms of persuasion, where personal relevance of a message typically
implies that the message has implications for an individual’s own outcomes; see Slater
& Rouner 2002.)

Individual Differences

“Transportability,” the extent to which individuals readily become deeply transported

into stories, can be measured as an individual difference (Dal Cin et al. 2004). This
individual difference measure predicts transportation into later texts and films. Across
 TR A N S P O R TAT I O N TH E O R Y 5

studies, there is no gender difference in transportation, although men may be more

transported into some kinds of stories, and women into others.

Applications and Extensions

Transportation theory has been applied to consumer settings. Individuals who mentally
simulate experience with products (imagining themselves wearing a pair of running
shoes) are transported, and thus show reduced critical thinking and a more positive atti-
tude toward the advertisement and the product (Escalas 2004; → Advertising). Trans-
portation is also relevant to → Health Communications, and may underlie some of the
effects observed in → entertainment education, a technique that embeds health mes-
sages in stories (radio programs, telenovelas; see Singhal et al. 2003).
One aspect of transportation is that individuals may generate counterfactual alter-
natives to an unhappy ending of a story. This counterfactual thinking can enhance the
persuasive power of the narrative (Tal-Or et al. 2004).
Over time, transportation may contribute to cultivation effects, in which individuals’
beliefs come to reflect the world as reflected in television portrayals, rather than the real
world (e.g., higher crime rates; → Cultivation Effects). Transported individuals may be
especially likely to integrate televised portrayals into their real lives.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Transportation requires some action on the part of the individual. At a minimum, the
recipient must pay attention to the narrative. However, the extent to which transporta-
tion is under conscious control remains to be determined. (Individuals may not be able
to force themselves to become involved in a text that they find boring, but perhaps can
take themselves out of a narrative world through the use of distraction strategies.)
Future research should also explore the effect of interactivity (→ Interactivity, Con-
cept of; Interactivity in Reception) on experiences of transportation. Being able to act
in a narrative world may create an even deeper experience of immersion. However, vir-
tual reality researchers studying → presence, the feeling of being in a virtual world,
have noted two obstacles to transportation/presence: the technology itself may be dis-
tracting, and the narrative structure may need to be looser to accommodate user input
(Biocca 2002; see also Klimmt & Vorderer 2003).

SEE ALSO: → Advertising → Argumentative Discourse → Attention

→ Cultivation Effects → emotion → Empathy Theory → Enjoy-
ment/Entertainment Seeking → Entertainment Education → Fantasy/Imagination
→ Fiction → Health Communication → Identification → Interactivity,
Concept of → Interactivity in Reception → Involvement with Media Content
→ Learning and Communication → Meaning → Narrative News Story
→ Observational Learning → Parasocial Interactions and Relationships →
Persuasion → Presence → Realism → Scales → Scales and Indices
6 TR A N S P O R TAT I O N TH E O R Y

→ Storytelling and Narration → Suspense → Suspension of Disbelief →

Validity

References and Suggested Readings

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Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., & Kao, C. F. (1984). The efficient assessment of need for cognition.
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Cohen, J. (2001). Defining identification: A theoretical look at the identification of audiences
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Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper and
Row.
Dal Cin, S., Zanna, M. P., & Fong, G. T. (2004). Narrative persuasion and overcoming resistance.
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Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimen-
sional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113–126.
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