Engagement Is Not One Thing: A Meta-Analytic Perspective on the Narrative Engagement Scale

Narrative engagement is widely assumed to underlie the persuasive power of stories, yet its internal structure and psychological functions have rarely been examined cumulatively. This meta-analysis synthesizes research employing the narrative engagement scale (NES) to clarify how narrative engagement – and its four dimensions of attention, understanding, emotional engagement, and presence – relates to narrative outcomes and related narrative processes. Across 52 studies (N = 12,705), overall narrative engagement was positively associated with narrative-consistent attitudes, behavioral intentions, and behaviors. Narrative engagement was also strongly related to transportation and identification, and negatively related to counterarguing, consistent with theoretical accounts of narrative persuasion. Importantly, analyses at the dimensional level revealed systematic differences: attention and understanding were most closely linked to reduced counterarguing, whereas emotional engagement and presence were more strongly associated with transportation and identification. These findings suggest that narrative engagement is not a unitary experience but a structured process involving distinct cognitive and affective components with different implications for persuasion.