“Once Upon a Time, Far, Far Away”: Psychologically Distal Stories Are Judged as More Suitable to Convey General Messages

Storytelling helps people learn, make sense of the world, and connect with others. But stories and narrative may vary in how effective they are perceived to be at communicating different types of messages. Drawing on research on storytelling, communication, and psychological distance, we predicted that psychologically distant (vs. proximal) narratives would be perceived as more appropriate for conveying general messages. Findings across seven preregistered studies that used diverse tasks and manipulations of distance—including foreign versus local settings (Studies 1–3), large versus small audiences (Study 4), more versus less hypothetical scenarios (Study 5), and temporally proximal versus distal personal documentation (Study 6)—supported this prediction, suggesting that psychological distance signals that a narrative is intended to convey a general, abstract lesson. These findings have implications for how narratives are used in education, interpersonal communication, art, and persuasive messaging.