The recall and use of narratives as declarative and procedural consumer knowledge

Narratives are central ingredients of consumer information processing. Many advertisements stimulate recipients to construct a story of themselves using a product and derive pleasure from doing so. This chapter considers the construction and use of two types of narratives. One type provides declarative knowledge about events and social experiences and is used as an informational basis for judgments and decisions. The other describes a procedure that might be used in construing implications of this knowledge. The assumption that narrative representations of information have both visual and verbal features calls attention to their interdependent effects on comprehension and judgment. Pictures may only facilitate comprehension and judgment when they can be easily integrated into a narrative representation of the sequence of events being portrayed. The effect of goal-directed behavior in one situation on the strategies used to attain unrelated goals in a different situation may be governed by a behavioral mindset.