Knowledge of persuasion and story comprehension: Developmental changes in expectations?

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Abstract
The goal of this study was to examine the role played by knowledge of persuasion in the comprehension of a protagonist‐antagonist story. Subjects were second, fourth, and sixth graders, and college students. A tape‐recorded story was stopped (a) before characters' applications of persuasion methods, at which point subjects role‐played characters and generated appropriate persuasion strategies; and (b) after descriptions of characters' persuasion attempts, at which point subjects tried to justify characters' methods. Subjects' responses were classified according to a taxonomy of persuasion methods and “global hypotheses” about the form that the story conflict might take. Based on these classifications, it was determined that there were developmental changes in the methods and justifications generated for particular characters. These changes in expectations were related to hypotheses about types of knowledge that are acquired with development. The types most important in explaining the age‐related changes observed in this study were knowledge of (a) probable relationships among goals, persuasion methods, and particular situations and (b) story schemata.

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