Assistant Professor
Ph.D., 2000, Ohio State University

Department of Psychology
University of Pennsylvania
3720 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6196
Email:  mcgreen@psych.upenn.edu

Phone:  215-573-8148
FAX:  215-898-7301

Office:  3720 Walnut Street, Room C-17

Social Psychology (Psychology 170)
Seminar in Political Psychology (Psychology 270)
Research Experience in Social Psychology (Psychology 370)
Graduate Pro-Seminar, Social Psychology (Psychology 600-301)
Independent Study (Psychology 399)

Broadly speaking, my research interests are in attitudes and persuasion, and political psychology. My work is also relevant to issues in positive psychology.

Transportation into Narrative Worlds

Within the area of persuasion, I have been particularly interested in the effects of narratives or stories on individuals' beliefs. My research has focused on the phenomenological experience of being absorbed in a story–-a process we call "transportation into a narrative world"–-as a mechanism of narrative impact. Most people have had the sensation of being "lost in a book" (Nell, 1998), swept up into the world of a story so completely that they forget the world around them. Instead of being aware of their physical surroundings, transported readers see the action of the story unfolding before them. They react emotionally to events that are simply words on a page. Transportation resembles flow, or optimal experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1982). A transported individual is cognitively and emotionally involved in the story, and may experience vivid mental images.

We have developed and validated a scale to measure the extent of transportation experienced by readers, and conducted studies demonstrating that highly transported individuals showed more story-consistent beliefs on both story-specific and general dependent measures (Green & Brock, 2000). Transportation is also associated with increased positivity toward sympathetic characters and a reduction in negative cognitive responding.

Fact and Fiction

Nonfiction, with its pretension of veridicality, and fiction, with its patina of verisimilitude, but no necessary pretension to accuracy, are popularly understood as distinct realms. However, research in a variety of domains shows that the fact-fiction distinction is overstated: individuals may blur the boundaries between truth and imagination. The extent to which individuals integrate products of imagination into their real-world belief structures is of critical importance, yet this topic has received little attention in the persuasion domain. My collaborators and I have also been attempting to identify the conditions under which individuals might differentiate between factual and fictional narratives; to date, we have found that fictional stories often have an influence on individuals' opinions that is comparable to that of factual narratives.

HeartSense:  Virtual Reality Game to Reduce Pre-Hospitalization Delay for Heart Attacks

The HeartSense project combines research on persuasion and health communication with the use of an interactive, immersive story.  The goal of this effort is to test whether a virtual reality game can reduce myocardial infarction (MI) mortality and adverse reactions by reducing pre-hospitalization delay in civilians (patients and passers-by). We plan to implement, evaluate, and deploy on a prototype basis a low-cost training and decision support game that supports a virtual village where users attempt to convince residents to recognize heart attack symptoms and to avoid delay issues.

Narratives of Personal Growth

Although the bulk of my work is focused on public narratives, personal narratives are also a powerful force in individuals' lives.  In this line of work, I am using personal stories to investigate the psychology of personal growth. In particular, my collaborators (Laura King, University of Missouri-Columbia, and Jefferson Singer, Connecticut College) and I are exploring how individuals might grow through rising to an occasion (meeting a challenge by drawing on previously unrecognized strengths) or through receptivity (opening oneself to connections to or knowledge about the world). These narratives may be related in systematic ways to personality factors and to individual outcomes (well-being, maturity).

Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations

Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations, my edited book (with Tim Brock and Jeff Strange; Erlbaum, 2002), provides a cross-disciplinary look at the persuasive power of stories.

Real vs. Ersatz Social Interactions

In the political psychology domain, another line of research broadens my focus from individual functioning to the basis for healthy, civic communities.  Specifically, I am investigating the psychological factors underlying the development of social capital, the "features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit" (Putnam, 1995, p. 67). Interest in factors promoting social capital became widespread after Putnam (1995) suggested that social capital was declining in the United States. Putnam considered a range of possible causes for this decline, but in the end, concluded that the rise of television played a major role.

My research investigates people’s reliance on ersatz, or substitute, social activities, rather than real social activities. I define ersatz activities as media-based activities, particularly those that provide alternate means for individuals to fulfill belongingness and interaction needs (Green & Brock, 1998). Ersatz activities include television viewing, but also computer-mediated interaction.  Real social activities are more readily presumed to create social capital than ersatz activities. In other words, I am interested in when and why individuals might choose to watch the television show Friends rather than spending time with actual friends, and what the consequences of these types of choices might be for trust and civic participation. Broadly speaking, my research investigates how the interaction between technology and individuals can be managed to build strong communities.

Development of Trust in Internet Relationships

More specifically, I am also exploring the role of the Internet in creating or reducing community and social bonds, and the way in which trust develops in Internet relationships. Trust, both specific and generalized, is an important ingredient in smoothly functioning relationships. A key question in the trust literature is understanding how trust is developed and maintained in different circumstances. An emerging area of investigation is the development of trust in computer-mediated or on-line relationships. These types of relationships are becoming increasingly frequent, given the rise in individuals who have access to the Internet. On-line relationships pose unique challenges for individuals: false identities are easy to create and difficult to verify (see, for example, Turkle, 1995; Van Gelder, 1985). Because individuals communicating on-line are likely to be geographically distant from one another, it is often impossible to rely on mutual acquaintances to vouch for the trustworthiness of a person. The purpose of the current research is to experimentally investigate factors that contribute to or detract from trust in relationships in which participants do not have face-to-face contact. Furthermore, trust is a term that may have multiple meanings. In addition to exploring factors that contribute to trust development, I am also exploring the nature of trust in Internet relationships. When someone says they trust another person that they've met on line, what is the nature of that trust? Do they trust the other person to provide accurate information? To keep shared information in confidence? Would they trust them in a face-to-face meeting?

• Jealousy:  My students and I have been exploring influences on gender differences in responses to infidelity in romantic relationships (with John Sabini).
• Survey satisficing: We are examining the role of interview mode (telephone versus face-to-face) on the quality of individuals' survey responses (with Jon Krosnick and Allyson Holbrook).
• Evaluating research: We are exploring the role of individual sensitivity to Type I and Type II error in evaluating research reports; an exploration of mechanisms behind Wilson's proposed leniency and oversight biases (with Darcy Reich, Philip Tetlock, and Timothy Brock).
• Accountability: I have been exploring (in collaboration with Philip Tetlock and Penny Visser) the effects of being accountable to conflicting constituencies. Individuals who must answer to authorities with opposing viewpoints might be more likely to engage in avoidance strategies, such as buckpassing, procrastination, and obfuscation.

Additional Information and Links

Vita and List of Publications

Social and Cultural Psychology at Penn

Using the Subject Pool at Penn

Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict

Ackoff Center for the Advancement of Systems Approaches

Preconference on Positive Psychology, 2002

Society for Personality and Social Psychology

International Society for Political Psychology

Micheal Birnbaum's SurveyWiz (great intro to web research)