Measuring identification with narrative characters: the development and validation of a new scale

• Published in: Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) N.J.), 2024-08, Vol.43 (30), p.24835-24849
• Main Authors: Huang, Kate Y., Fung, Helene H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology; Discriminant analysis; Psychology; Social Sciences
• ISSN: 1046-1310; 1936-4733
• DOI: 10.1007/s12144-024-06191-2

During narrative reception, one psychological response audiences may experience toward story characters is identification, which involves a sense of merging between self and character. Given the lack of formally validated measures of this construct in the literature, the current paper introduces a new 12-item scale for measuring identification. Scale development and validation took place over three sequential studies. Exploratory factor analysis in Study 1 ( N  = 224) indicated four related factors: merging, perspective-taking, understanding, and emotional involvement. In Study 2 ( N  = 191), confirmatory factor analysis suggested that a second-order four-factor model provided a good fit to the data and a more parsimonious explanation of the scale’s factor structure compared to a first-order model. In addition, the overall scale and subscales demonstrated adequate internal consistency and correlated in the expected directions with theoretically relevant and irrelevant constructs. Using a more demographically diverse sample, Study 3 ( N  = 290) established measurement invariance of the scale across two narratives in terms of configural, metric, and partial scalar invariance, and provided further support for its factor structure, reliability, and validity.