Melanie C. Green
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., 2000, Ohio State University
Department of
Psychology
University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill
CB 3270, Davie Hall
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
Email: mcgreen@unc.edu
Phone:
919-843-9113
Office: 328 Davie Hall
Brief
Biography
Melanie C. Green is a social psychologist whose research has
focused on the power of narrative to change beliefs, as well as the
ways in which technology affects social interactions. Her work
has highlighted the phenomenological experience of being absorbed in a
story–-a process called "transportation into a narrative world"–-as a
mechanism of narrative impact. Individuals who are more
transported into a narrative world show greater belief change.
This belief change may emerge from emotional connections with
characters, the creation of vivid mental images, and a reduction in
negative cognitive responding (counterarguing). Dr. Green has also
explored the persuasive power of fiction, in a line of work that
highlights the (perhaps) counterintuitive finding that fiction is often
as influential as fact.
Dr. Green's other primary line of research has investigated the
influence of technology (in particular, television and the Internet) on
social capital, and the ways in which trust can develop in on-line
relationships. She also has interests in political psychology
more generally, and evolutionary approaches to social psychology.
Dr. Green has published articles on these topics in leading
psychological journals (including Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review,
Media Psychology), and has extended her narrative persuasion
findings to applied domains such as health communication
(treatment-seeking for heart attacks; cancer prevention behaviors). Her
research has been funded by the American Psychological Association, the
National Library of Medicine, and the Russell Sage Foundation.
She is the editor of Narrative
Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations (2002; with J.J.
Strange and T.C. Brock), a cross-disciplinary volume about the power of
stories, and co-editor of Persuasion:
Psychological Insights and Perspectives (2005; with T.C. Brock),
an introduction to key concepts and theories of attitude change.
Dr. Green received her PhD from Ohio State University, where she was a
National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow and an Ohio State
University Presidential Fellow. From there, she joined the
faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently
Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill.
Research
(click here)
Courses Taught
Social
Psychology
Special Topics Graduate Seminar: Political Psychology
Persuasion, Passion, and Participation: The Psychology of Politics (First Year Seminar)
Attitude Change (advanced undergraduate)
Graduate Seminar in Attitudes
Independent Research (if interested, email Dr. Green for more
information)
Books
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.
Persuasion: Psychological Insights and Perspectives (Second Edition)
Persuasion:
Psychological Insights and Perspectives, Second Edition
(Brock & Green, 2005, Sage) brings together leading persuasion
researchers who write engagingly and
authoritatively on the basics of persuasion theories. This edited book
highlights important and influential views on persuasion and
guides users through the important contemporary centers of basic
and
applied persuasion research. The contributors to this volume apply
cutting-edge knowledge from their current research across a variety of
domains, including health, advertising, prejudice, political
communication, group decision making, and the impact of narratives.
Additional Information and
Links
Vita and
List of Publications
Transportation (into Narrative Worlds)
Scale
Social Psychology at Carolina
Interdisciplinary Health Communication at Carolina
Society for Personality and Social
Psychology
International Society for Political
Psychology
Micheal
Birnbaum's SurveyWiz (great intro to web research)
updated January 2007