Personal relevance and state empathy with a character facilitates self-disclosure in film viewers.

Participants’ reports on state empathy with the film character, perceived personal relevance of the story, and measures related to self-disclosure were collected. One week later, participants were invited to a second survey on self-disclosure behavior (n = 390). Both personal relevance and empathy with character showed strong links to self-disclosure responses.

The findings of this project shed light on how self-disclosure is elicited by narratives. These insights are important to further understand the therapeutic effects of narratives.