Credibility judgments of narratives: language, plausibility, and absorption

Two experiments were conducted in order to find out whether textual features of narratives differentially affect credibility judgments made by judges having different levels of absorption (a disposition associated with rich visual imagination). Participants in both experiments were exposed to a textual narrative and requested to judge whether the narrator actually experienced the event he described in his story. In Experiment 1, the narrative varied in terms of language (literal, figurative) and plausibility (ordinary, anomalous). In Experiment 2, the narrative varied in terms of language only. The participants' perceptions of the plausibility of the story described and the extent to which they were absorbed in reading were measured. The data from both experiments together suggest that the groups applied entirely different criteria in credibility judgments. For high-absorption individuals, their credibility judgment depends on the degree to which the text can be assimilated into their own vivid imagination, whereas for low-absorption individuals it depends mainly on plausibility. That is, high-absorption individuals applied an experiential mental set while judging the credibility of the narrator, whereas low-absorption individuals applied an instrumental mental set. Possible cognitive mechanisms and implications for credibility judgments are discussed.     

The Cocreation of Crazy Patchworks: Becoming Rhizomatic in Systemic Therapy

In the field of systemic therapy, there has been much discussion recently about the narrative self. This concept refers to the idea that the self is narratively constructed in and through the stories which someone tells about him/herself. The story is thereby not only viewed as a metaphor for selfhood: Selfhood is not compared to a story, it is a story. But what kind of story are we talking about here? If the self is a story, what does that story look like? These questions are explored in this article. Starting from the possibilities and limitations of traditional and postmodern visions on the self as a story, an alternative vision is illustrated. By considering the self as a rhizomatic story, we not only create a useful view of the way narrative selfhood is constructed within a therapy context, but we also stimulate therapists to coconstruct—together with their clients—patchworks of self‐stories. By using story fragments of our own practice, we illustrate the rhizomatic thinking and its possibilities in therapy.     

Romancing the Family: Umberto Eco’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Baudolino</Emphasis>

Referencing Umberto Eco’s novel Baudolino, the author discusses issues concerning the authenticity of the narrative, specifically the distortions in the story presented to the audience and doubts surrounding the veracity of the tale. The act of narration is associated with the shame caused by the abuse and neglect that is an integral part of this story. The ambivalence of the protagonist—to tell his story and to keep it (and his true identity) concealed—associates narration, a creative act, with lying. Trauma generates the lies and hiddenness as a means of coping with abuse and indifference. In order to deal with the feelings of inadequacy caused by his humble birth, the traumatized protagonist lies: he romanticizes his family origins, the illusion of being the offspring of distinguished parents. His attempt to win the love of the parents, by being both good and all-knowing, is one of the motivating forces of his family romance. Telling lies makes the protagonist omniscient: he is the only one who knows if and when he is telling the truth. Paradoxically, the narrator creates and undermines that image of omniscience by revealing the thought processes of one character while leaving opaque those of the protagonist, and by denying the trueness of the tale affirmed when he presents as objective his own subjective sentiments by indirectly attributing them to the protagonist. The uncertainty that underpins the narration is indicative of the storyteller’s absence. This vacancy structures the work because it allows kindred spirits, nonjudgmental readers (listeners) who willingly suspend disbelief, to enter the world of the narrator. This uncritical participation counters the chaos of the storyteller’s reality, as they create their own new world where the split parental images are united.     

Fiction as an aid to therapy: a narrative and family rationale for practice

Stories of literary merit written by others (novels, plays, etc.) can be used in therapy to help people tell their personal stories. Existing approaches to the use of fiction draw mainly from psychoanalytic assumptions. From a narrative and family perspective, the claim is that when persons of all ages spontaneously report on the content of a favourite story, this story functions as a 'safe' vehicle for them to talk about their own lives, experiences and emotions that have been marginalized or shaped to fit transgenerational themes. In addition, the form of a favourite story can help in the transformation of a non-intelligible and/or pessimistic self-narrative. A case example is used to illustrate the suggested steps for working with clients on a favourite novel. The therapist encourages family member(s) to claim ownership of the assumed experiences, wishes and positive life developments of their favourite characters, and to help them see the narrative structures and linguistic features they have used for the various retellings of the story as properties of their own self-narratives.     

The Role of Defense in the Life Story

In modern societies, adults typically provide their lives with some sense of unity and purpose by constructing self-defining life stories that serve as their identities. Such stories are told to others and to an internalized audience or listener who serves as an ultimate judge and interpreter of the narrative. Defense mechanisms specify narrative strategies that persons use to shape how their lives are told to others and to their internalized audiences. Life events and experiences are incorporated into a life story to the extent that the internalized audience can make sense of the telling. Defenses function to make some stories more tellable than they might otherwise be and to keep other potentially storied accounts from ever reaching the status of being told.     

The narrative identity approach and romantic relationships

Narrative identity is an internal and evolving life story in which the narrator integrates conceptions of the personal past, present, and presumed future within a coherent story‐based framework. Carrying a number of personal and social implications, this construct represents a psychological resource. We contend that, like life itself, one's history within the romantic domain as well as one's current romantic relationship(s) are often viewed using story‐based frameworks. As such, we argue that the greater adoption of the narrative identity approach within the close relationships literature would complement and extend current assessment paradigms used to study romantic relationships. In this article, we outline the conceptual and methodological background of the narrative identity approach. This is followed by a brief review of extant research using narrative methodologies in the study of romantic relationships. Finally, a series of current and future research directions are presented that rest at the nexus between the narrative identity approach and the study of romantic relationships. We conclude that the more extensive integration of the narrative identity approach within the close relationships literature would contribute to the understanding of such relationships. This is a story worth telling.     

Who speaks? Who looks? Who feels? Point of view in autobiographical narratives1

In this paper, the author aims to substantiate Freud's claim that neurotic illness creates gaps in autobiographical narratives in terms of the narrator's stating and inducing perspectives. He sketches out the role of narrative perspective and the joint taking of a shared perspective by analyst and patient in psychoanalytic therapy. He introduces four ways of representing perspectives in narratives. Three degrees of narrative distortion are exemplifi ed by three excerpts from life narratives and explored in terms of narrative perspective representation. The most comprehensive perspective representation is achieved in the fi rst example by explicitly stating the present perspective of the narrator as well as the past perspective of the story's protagonist by use of mental verbs. In the second narrative, exclusive use of linguistic forms for inducing the protagonist's perspective both overwhelms the narrator and gives the listener an incomplete picture of what happened. Inconsistent motives, denial of responsibility and omission of detail render the third narrative even more diffi cult to follow. The author discusses the clinical signifi cance of this exploratory analysis of perspectives in narratives in terms of claiming responsibility for one's past action and of level of defence mechanisms, and by highlighting the emotional impact on listeners, which the author suggests is the stronger the more perspectives are left out. He discusses analogies to countertransference. The analysis of narrative perspectives offers an approach for systematic research in psychoanalytic practice.     

The role of storytelling in advertising: Consumer emotion,narrative engagement level,and word‐of‐mouth intention

This experimental study with a national online sample (n = 300) tested the effects of storytelling in radio advertisements on participants' positive emotional responses and intentions to share information about the product, depending on audiences' narrative engagement level. Treatments included a commercial for a fictitious brand of luggage using a story told by the founder of the company, another version of the same commercial manipulated so the speaker was a customer of the company, and a control stimulus consisting only of information about the product. Results showed that narrative transportation and narrative preference are positively associated with favorable responses toward ad. Stories elicited more favorable emotional responses and had some effect on participants' intention to share information about the product by word‐of‐mouth. This was especially true among participants hearing the founder's story. Results support previous assumptions about the power of storytelling in advertising, including distinctions regarding the identity of the speaker (founder vs. customer).     

Narrative and the Stability of Intention

This paper addresses a problem concerning the rational stability of intention. When you form an intention to φ at some future time t, you thereby make it subjectively rational for you to follow through and φ at t, even if—hypothetically—you would abandon the intention were you to redeliberate at t. It is hard to understand how this is possible. Shouldn't the perspective of your acting self be what determines what is then subjectively rational for you? I aim to solve this problem by highlighting a role for narrative in intention. I'll argue that committing yourself to a course of action by intending to pursue it crucially involves the expectation that your acting self will be ‘swept along’ by its participation in a distinctively narrative form of self‐understanding. I'll motivate my approach by criticizing Richard Holton's and Michael Bratman's recent treatments of the stability of intention, though my account also borrows from Bratman's work. I'll likewise criticize and borrow from David Velleman's work on narrative and self‐intelligibility. When the pieces fall into place, we'll see how intending is akin to telling your future self a kind of story. My thesis is not that you address your acting self but that your acting self figures as a ‘character’ in the ‘story’ that you address to a still later self. Unlike other appeals to narrative in agency, mine will explain how as narrator you address a specifically intrapersonal audience.     

The scholar as activist: Postcolonial feminist film practice as a tool for social development,empowerment and resistance

This article explores the concept of the “scholar as activist” in the context of postcolonial feminist film practice, and the successes and shortcomings of a research design conceptualised to explore the potential that self-reflexive filmmaking offers to articulate the narratives of South African Hindu women (and other suppressed groups). My point of departure was a strong sense of the misrecognition of my own identity as a South African Hindu woman of Indian descent, in stereotypical representations of Hindu women in mainstream film. South African Hindu women, and suppressed groups by extension, have stories that need to be told. The question emerged of how such stories could be told through the medium of film. Could the interface between the medium of self-reflexive film, the academic filmmaker and the narratives of South African Hindu women translate into meaningful social action that would offer a platform for resistance to mainstream (mis)representations? A critical reflection on my initial filmmaking process, and an analysis of the film text itself, illustrated that as an academic with various platforms of expression at my disposal, I had assumed a superficial similarity to and yet privileged position over those whose story I attempted to tell. How then could women use self-reflexive filmmaking to tell their own stories that resist limited mainstream gendered representations and reclaim their own identities? In a play between an academic register and an overtly self-reflexive narrative style, I thus explicate the organic process of developing a revised methodological approach for the postcolonial “scholar as activist”.     

Late adolescent identity development: narrative meaning making and memory telling

Personally important autobiographical memories are the smallest unit of the life story, which begins to emerge in adolescence. This study examined 2 features of self-defining memories in late adolescence, the meaning made of the memories to garner an understanding of the narrative construction of identity as a life story and how those memories were told with an emphasis on the functions for telling and audiences to understand the social component of narrative identity development. For late adolescents (N = 185), meaning was infrequently reported for the entertainment function in comparison with the self-explanation function. At later ages, adolescents' audiences were more likely to be peers, and at earlier ages, adolescents' audiences were more likely to be parents. Discussion focuses on the individual and social levels of identity construction that are apparent in personally important autobiographical memory narratives.     

ON SOCIAL EVIL AND NATURAL EVIL: IN CONVERSATION WITH CHRISTOPHER SOUTHGATE

In this contribution, the author engages in a conversation with Christopher Southgate on the relationship between social evil and what is called natural “evil.” Theologically, this centers around an understanding of creation and fall. It is argued that Southgate typically treats soteriology and eschatology as themes pertaining to an evolutionary theodicy, whereas an adequate ecotheology would discuss the problem of natural suffering under the rubric of the narrative of God's economy. The question is then how that story is best told.     

Primacy Effect in Credibility Judgements: The Vulnerability of Verbal Cues to Biased Interpretations

We explored the vulnerability of credibility judgements of written accounts (mediated by their richness in details) to primacy effect. Specifically, we examined whether the order by which two texts were presented affected their credibility judgements. In Experiment 1, participants read two life stories of the same narrator, one rich and the other poor in details, while their presentation order was manipulated. Results showed that participants tended to believe the narrator more when the rich story preceded the poor story than when the presentation order was reversed. In Experiment 2, the richness‐order was manipulated within a single story, and its results revealed that, although participants read stories of equal length, they perceived a story that began in a rich manner as richer than a story that began in a poor manner. Together, results point to the vulnerability of the ‘richness in detail’ indicator to judgemental biases. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Choose your own adventure: attachment dynamics in a simulated relationship

According to attachment theory, insecure individuals respond to events in their romantic relationships in ways that sometimes can be destructive. The objective of this research was to examine how these responses may accumulate over repeated interactions to influence the quality of the relationship. Across three studies, participants were presented with a "Choose Your Own Adventure" dating story in which they made choices based on their partners' behaviors. In each study we found that attachment styles predicted the kinds of choices participants made at the outset of and throughout the story. Additionally, relationship satisfaction was related to the choices participants made throughout the fictional narrative, even in situations in which the partner's behavior was the same for all participants.     

Clinic-Referred Mothers’ Autobiographical Narratives as Markers of Their Parenting Styles

Forty clinic-referred mothers completed questionnaires describing their children’s problems and the mothers’ parenting styles. In addition, each mother told three stories about their personal experiences in child care and one story about being cared for in their families of origin. Each story was transcribed and rated for coherence on six dimensions describing narrative clarity and richness. Results showed the narrative ratings to be fairly reliable and internally consistent, and the questionnaires proved to be psychometrically sound except for one of the parenting style scales that we dropped from further data analyses. Results showed the two remaining scales (authoritative and authoritarian styles) covaried with mothers’ reports about problems with their children. Correlations between mothers’ narrative coherence scores and their parenting style scores showed mixed results: authoritative style was not correlated with narrative coherence, but authoritarian style was negatively correlated with this narrative measure. Regression analyses using the six coherence scales and the authoritarian style scale showed the causality scale to account for most of the variance in authoritarian style. We speculated on the nature of this latter covariation.     

Channeling identity: A study of storytelling in conversations between introverted and extraverted friends

This narrative study examined the process of personal storytelling between college-age friends who were similarly introverted or extraverted. Participants were 19 introverted and 20 extraverted same-sex pairs (49% female) who had been friends for an average of 18 months. Stories emerged spontaneously during 10-min catch-up conversations. Extraverted friends more often told stories that changed the topic, and more often co-constructed story plots. Introverted friends more often told stories that were embedded in a developing theme, and constructed story plots solo. With regard to content, extraverted friends told stories about romance more so than introverted friends, whose stories more often concerned family/hometown, and older events. The findings suggest that the traits of extraversion and introversion channel the identity-making process.     

The halo effect revisited: Forewarned is not forearmed

The purpose of the present research was to determine if forewarning subjects about the halo effect eliminated the effect or made people aware of its impact. The research was a replication and extension of R. E. Nisbett and T. D. Wilson's (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1977, 35, 250–256) experiment on the halo effect. Subjects viewed an interview of a college instructor who was either warm or cold and then rated his physical appearance, mannerisms, and French accent. Some subjects were told to introspect about their cognitive processes while viewing the interview and were told that the purpose of the study was to see how aware they were of the determinants of their ratings. Other subjects were also told specifically what the halo effect was and given a motivation either to show it or not to show it. In addition, a measurement technique different from that used by Nisbett and Wilson was utilized to allow a more precise measurement of awareness, and a new cover story was used to make the task more involving and important to subjects. Despite these attempts to eliminate the halo effect (or, at a minimum, to make people aware of it), the results indicated that subjects in all conditions were very susceptible to it. That is, subjects who viewed the warm version of the interview rated the instructor's appearance, mannerisms, and accent significantly higher than did those who viewed the cold version, even when informed and forewarned about this effect. The forewarning and introspection instructions also had no impact on subject's awareness of the halo effect. Subjects in all conditions indicated that their liking for the instructor had had only a minimal effect on their ratings.     

Narrative Re-Telling in Clinical Treatment

This study describes the telling and re-telling of one narrative across the course of a two and one half year psychoanalysis. Changes in the structure and content of the story are documented in order to describe the dynamic narrative process through which the story is told and retold, and to understand how the repeated tellings function in the treatment.