Gender Differences in Vivid Memories

Seventy-four adults (50% women) individually completed a memory questionnaire. They were given a definition of a flashbulb memory and were asked to describe their 3 most vivid memories. In addition, participants rated the described events for various characteristics (e.g., emotional load and personal importance) and provided their best estimate of the date of each event. Effects of gender on the content of vivid memories, their form, and their distribution were found. The influence of identity on the recollection of personal experiences and gender differences in the development of autobiographical memory are discussed.     

Health and Sickness: The Meaning of Menstruation and Premenstrual Syndrome in Women's Lives

The experience of menstruation was examined through an analysis of women's narratives in order to understand perceptions of menstrual cycle changes. Research within a medical anthropology perspective was conducted with 43 women who volunteered for a study on the knowledge and understanding of menstruation and premenstrual syndrome (PMS) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, from 1997 to 1999. Although most women accepted the PMS label and placed their cyclic changes within the realm of sickness, a small group of women were identified who conceptualized their cyclic changes in an extremely positive way thus reframing their experiences. More positive perceptions of menstrual changes may have a significant impact on the reevaluation of menstrual cycle fluctuations as sickness without devaluing the experiences of those women with severe changes.     

Victim and Perpetrator Groups’ Divergent Perspectives on Collective Violence: Implications for Intergroup Relations

Groups in conflict develop strikingly different construals of the same violent events. These clashing perceptions of past violence can have detrimental consequences for intergroup relations and might provoke new hostilities. In this article, we integrate and juxtapose what we know about construals of collective violence by delineating the different dimensions along which these construals differ between victim and perpetrator groups: regarding the question of who is the victim, who is responsible for the harm doing, what the perpetrator’s intent was, how severe the violence was, and when it took place. Then, we discuss the individual‐ and group‐level factors (e.g., collective narratives, social identities) that shape these construals, as well as their implications for attitudes regarding the conflict and support for relevant policies. We distinguish two different core motives that drive construals and their outcomes among victim and perpetrator groups: Perpetrator groups try to cope with moral identity threats and preserve a positive image of the ingroup, while victim groups try to protect their ingroup from future harm doing and desire acknowledgment of their group’s experiences. Lastly, we discuss implications for strategies and interventions to address victim and perpetrator groups’ divergent perspectives of collective violence.     

Trauma narratives and emotional processing

The present study examined the relations between indicators of emotional processing (e.g. trauma narratives), posttraumatic stress symptoms, and psychological distress in two military samples (N = 120) exposed to significant training accidents. Trauma narratives were collected at 2-3 weeks, while outcome measures (e.g. IES-15, PTSS-10, and GHQ-30) were collected at 2-3 weeks, and 4 months after the accidents. Emotional processing was indexed by the content of positive and negative emotional expressions in the trauma narratives. The results showed that positive emotional expressions were associated with lower levels of psychological distress, whereas negative emotional expressions were linked to trauma specific symptoms and psychological distress at 2-3 weeks. Negative emotional expressions explained between 6-8% of the variance in trauma specific symptoms at 2-3 weeks, and 11% of the variance in psychological distress symptoms at 4 months after the traumatic event.     

Immigration as a Dynamic Experience: Personal Narratives and Clinical Implications for Family Therapists

This is a reflective account of the experiences of the authors who immigrated to the United States from India at different developmental, historical, political, and social stages. Although their culture-of-origin was the same, the meaning and experience of immigration was different for each author. The narratives show a natural continuum of experiences based on their developmental stage during immigration, reasons for immigration, and the historical context of both India and the US at the time of immigration. A common theme is the ambivalence experienced by them in their process of creating a physical and psychological home in a different culture.     

The imperative to support Black youths in resisting low and limiting expectations

Harmful narratives circulate about Black youths in North America. Deficit narratives portray them, their culture, and their communities as problems, narratives about policing encourage their control and punishment, color-evasive narratives ignore how race shapes their experiences, and essentialist narratives erase their distinct and often intersectional experiences by presenting them as monolithic. Community psychology and allied fields do not escape these trends, which in turn infuse practice, research, and teaching involving Black youths. The present paper highlights four principles that community psychology and allied fields can adopt to support Black youths in resisting these negative and narrow narratives. They are: (1) emphasizing Black youths' and Black communities' strengths, (2) supporting their agency, (3) adopting culturally relevant practices, and (4) developing critical consciousness through reflections on and deconstruction of these narratives. We hope that the reflections shared in this paper will expand the perspectives infused by researchers and practitioners in community psychology, social work, urban studies, and allied fields who work with Black youths.     

自传体叙事中的自我欺骗:个体的自我认同策略

自传体叙事中的自我欺骗是一种从个体内角度理解的自我欺骗,是无人际压力情况下个体自我建构过程中所使用的一种认同策略。这种自我欺骗发生在自传体叙事过程中,个体通过叙事语言拉开"新我"和"旧我"的叙事距离,建立新的目标追求并实现,最终构建新的叙事认同。在这个过程中,个体在维持正性自我概念的动机驱动下,采用有偏差的信息加工方式叙述自我故事,满足情绪体验与情绪评价一致性的需要,进而影响个体的自我意识,引发自我改变。未来研究可以探讨自传体叙事中自我欺骗在临床中的行为表现与治疗策略,考察其认知神经机制,并探讨不同社会文化背景下自我欺骗的特点与影响因素。     

Positive weighing of the other's collective narrative among Jewish and Bedouin‐Palestinian teachers in Israel and its correlates

Teachers play a pivotal role in the educational discourse around collective narratives, and especially the other's narrative. The study assumed that members of groups entangled in a conflict approach the different modules of the other's narrative distinctively. Jewish and Palestinian teachers, Israeli citizens, answered questionnaires dealing with the narrative of the other, readiness for interethnic contact, negative between‐group emotions and preferences for resolutions of the Israeli–Palestinian (I–P) conflict. Positive weighing of the other's narrative among Jewish teachers correlated with high levels of readiness for interethnic contact and low levels of negative between‐group emotions, across the various modules of the Palestinian narrative. Preferences for a peaceful resolution of the I–P conflict and rejection of a violent one were noted in two of the modules. Among Palestinian teachers, positive weighing of the other's collective narrative was exclusively noted for the Israeli narrative of the Holocaust, and this stance negatively related to negative between‐group emotions and preference for a violent solution of the I–P conflict, and positively related to readiness for interethnic contact and preference of a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Practical implications of these findings for peace education are discussed.     

Personality characteristics of highly generative adults as assessed in Q-sort ratings of life stories

The present study compared the personality characteristics assessed in life stories of 40 highly generative adults to those in the life stories of a contrasting sample of 30 less generative adults. Life-story interviews of all 70 subjects were rated with the California Adult Q-Sort (CAQ; Block, 1961). The results were compared to the “expert” generativity CAQ profile compiled by Peterson and Klohnen (1995). The results indicated that highly generative adults were more likely to construct life stories indicative of such positive generativity characteristics as “behaves in a giving way toward others” and “is turned to for advice and reassurance” compared to adults low in generativity. Furthermore, the highly generative adults related life-story accounts in which negative generativity qualities such as “has hostility toward others” and “is self-indulgent” were more uncharacteristic than those expressed in the low-generativity adults' stories. The study adds to a growing empirical literature on the meaning and manifestations of generativity in adult lives and suggests that the CAQ is a useful tool for uncovering personality characteristics expressed in the life-story accounts generated by adults.     

How Can We Understand and Describe “Non-Narrative” Narratives? A Qualitative Study of Workers with Recurring Sick Leave

This study explored methodologies enabling us to hear the “non-narrative” voices of participants in narrative research. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven Japanese workers with recurring sick leave, and the data were analyzed using thematic analysis (TA) and dialogical narrative analysis (DNA). In narrators' apparently chaotic and fragmented statements, TA identified three divided self-images that remained disconnected: image of present self with a sense of setbacks, image of past self, and image of ideal self. As the last two self-images ceaselessly negate the first, these workers had lost a sense of autonomy and self-confidence. On the other hand, DNA described their desperate endeavors to organize their sick leave experiences by appealing to the typology of the illness narrative; however, this effort remained a failure. Through two qualitative analyses that suspended the premise that each narrative enables the narrator's construction of self, we were able to understand the real status of participants who could not narrate their experiences. The ethical obligation of researchers to respect the “unfinalizability” of narrative and remain open to continuous dialogue is discussed.