Narrative closure

In this article, “Narrative Closure,” a theory of the nature of narrative closure is developed. Narrative closure is identified as the phenomenological feeling of finality that is generated when all the questions saliently posed by the narrative are answered. The article also includes a discussion of the intelligibility of attributing questions to narratives as well as a discussion of the mechanisms that achieve this. The article concludes by addressing certain recent criticisms of the view of narrative expounded by this article.     

Episodic development in preschool children's play-prompted and direct-elicited narratives

This study investigated the premise that action, manifested here through pretend play, is a semiotic arena that can enhance narrative development. It was hypothesized that children would produce structurally more complex narratives in play-prompted elicitation than in direct elicitation conditions, and that this competence would increase with age. Thirty Turkish 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds, with 10 children per age group, participated in the study. Children's narratives were analyzed according to a story grammar framework that differentiated between pre-episodic and episodic structures. A repeated-measures ANOVA revealed a significant effect between age and type of elicitation condition. Narratives displaying an episodic structure with temporal–causally integrated components were observed in the play-prompt elicitation condition by 4-year-olds and in the direct elicitation condition by 5-year-olds, supporting the hypothesis that action helps enhance narrative development. It is concluded that the emerging competence of children to construct narratives with episodic structures can best be observed in play contexts where action and objects scaffold both the conceptual organization and its expression.     

Breaking bread: spirituality,food and early childhood education

The spiritual aspect of early childhood education is supported by the early childhood curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand, Te Whāriki. Research in three different early childhood settings presents new perspectives on the everyday experiences of children in terms of spirituality. Each setting formed a case study that included the voices of children, parents and teachers. Focusing on the practices that surround food and eating, this narrative account takes the sharing of food as a starting point for analysing the spiritual experiences of young children and the metaphor of ‘breaking bread’ is used. It is proposed that the concept of everyday spirituality informs the practice of teachers in each context and working with young children involves considering issues of equity, culture and well‐being.     

时间维度在记叙文理解中的作用

采用事件分割范式探讨了中文条件下时间维度在记叙文理解中的作用。实验1在中文条件下重复了Speer和Zacks(2005)年的研究,结果发现读者更多将时间短语所在位置作为分割边界,表明时间转换在情景模型更新中发挥了重要作用。实验2探讨了在没有时间短语条件下读者对文本分割的情况,结果发现读者主要是按照事件单元进行分割;实验3a和3b在文本的事件单元中插入时间短语,形成时间转换与事件转换分离的条件,探讨读者在这种时间转换与事件单元转换不一致的条件下所采用的分割策略,结果表明,读者更多仍然按照事件单元转换进行分割,而且对事件单元转换的依赖强于时间转换,但同时时间短语仍对文本的分割有一定影响。上述结果表明,事件单元作为建构记叙文心理表征的核心单元,时间维度作为事件单元转换的线索,只有在标识事件转换的情况下,才能引发读者情景模型的更新。     

Theorizing Critical Placemaking as a Tool for Reclaiming Public Space

As economic inequality and segregation continue to grow in the U.S., psychology has an important role to play in exploring and promoting processes that can disrupt social injustice. This paper identifies the privatization of public space as a social problem that contributes to the entrenchment of social, economic, and racial inequality, and advances “critical placemaking” as a tool for reclaiming public space for public use. Drawing from key concepts in environmental psychology, narrative psychology, and community psychology, the proposed framework seeks to theorize the processes by which placemaking may contribute to transforming community narratives and building more inclusive, participatory, and democratic communities. Policy implications and future directions for empirical work are discussed.     

The feeling of the story: Narrating to regulate anger and sadness

Admonitions to tell one's story in order to feel better reflect the belief that narrative is an effective emotion regulation tool. The present studies evaluate the effectiveness of narrative for regulating sadness and anger, and provide quantitative comparisons of narrative with distraction, reappraisal, and reexposure. The results for sadness (n?=?93) and anger (n?=?89) reveal that narrative is effective at down-regulating negative emotions, particularly when narratives place events in the past tense and include positive emotions. The results suggest that if people tell the “right” kind of story about their experiences, narrative reduces emotional distress linked to those experiences.     

The Reasons to Go On Living Project: stories of recovery after a suicide attempt

Qualitative research in suicidology has become increasingly common in the literature. Lakeman and FitzGerald (2008) conducted a review of qualitative works specifically on suicide and recovery. Five interconnected themes—suffering/psychache, struggle, connection, turning points, and suicide and coping—were identified. The Reasons to Go On Living Project (RTGOL) project was a web-based narrative research project that sought to understand the transition from making a suicide attempt to choosing life. This article reports the findings of a secondary analysis of the narratives. By using Lakeman and FitzGerald’s themes as a starting point, one hundred and thirteen submissions were thematically analyzed using a deductive approach. The findings are mostly consistent with the interconnected themes identified by Lakeman and FitzGerald. Moreover, subthemes were identified to better reflect the lived experience of the participants. Clinical and research implications of this project will be discussed.     

A field experiment testing the utility of regulatory fit messages for promoting physical activity

Guided by regulatory focus theory, we examined whether messages tailored to individuals’ promotion- or prevention-goal orientation (regulatory focus) elicit positive thoughts and feelings about physical activity and increase participation in physical activity. Inactive participants (N = 206) were assigned randomly to receive either promotion-focused or prevention-focused messages encouraging physical activity. Two weeks after message exposure, we assessed participants’ thoughts and feelings about physical activity and physical activity behavior. Tailored messages that fit individuals’ regulatory focus led to greater physical activity participation and more positive feelings than non-fit messages, particularly in the promotion-focused condition. Furthermore, positive retrospective feelings about physical activity mediated the effects of the tailored messages on behavior. These findings provide support for regulatory focus theory and direction for enhancing the effectiveness of messages encouraging physical activity and other health behaviors.     

Traitement cognitif d’une représentation « mythique »

Previous studies have shown that participants provided more wild beliefs (i.e., beliefs that do not stem from institutionalized and programmed discourse) about an inexplicable event when they were exposed first to a condition of cognitive control and second when they were exposed to a fantastic (versus factual) presentation of this event. This question has been examined here for a salient social event considered as unpredictable just before it happens. This social event has been discussed a lot after its apparition, is now part of a shared social memory, and is considered as a “myth”: that is the 11 September 2001 attacks. This event has been studied in the same terms that in Deconchy's studies (2006). One hundred and twenty-six participants were assigned to a cognitive control condition (A₁) or a non cognitive control (A₂). Some participants had to explain this social event presented with a use of a pure iconography (Twins towers in black and white, clouds of smoke with clear demarcations: B₁) whereas others faced this event with a presentation linked to phantasmagoria (Twins towers in blue, green and yellow colours, clouds of bloated flames, flaky background: B2). Five different kinds of “explanations” (usually provided just after the 9/11) were offered for which participants had to rate the relevance: mysterious, technological, sociological, typical factors, internal causes attributed to the presumed actors (prestereotypical). Factorial scores on mysterious and internal explanations were high for the experimental condition A₁B₂ (cognitive control with phantasmagoria) and were significantly different from the other experimental conditions.