NARRATIVE AND MEANING IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Differences of understanding in science and in religion can be explored via the distinction between paradigmatic and narrative modes of explanation. Although science is inclusive of the paradigmatic, I propose that in explaining the behavior of complex adaptive systems, and in the human sciences in particular, narratives may well constitute the best scientific explanations. Causal relationships may be embedded within, and expressions of higher-order constraints provided by, complex system dynamics, best understood via the temporal organization of intentionalities that constitute narrative. Complex adaptive systems, out of which intentions emerge, have behavioral trajectories that are in principle unique, contingent, and nondeterministic even in stable states and unpredictable across phase transitions. Given such unpredictability, the only explanation can be an interpretive story that retrospectively retraces the actual changes in dynamics. Without narrative, personality traits and human actions are incomprehensible. Such phenomena do not permit a reduction of purposive acts to nonpurposive elements or of reasons to the causes they constrain. Causality does not exhaust meaning. Given the role of narratives in human lives, religion and mythology provide larger stories within which individual stories make sense. Differences between narrative and historical truth suggest how we can be constituted by what we imagine ourselves to be.     

叙述方式、自我视角与自我发展

叙事取向的自我研究认为, 个体在叙述人生故事与回忆自传体记忆的过程中建构与发展自我。新近研究探讨了影响叙事的因素及其对于自我发展的意义, 相关结果显示, 一致性积极叙事、叙事模式、人格特质等与人生故事和自我发展程度存在一致性关系; 一系列实验结果也证明, 回忆自传体记忆时采用的不同视角和不同人称会对个体的情绪、行为和身体生理等产生影响。在此基础上, 研究者应用研究结论进行临床干预, 开展脑神经活动机制等基础研究工作。未来的工作是扩大叙事材料, 更深入探讨影响因素, 如叙事方式和自我视角的跨文化研究。     

国外父母-孩子自传叙事研究现状及展望

父母-孩子自传叙事是指父母与孩子共同对过去发生的生活事件进行回忆和交流, 是实现自传记忆社会功能的一种重要形式。父母-孩子自传叙事的社会功能有教育和指导孩子、保持亲子亲密性等作用。在父母-孩子自传叙事的风格、结构和内容三个层面, 父母-孩子自传叙事对儿童认知发展、社会情感发展、自传记忆表征等方面有重要影响; 另外, 父母-孩子自传叙事中还存在有性别和社会、文化差异。未来的研究应注意线索词材料的类型以及与儿童心理理论发展、社会层次、纵向研究设计的结合。     

阅读范文对小学生作文成绩的影响

为考察阅读范文是否能够提高三年级小学生记叙文写作的成绩,在建立低年级小学生记叙文写作评价指标的基础上,选择1篇完整范文并设计8篇不同类型的不完整范文,选取300名三年级小学生为被试进行了实验研究。实验结果表明:(1)阅读完整范文和联结内容式、补充中间式、补充开头式、补充结尾式等不完整范文能够明显提高小学生记叙文写作结构分项的成绩,阅读其他4种类型的不完整范文作用不明显。(2)阅读完整的和8种不完整范文均能明显提高小学生在记叙文写作内容分项的成绩。(3)除了补充开头式、补充中间和结尾式两种不完整范文之外,阅读其他7种范文均能明显提高作文词句分项的成绩。(4)阅读范文对避免写作中出现错别字、错用标点符号和病句无显著作用。     

依恋差异对自传记忆加工的影响

自传记忆是个体对过去生活事件的记忆, 是自我系统形成、发展和变化的基础, 对维持自我同一性和连续性具有重要意义。自传记忆的形成是一个建构过程, 依恋可能通过概念性自我系统和工作自我目标系统两种途径影响自传记忆的加工。依恋与自传记忆加工的已有研究主要集中于个体依恋特征及亲代依恋特征分别与自传记忆客观性特征、现象学特征、叙事特征及重构特征之间的关系。未来研究应聚焦依恋影响自传记忆加工的心理和神经机制, 增加不同社会文化情境、不同发展阶段亲代依恋特征和子代自传记忆加工的相关研究, 并使用启动范式、静息态成像技术、感知相机等变量控制更加严格、更具生态效度的研究方法。     

Our Relations with the Past

The approach that philosophers have taken to history has too often been one-dimensional. It is my aim in this paper to map out a future multi-dimensional philosophy of history, by invoking the notion of a relation with the past, and by arguing for the philosophical relevance of multiple such relations.

Work–Family Conflict: The Importance of Family-Friendly Employment Practices and Family-Supportive Supervisors

In the study reported in this paper, we examined the relationship between the use of four family-friendly employment practices (i.e., telecommuting, ability to take work home, flexible work hours, and family leave) and work–family conflict. In addition, we examined whether reporting to a family-supportive supervisor was related to the use of the four practices and to work–family conflict. We found that the use of three of the four practices was related to work–family conflict. In addition, our results showed that reporting to a family-supportive supervisor was related to the use of certain practices and to work–family conflict.     

Narratives of therapeutic art-making in the context of marital breakdown: older women reflect on a significant mid-life experience

This paper explores the narratives of three women aged 65–72 years. They reflected on an episode of therapeutic art-making in midlife, which addressed depression associated with marital crisis and breakdown. The narrative analysis focused upon on the ways in which participants narrated the events leading up to their participation in therapeutic art-making; the aspects of therapeutic art-making that continued to be given significance; the characters given primacy in the stories they told about their journey through therapy and marital breakdown; meanings, symbolic and otherwise, that participants ascribed to their artwork made during this turning point in their lives; and aspects of the narratives that conveyed present-day identities and artistic endeavors. The narratives revealed the complexity of the journey through marital breakdown and depression into health, and showed that therapeutic art-making could best be understood, not as a stand-alone experience, but as given meaning within the context of wider personal and social resources. Participants looked back on therapeutic art-making that occurred two decades earlier and still described this as a significant turning point in their personal development. Art as an adjunct to counselling/therapy was not only symbolically self-expressive but provided opportunity for decision-making, agency and a reformulated self-image.     

Constructing the law: discourses and social practices

This paper presents an analysis of everyday understandings of the law, within the context of a dispute between colonial and indigenous land interests in New Zealand. The analysis is informed by developments in the areas of critical legal studies, methodological critique of legal psychology, the social constructionist movement within social psychology, and the application of discursive psychology to understandings of racism. Data for this work was drawn from a corpus of letters to the editor of a newspaper, published in the city where the land dispute took place. Writers constructed the dispute as a legal issue and deployed two divergent constructions of the law. When the ‘primacy’ of the law was invoked, indigenous interests and the protesters were positioned as lawbreakers. When ‘the law in context’ was the resource used, protesters became positioned as seekers of justice. These variable constructions are discussed in terms of the social practices they engender and their wider contribution to debates regarding indigenous and colonial interests. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Narrative Approach to Child and Family Therapy in Africa*

Professional family therapy in Africa is heavily influenced by theories and principles of Western family practice. Its practice structure and philosophies are however grounded on African family values and the principles and orientations of traditional African psychology. This paper presents a clinical report that illustrates adaptations we make to incorporate compatible aspects of narrative family practice in African and Western cultures. A summary of African family values and child psychology intended as a background perspective is provided. The paper is significant against the background of the current need for forging multiculturally relevant healing methods that fit well with the globalized nature of the contemporary world. Augustine Nwoye, PhD, is Associate Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychology, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya (amnwoye@avu.org). Professor. Nwoye has developed an African paradigm for mental health and, in particular, for family and couple therapy. He also has experience in dealing with stress and multiple losses, especially surrounding HIV/AIDS within an African context. *An earlier version of the paper was presented to the members of staff and students of the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, England, UK, and the initial version was presented to the members of the Family Therapy Program of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada. I wish to thank Dr. Colleen McLaughlin (University of Cambridge) and Professor Karl Tomm (University of Calgary) for their invitation, assistance, time, attention, and suggestions.