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Finding Meaning in Difficult Family Experiences: Sense-Making and Interaction Processes During Joint Family Storytelling
Abstract
Narratives help individuals make sense of their experiences (Bochner, Ellis, " Tillmann-Healy, 1997; Weber, Harvey, " Stanley, 1987). This is particularly true for people trying to make sense of difficult or traumatic experiences. Joint storytelling, or collaborative narration, however, introduces elements not at work in individual tellings. In this study, we looked for evidence of sense-making in joint stories about difficult family experiences told by 12 families. Families' level of engagement, perspective-taking, turn-taking, and expressed interpretations all emerged as features relevant to the sense-making process. During the storytelling episode, families engaged in three forms of sense-making: (a) family-unit sense-making in which members actively engaged in the process of telling the story together and reached a shared conclusion concerning the meaning of the experience, (b) individual family member sense-making in which family members participated in the storytelling by sharing separate versions of the story and reached individual conclusions about the meaning of the story, and (c) incomplete sense-making in which one or more family members were not engaged in the storytelling and no clear understanding of the story's meaning emerged at either the family or the individual level. This study offers an approach to aid in identifying communication behaviors that accompany and help differentiate the sense-making process in jointly told family stories about difficult family experiences.
... For adopted children, family communication on adoption can shape adoptive identity, relationships within the adoptive kinship network, and understanding of their family in relation to others (Colaner & Horstman, 2021). Given that parents construct and communicate narratives early on in the child's life, the words they choose to describe events shape the way their children think about themselves and their experiences (Kellas & Trees, 2006). In adoptive families, adoption stories (or adoption entrance narratives) (e.g., Colaner & Horstman, 2021;Harrigan, 2010) are a format through which parents explain how the child came to join their adoptive family. ...
... Findings from the present study, however, suggest that some parents may continue to use distancing linguistic patterns (i.e., fewer firstperson plural pronouns, lower drive for communion) long after the adoption has taken place. Persistent use of these linguistics could dete- Hypotheses from aim 2 were supported by study findings, building upon prior communicative openness and linguistic research documenting the impact of explicit and implicit messages from parents on how children learn to understand their experiences and shape their values (Baxter, 2004;Colaner & Horstman, 2021;Kellas & Trees, 2006) and the transfer of subconscious beliefs or values through linguistics (Pirchio et al., 2018;Wang et al., 2020). However, specific linguistic variables were not always identified to be significant predictors and varied depending on which parent was speaking in the current study. ...
... These findings suggest that multiple linguistic factors together may be more predictive of adolescent thoughts/feelings than any one linguistic feature. In addition, study findings also contribute to the underlying importance of adoptive parents' communication with their children about adoption and birth parents, even in adolescence (Colaner & Horstman, 2021;Kellas & Trees, 2006). ...
Objective
The study addressed whether specific linguistic variables used by adoptive parents were associated with ratings of the adoptee's relationship with their birth mothers.
Background
Parents transmit their beliefs and values to children through verbal and nonverbal communication. The ways in which adoptive parents discuss their child's adoption and birth family can influence the child's adoptive identity development and satisfaction with their adoption arrangements.
Method
Participants included mothers, fathers, and adolescents (M age = 15.7 years) in 177 adoptive families of children who were adopted domestically as infants by same-race parents. The Linguistic Analysis and Word Count 2015 (LIWC2015) program was used to code adoptive parents' interviews regarding their thoughts and feelings about adoption and their child's birth family. Adolescents' views of birth mothers were coded from their interviews.
Results
There were significant differences in linguistic patterns when adoptive parents discussed adoption generally compared to when they discussed their child's birth family. Specific linguistic variables used by adoptive mothers and fathers were significantly associated with adopted adolescents' perceptions and feelings towards their birth mothers.
... Being physically surrounded by others and receiving verbal and nonverbal forms of social support is key for survivors adjusting to their loss and having their basic needs taken care of (e.g., prepared food; Rubin, 2014). The presence of loved ones during these rituals allows the bereaved to continue relationships through shared stories, which can solidify the narrative (Garro & Mattingly, 2000), aid in sense-making (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006), and sharpen mourners' relationship with the deceased (Rubin, 2014). Even with small funerals, social distancing protocols prevent the bereaved from engaging in touch, an important form of nonverbal social support (Albrecht & Adelman, 1987;Trees, 2000). ...
... Memorable messages are those received either interpersonally or rhetorically and are remembered and recalled over a long period of time (Stohl, 1986) as they are meaningful forms of communication. Since these messages can have a lifelong influence on people's communication and socialization (Stohl, 1986), they contribute to the sense-making process (Holladay, 2002), facilitated by the narrative it provides during times of difficult family experiences (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006), especially in the context of unprecedented and uncertain times. ...
... Given the ways that grief is communicative in nature (Barney & Yoshimura, 2020;Rubin, 2014), participants clearly adapted and adjusted to their losses in order to seek interaction in more intentional ways. Similar to past research (Barney & Yoshimura, 2021;Scheinfeld & Lake, 2019), participants continued to tell stories to connect with others despite geographic and physical separation and also to engage in sense-making (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006), especially given the difficult and unique experiences our sample faced in the pandemic. Storytelling also allowed people to continue a relationship with their loved one (Rubin, 2014). ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has altered life dramatically, including grieving practices. This study examines how people grieved death when they were unable to engage in traditional mourning rituals. Participants shared ways their experiences with grief were affected by the pandemic through themes of (1) physical isolation and, (2) grief management, as well as memorable messages deemed helpful or hurtful, including (1) emphasizing the death over the loss, (2) community, and (3) faith and advice. The findings yield implications regarding the nature of communal coping and disenfranchised grief during a global pandemic.
... Narratives are used to makes sense of all types of human experiences; however, they are particularly useful when making sense of difficult or traumatic experiences (Kellas & Trees, 2006). A narrative about a traumatic experience fosters a sense of coherence or control over an event that is initially viewed as random and unpredictable (Sommer & Baumeister, 1998). ...
... Experiencing trauma can cause a person to feel like he or she has lost control of his or her world, but retelling the experience can help the narrator regain those lost feelings of control (Kellas & Trees, 2006;Park, 2010). Indicators of this type of meaning include a focus on maintaining control of uncontrollable events or overcoming difficult obstacles in one's path. ...
... Given that debriefing and counseling are common methods for dealing with the emotional consequences of a traumatic event, these results suggest that encouraging journalists to talk about their experiences covering trauma may be an appropriate avenue to explore as a way to help them process their experiences and continue working (Dworznik, 2006). Studies have already shown that finding meaning in trauma leads to better posttraumatic adjustment and growth, and better mental health (Greenhoot et al., 2013;Kellas & Trees, 2006;Solomon, 2004). Therefore, the results from this study can help journalists recognize the potential positive aspects of their traumatic experiences and help them find meaning in those experiences (Dworznik, 2006). ...
Thirty journalists who covered hurricane Harvey and who also lived in affected areas were interviewed to explore how journalists make sense of and cope with their exposure to hurricane-related trauma. Baumeister’s four needs for meaning framework was used as a guide to uncover how journalists used justification, purpose, efficacy, and self-worth to find meaning in their traumatic experiences. Journalistic mission and purpose were strong drivers for making sense of hurricane coverage hardships. Justification and efficacy helped journalists reframe traumatic encounters. Self-worth helped reframe experiences as furthering career goals. The article discusses implications for news managers and journalists.
... CNSM theory examines the content, process, and functions of storytelling as a way to understand the health outcomes of how people communicate to make sense of their life experiences. Research in interactive sense-making has shown that relational partners who can collaborate to tell a coherent and positive story of a shared experience (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006) report better mental and relational health (Koenig Kellas, 2018). ...
... Given the connections between individual and joint sense-making (Horstman, Anderson, & Kuehl, 2017;Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006) and the salience of couples' communicated sensemaking in the context of miscarriage (Horstman & Holman, 2017), how spouses' miscarriage narratives reflect their partner's account of the loss likely indicates the extent to which they cope together. As such, we investigate the correspondence between spouses' individual stories about a shared experience, or their narrative similarity. ...
... Within the marital context, CNSM theory (proposition 4) suggests that how couples jointly tell stories of their past affects and reflects qualities of their individual and relational well-being (Koenig Kellas, 2018). Dyadic research on couples' stressful experiences has found that couples benefit from collaboratively, rather than individually, constructing meaning of a shared stressful event (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006;Veroff et al., 1993). Being able to collaboratively co-construct a story, or "family unit sense-making," demonstrates relational members' orientation toward each other and positive relational environment (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006, p. 59). ...
Drawing upon communicated narrative sense-making (CNSM) theory, we explored how husbands and wives narratively make sense of their miscarriage and links to well-being. Specifically, we analyzed how the narrative theme, sequence, and similarity related to spouses’ perceived stress and relational satisfaction. Heterosexual married couples (n = 185; N = 370) who had experienced a miscarriage responded to online questionnaires in which they told the story of their pregnancy loss and completed measures of well-being. Seven miscarriage story themes emerged – hope lost, factual, time heals, helpful support, unhelpful support, cautiously optimistic, and guilt/shame. Findings demonstrated that husbands’ themes accounted for differences in their relational satisfaction, whereas wives’ themes accounted for differences in their perceived stress. Analyses on narrative similarity revealed couples with different themes reported higher relational satisfaction than those with similar themes. Further, those couples with the same narrative sequences (i.e., contaminated, redemptive, or ambivalent) reported less perceived stress than those with different narrative sequences. These findings suggest that storying miscarriage helps both husbands and wives process loss in unique ways.
... Research also suggests some couples experience increased relational satisfaction and intimacy during times of natural disaster or crisis (Luetke et al., 2020;Marshall & Kuijer, 2017), seeking security and comfort from close others in the face of threat to their existence (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). Given that most adverse life events are indirectly or directly experienced with others (Carr & Koenig Kellas, 2018;Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006), one explanation for improved relational quality following crisis may be partners' ability to cultivate resilience and interpersonal closeness through relational discourse. Buzzanell (2010, p. 2) argues communicative processes of resilience enable individuals to "endure and reintegrate" following difficult life experiences, and that resilience does not reside within an individual; rather, it is communicatively negotiated between relational partners (Buzzanell, 2010(Buzzanell, , 2018Lucas & Buzzanell, 2012). ...
... Collectively, research suggests that resilience may be created in part through interactions with others, and our close relationships serve as particularly important places where such talk occurs. Communication scholars have chronicled the discursive power of relational resilience during times of crisis for familial sense-making (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006), resource building (Afifi et al., 2016), and reinforcing relational bonds (Socha & Torres, 2015). ...
Framed by Wefulness Theory (WT; Nuru & Bruess, 2022), the present study explores the COVID-19 global pandemic as a context for examining relational struggle and strength during times of challenge. Analysis of in-depth, dyadic interviews with 54 couples who reflect a broad range of ethnic-racial compositions, partnership structures, sexual orientations, and ages rendered intelligible relational partners’ wefulness practices in situ. Results reveal four suprathemes: (a) cultivating relational consciousness, (b) negotiating wefulness amidst challenge, (c) accepting life on life’s terms, and (d) inviting challenge as opportunity for growth. Data reveal how relational partners engage in ritualized (re)commitments as multi-vocal practices of expressing and embracing the current pandemic moment. Data also evidenced WT is heuristically powerful in reconceptualizing and illuminating relational meaning- and sense-making.
... A substantial literature is dedicated to explicating the roles of complete narratives for people who are dealing with difficult, often traumatic, life experiences Koenig Kellas & Manusov, 2003;Römisch et al., 2014;Wigren, 1994). Complete narratives help people to make sense of a felt experience, provide understanding, allow for the sharing of experiences with others, and connect thoughts to feelings (Koenig Kellas & Manusov, 2003;Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006;Wigren, 1994). Wigren (1994) identified several dimensions that make up a complete narrative, which include introducing and describing characters, having episodic coherence (i.e., a beginning, middle, and end to the story), establishing a causal chain of sequential/chronological events, making sense of and evoking affect, describing emotional or behavioral consequences of events, assigning responsibility to characters, and making sense of or learning from the experience. ...
... More complete narratives (e.g., those with greater richness of characters, coherence, attributions of responsibility, etc.) are associated with more positive outcomes, and may reflect deeper and more complex meaning and processing of an event. Narratives that lack completeness are linked to continued distress and an inability to process and move forward from an event Koenig Kellas & Manusov, 2003;Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006;Römisch et al., 2014;Wigren, 1994). However, narratives do not need to be complex or long in order to be complete (Wigren, 1994). ...
Research has identified that writing can help individuals find forgiveness for their romantic partners in the wake of relational transgressions, but little is known about the actual narrative components that bring about changes in forgiveness. The current study sought to investigate the narrative components that contribute to month-long changes in forgiveness for romantic partners who have recently experienced a relational transgression. It also sought to uncover emotional and biological mechanisms that can help account for the associations between narrative components and forgiveness outcomes. The results revealed components of narratives that may both contribute to an increase and decrease in forgiveness over the course of one-month. Additionally, emotional expression and testosterone were identified as potential mediators and moderators of the associations between narrative components and changes in forgiveness.
... One of the core principles of a meaning reconstruction approach (Neimeyer, 2007) entails that narrative methods can play a role in restoring or re-storying a sense of autobiographical coherence, in oral narrative or storytelling, formulated in private reflection (like writing letters or poems (Neimeyer, Van Dyke, & Pennebaker, 2009)), or in public discourse to close others, social networks or a therapist (Refs?). As such, meanings are co-created with others in the dialogue (e.g., Koenig & Trees, 2006;Nadeau, 1998Nadeau, , 2001Neimeyer, Klass, & Dennis, 2014;. ...
... Furthermore, marital discourse is perceived by grieving partners as important for constructing and maintaining self identity , shared reality and mutual support (Gilbert, 1989;Rosenblatt et al., 1990), and an increased sense of security, togetherness and understanding of each other (Gilbert, 1989). Within the family context, Nadeau (1998, Gudmundsdottir (2006) and Koenig and Trees (2006) stress the importance of communication and interaction in the creation of family meanings around the death. 1 The story of Hilde and Koen (pseudonyms) has been the subject of an intensive case study comprised of both a thematic and a narrative analysis of the experiences of this family after the loss. This case study is based on an in-depth interview, supplemented with letters Hilde wrote to Jasper during the first years after his death. ...
Confronted with something as fundamental as a cancer diagnosis or death of one’s child, it is generally assumed that sharing the emotional impact of it, in the form of talking about it with the partner, is helpful and necessary in order to cope as an individual and as a couple. Undoubtedly, being able to talk to one another can be a way for connecting emotionally with the partner and supporting each other through difficult times. However, couple communication in the context of childhood oncology or grieving the loss of a child is often challenging. Moreover, contemporary research is far from consistent about the presumed beneficial effects of talking and social sharing about painful emotions.
The overall aim of this doctoral research was to deepen the understanding of couple communication, talking and not talking, in the context of child cancer and the loss of a child. Therefore, we explored the experiences of bereaved couples and couples confronted with childhood cancer, including the meanings they gave for ‘not talking’ with one another about their emotions, or being silent in each other’s presence. In addition, we explored the experiences and views of professionals working with parents whose child is in cancer treatment.
A qualitative research design was used to meet this overall aim. In qualitative research the starting point is usually not a specific hypothesis that needs to be tested empirically. Rather, the phenomenon under study is systematically explored, resulting in a rich description of the phenomenon that is grounded in the data. Such rich descriptions can then lead to fundamental reflections on conceptual issues.
We conducted five studies, each presented in a chapter. Chapters 1, 2 and 4 relate to the exploration of couple communication of bereaved parents, while chapters 3 and 5 are conducted in the context of childhood cancer, including the views of professionals at a child oncology department (Chapter 5).
First, we conducted an exploratory pilot study (Chapter 1) with a bereaved mother and her partner. Based on an in-depth interview, a book she wrote and a text of a presentation she gave, we did a thematic analysis. Following this, we did a narrative analysis where we focused on the evolution of this couple’s sharing and not sharing of grief experiences since the loss. The main storyline involved the need for silence and distance at several points in the process, to protect themselves and the relationship. At the same time, they stressed the necessary moments of connection between them, with or without words. This study introduced a view on couple communication which is dialectic, dialogic and dynamic in nature.
Then we explored meanings related to ‘not talking’ in a second and third study. For our second study with bereaved parents (Chapter 2), we conducted and analyzed twenty in-depth interviews, with twenty-six parents, and did a thematic analysis based on grounded theory methodology. Our analyses revealed four main meanings related to ‘not talking’ about their grief with the partner: not talking (1) because of the inadequacy and pointlessness of words in grief, (2) to create some distance from the pain of grief, (3) as an expression of a personal, intimate process, and (4) because the partner has the same loss but a different grief process (with 4 subcategories: 4.1. Respect and not burden each other’s grieving process, 4.2. The uselessness of words, 4.3. Not enough distance from the pain of the partner, and 4.4. Different grieving styles or moments).
For many bereaved parents, the complex process of talking and ‘not talking’ about the fear of death and loss of their child started from the moment of the cancer diagnosis. Therefore, we decided to broaden our group of research participants, and explored the same research topic with parents whose child was in cancer treatment in our third study. In this study (Chapter 3), we equally did a thematic analysis based on grounded theory methodology. The analysis was done on nine in-depth interviews with sixteen parents. In this study we were immediately confronted with the different context of these parents. Their primary focus during treatment period was the wellbeing and recovery of the child, in a life that was dominated and structured by treatment procedures and frequent hospitalizations. As parents, most of them felt supported by the partner, as a way of “being in this together”. However, they all talked very little with each other about their emotions and thoughts related to their child’s cancer during treatment. Our analysis revealed three main meanings: not talking (1) because of the hospital and treatment context, (2) for selfcare/self-protection and blocking of emotions, and (3) because of each other, (with 3 subcategories (3a) to spare one another, (3b) a different coping, and (3c) because no words are needed between them).
These three studies showed that the parents in our interviews experienced their communication with each other as subject to a lot of complexities, representing both the value of talking and not talking. This led us to explore a dialectical approach to communication in a fourth study with a bereaved couple (Chapter 4). Aiming at a deeper understanding of the complexity of the dialectical process we meticulously investigated a metaphor used by one of the bereaved parents. We used multiple data collection for this study and conducted a thematic and metaphor analysis. This gave us the chance to examine the relational process more in depth. Indeed, the interplay of dialectics was also apparent in their dialogue with each other, on an interpersonal level. The concept of attunement showed extra value in connecting the intrapersonal and interpersonal level.
With our fifth study we broadened our research topic to the communication between parents and professionals working at a child oncology department (Chapter 5). We specifically wondered about how attunement processes operated in this context. Therefore, four focus groups were organized with twenty professionals (psychologists and nurses), in addition to the nine in-depth interviews (study 3), now with a focus on the communication with the professionals. Thematic analyses were done separately on the transcripts of the focus groups and interviews. Both professionals and parents talked about an elevated tension in the partner relationship during oncology treatment of the child. However, explicit attention for the partner relationship in this context felt inappropriate to professionals and parents, as the child is their primary focus now. Furthermore, both professionals and parents emphasized the importance of the professional helpers’ openness for conversation and an attuned response to the parental couple relationship.
Taken together, during our research process we found that the process of attunement is central in our understanding of how partners, confronted with the death or life-threatening illness of their child, talk with each other and leave certain things (temporarily) unspoken or in silence. This corresponds with a dialogical perspective on storytelling. Consequently, a model of attunement reflecting our findings is described. The process of attunement is a moment-to-moment interaction, which includes vertical and horizontal processes. These processes are inherently connected and part of one process, the one resting on the other. Based on these attunement processes some things are brought in the outer dialogue, while others or not (yet). The concept of attunement also brought us to a deeper and broader understanding of the relatedness of talking/not talking and connecting/not connection (or closeness/distance).
We conclude this doctoral manuscript with a general discussion of our main findings and how they might contribute to the existing grief and psycho oncology literature. Finally, we discuss methodological issues with the limitations of our studies, future research and clinical implications.
... Apart from sharing secrets to manage the level of cohesion, family members can share family stories as well. Family stories are shared to create belonging, to teach expected behavior, to develop family culture, connecting generations, to reminisce, and as an entertainment (Stone, 2005;Koenig, Kellas & Trees, 2006). Through family stories, the family members create interest, belonging and involvement among each other. ...
... This might be happening because of lack in family communication. Family members are less in sharing stories among them, less in sharing secrets, and less participating in family leisure activities such as suggested (Vangelisti, 1994b;Stone, 2005;Koenig, Kellas & Trees, 2006;Zabriske & McCormick, 2001). In addition, their family communication might be at the poor rate where family members lack in listening skills, less sharing their feelings, seldom stay on topic while communicating, speak more for others, deliver unclear messages and less respect towards each other as explained in table 1.0 (Olson, DeFrain, & Skogard, 2008). ...
... The sharing of narratives can be valuable in offering a joint process of understanding and an opportunity for emergent reflections that can shape narrative understanding and identity . Sharing difficult family experiences can provide opportunities for sense-making when members come with collective and/or individualized understanding of shared events (Koenig Kellas et al., 2006). ...
This article presents the narrative of the first author witnessing the process of sharing intergenerational trauma (IGT) stories between a parent-offspring dyad. The narrative described in this paper is part of a study that involved the construction of IGT narratives in Chinese Canadian families (Chou et al., 2023). Arvay’s (2003) Collaborative Narrative Method was utilized to develop participant narratives, while autoethnographic data was used to construct the researcher’s narrative. The paper introduces an intergenerational family dyad (father-daughter) engaging in a facilitated process that involved sharing their IGT stories with one another and presented from the researcher’s perspective. The study has implications for researchers and practitioners working with IGT in the Chinese diasporic community as well as other ethnocultural groups. It provides insight into a scarcely studied phenomenon and illustrates how IGT narratives can be shared in a facilitated and supportive manner and has implications for research and clinical practice.
... Intergenerational transmission refers to the dynamic process with which values, ideas and behaviors are transmitted from one generation to the other. The intergenerational transmission of family stories is discussed from several perspectives, e.g., kinds of family narratives (Fivush & Merrill, 2016;McLean, 2016;McLean & Breen, 2016), a process of sharing stories in a family (Ashbourne & Baobaid, 2014a;Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006;Langellier & Peterson, 2006;Merrill et al., 2015;Rancew-Sikora, 2015), the content of wisdom legacy contained in family stories (Drężek & Dryll, 2021;Tokarska et al., 2019), directions of changes in an identity narrative in the course of life determined by differetnt kinds of narratives (including family narratives; Budziszewska, 2015), the role of family stories in the formation of autobiographical memory and identity (Ashbourne & Baobaid, 2014b;Fivush & Merrill, 2016;McAdams, 2001;McLean, 2016;McLean & Breen, 2016;McLean & Syed, 2015), as well as in intergenerational learning (Biesta et al., 2011;Muszyński, 2022). ...
Family narratives are a medium for the intergenerational transmission of life wisdom, which may influence recipient’s beliefs system and behaviors. Despite a growing body of knowledge on wisdom, emerging adults remain insufficiently researched as to what wisdom from their perspective was conveyed to them through stories. The aim was to identify what wisdom emerging adults perceive in the narratives told them by their parents about themselves. The study was conducted in Poland. Convenience sampling was used. 42 emerging adults (33 female, 8 male, 1 non-binary) ranging from 19 to 22 years participated in the study. Participants were asked to write stories about their parents, separately, about mother and father when they were young. These were supposed to be stories both containing wisdom and told them by their parents. Then they were asked to describe what wisdom was contained in the recalled story and what they learned from it. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Twelve participants were not able to recall a story about one of their parents. They completed one part of the written task and explained the reasons for not knowing the story about the other. These responses were included in the analysis. The thematic analysis identifies the following main themes: transmission of life lessons, transmission of values, family myths, forms of wisdom transmitting. The wisdom read by emerging adults from the recalled stories took the form of advice, encouragement, warning and reprimand. They were usually expressed indirectly. It required effort to read the hidden message and give it meaning. The study showed the importance of family stories in the upbringing process and preparation for adulthood. In the face of the following changes in lifestyles and family communication, the results may be used to support and educate families in deepening intra-family relationships.
... Furthermore, storytelling may have contributed to improving less directly relevant outcome measures, including individual resilience, reduced PTSD symptoms and earthquake anxiety. This is because storytelling can support the release of emotions (D'Cruz et al., 2020), support making sense of traumatic experiences (Kellas and Trees, 2006;Park, 2010), authenticate collective memory (Ainslie, 2013), and rebuild shared, cultural identity (Aho, 2014;van de Ven, 2020). It is possible that the benefit of the narrative component of the intervention may be heightened in cultures oriented towards collectivism, where the self is perceived as an interdependent unit (Hofstede, 1980;Markus and Kitayama, 2010); this may foster cooperation and supportive networks (Triandis, 2000). ...
... Individuals may be guided by researchers and/or practitioners in identifying dominant MVBs in their own stories and thus the types of stories that they are telling. These might be shared with other family members as a means of connecting and building empathy through sharing stories of difficulty, especially when conflicting perspectives or meanings arise (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006, Trees & Koenig Kellas, 2009). Additionally, many participants noted that they had rarely been offered a space to share the stories of the deceased or to tell their own bereavement stories prior to their interviews despite the desire to, especially in the case of those telling Past stories. ...
... Also within our dataset, communicated perspectivetaking (CPT) emerged as an important sub-theme within Communicating Investment or Interest in Participants' Experience. CPT, an important tenet of Communicated Sense-Making, refers to how individuals interactively acknowledge, attend to, and confirm one another's perspectives during an interaction (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006). In times of difficulty, CPT can facilitate sense-making and relational wellbeing through (non)verbal demonstrations of understanding, including attentiveness, agreement, coordination, identity affirmation, making relevant contributions, using positive tone, and making space for others to communicate (Koenig Kellas et al., 2017). ...
Fertility problems, often called infertility, have been defined as the inability to conceive or maintain pregnancy throughout one year of trying (World Health Organization, 2020). Because fertility problems can present unique medical, emotional, relational, and identity challenges, they are often difficult to talk
about, and even well-intentioned messages can be perceived negatively. This study uses Communicated Sense-Making (CSM; Kellas & Kranstuber Horstman, 2015), particularly its mechanism of memorable messages, to explore what types of support-related messages people experiencing infertility find memorable. Results from semi-structured interviews (N = 54) indicate five supra-themes of memorable messages: (a) communicating solidarity; (b) attempting to minimize participants’ stress; (c) communicating investment or interest in the patient’s experience; (d) sharing expertise; and (e) absolving the patient of responsibility; we identify several sub-themes within each. We also explore patterns between message types, senders, and message valence: message themes were perceived as either positive, negative, or neutral based on the combination of sender and perceived intention. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
... The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of the experiences of Vietnamese Amerasians in both the US and Vietnam. To achieve this we used SenseMaker R , a mixedmethods quantitative-qualitative data collection tool, to collect narratives about experiences of being a Vietnamese American in both the US and Vietnam; the collected storeys were then selfinterpreted by study participants to "make sense" of the shared experiences (Brown, 2006;Kellas and Trees, 2006). This paper identifies statistically significant differences in the quantitative data collected in Vietnam and the US and analyses them drawing on the accompanying qualitative data. ...
... This study also supports previous literature on grief, including death and dying (Bonanno, Wortman, & Nesse, 2004;Pangborn, 2019), job loss (Beck, 2016;Buzzanell & Turner, 2012), and compounded losses (Scheinfeld et al., 2021a). Themes consistent in grief literature were present across the sample, such as disenfranchisement (Doka, 1999), memorable messages (Lucas & Buzzanell, 2012), and storytelling (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006). Participants attempted to uphold traditional mourning rituals online in an attempt to craft normalcy, utilized humor in an attempt to apply alternative ways of thinking (i.e., Booth-Butterfield, Wanzer, Weil, & Krezmein, 2014), foregrounded productive action while legitimizing negative feelings (as consistent with Stroebe & Schut's, 1999 dual process model of bereavement), relied on communication networks for validation and support (i.e., Jakoby, 2014), and affirmed identity in the wake of disenfranchisement (i.e., Barney & Yoshimura, 2020). ...
Losses during the COVID-19 pandemic presented people with a unique type of compounded grief. This study explores how individuals foster resilience in coping with COVID-19-related losses by investigating two research questions. Open-ended survey responses were coded using the Communication Theory of Resilience (CTR) framework, revealing how individuals enact certain resilience processes and how interactions contribute to resilience efforts. Findings demonstrate how interactions that supported resilience processes were generally perceived as helpful, while interactions that conflicted with resilience processes were considered harmful. The study provides ongoing support for the CTR framework and resilience scholarship.
... Spryng. io is a narrative capture tool based on the premise that storytelling is a natural way to convey complex information and is used by individuals to make sense of their own and their community's experiences [16][17][18][19]. Sensemaking is based on complexity theory and the Cynefin framework [20]. ...
Abstract Background Emergency departments (EDs) serve an integral role in healthcare, particularly for vulnerable populations. However, marginalized groups often report negative ED experiences, including stigmatizing attitudes and behaviours. We engaged with historically marginalized patients to better understand their ED care experiences. Method Participants were invited to complete an anonymous mixed-methods survey about a previous ED experience. We analysed quantitative data including controls and equity-deserving groups (EDGs) - those who self-identified as: (a) Indigenous; (b) having a disability; (c) experiencing mental health issues; (d) a person who uses substances; (e) a sexual and gender minority; (f) a visible minority; (g) experiencing violence; and/or (h) facing homelessness - to identify differences in their perspectives. Differences between EDGs and controls were calculated with chi squared tests, geometric means with confidence ellipses, and the Kruskal-Wallis H test. Results We collected a total of 2114 surveys from 1973 unique participants, 949 controls and 994 who identified as equity-deserving. Members of EDGs were more likely to attribute negative feelings to their ED experience (p
... The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of the experiences of Vietnamese Amerasians in both the US and Vietnam. To achieve this we used SenseMaker R , a mixedmethods quantitative-qualitative data collection tool, to collect narratives about experiences of being a Vietnamese American in both the US and Vietnam; the collected storeys were then selfinterpreted by study participants to "make sense" of the shared experiences (Brown, 2006;Kellas and Trees, 2006). This paper identifies statistically significant differences in the quantitative data collected in Vietnam and the US and analyses them drawing on the accompanying qualitative data. ...
The Vietnam War left a legacy of mostly mixed-race children fathered by American (or other foreign) soldiers and born to Vietnamese mothers. These Vietnamese Amerasian children often had difficulties integrating into their post-conflict societies due to stigmatisation, and they were typically economically severely disadvantaged. This paper compares experiences of Amerasians in Vietnam with those who emigrated to the US as part of various departure programs since the end of the war in 1975. We used SenseMaker®, a mixed-methods data collection tool, to collect 377 narratives from 286 unique participants living in Vietnam and in the US exploring experiences of Amerasians in both countries. These narratives were then self-interpreted by the study participants using a questionnaire that generated a quantitative dataset. In this paper we analyse the self-coded perceptions quantitatively to determine patterns, specifically with view to investigating where experiences of Amerasians living in the US differ statistically from those living in Vietnam. This is complemented with a qualitative analysis of the accompanying narratives. Vietnamese respondents indicated more frequently that experiences were affected by economic circumstances than their US counterparts, and their identified negative experiences were significantly more strongly linked to poverty. Furthermore, Vietnamese respondents relayed that their desire to explore their biological roots was more prominent than US based participants, and they indicated more strongly than US counterparts that their biological parentage impacted their identity. In contrast, US respondents felt that their parentage impacted their physical and mental health in addition to impacting their identity, and they more strongly linked negative experiences in their narratives to their ethnicity.
... Some individuals were further influenced by their family history of cancer or being employed as HCPs. This aligns with previous studies [35,36] which showed that a family history of cancer motivated individuals to remain compliant with recommended cancer screening. Increased breast cancer screening adherence has also been reported among healthcare workers [37]. ...
Background
A suspected Lynch syndrome (SLS) diagnosis is made when a tumor exhibits DNA mismatch repair deficiency but cannot be definitively assigned to an inherited or non-inherited etiology. This diagnosis poses challenges for healthcare professionals, patients, and their families in managing future cancer risks and clinical care.
Methods
This qualitative study aimed to explore the psychosocial and behavioral responses of endometrial cancer (EC) patients receiving a SLS diagnosis (EC-SLS). Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 15 EC-SLS women, transcribed, and thematically analyzed.
Results
Most who interpreted their result as negative for Lynch syndrome (LS) believed they were at population-level risk of cancer and felt happy and relieved. Many participants who interpreted their result as inconclusive/not definitive for LS were confused about their cancer risk and experienced negative emotions of anger and frustration. Despite variation in colorectal cancer screening recommendations reported by participants, most adhered to the advice given. Almost all participants communicated their genetic test result to immediate family members; however, communication of family cancer risk management advice was more limited due to most participants reporting not receiving family screening advice. A family history of cancer and a professional healthcare background influenced participants’ engagement in regular cancer screening.
Conclusion
These findings highlight variability in the psychosocial and behavioral responses associated with EC-SLS, providing insight into how healthcare professionals can optimally manage and support such individuals.
... Thematic analysis of parents' written responses to open-ended survey questions was conducted (Bulmer, 1979). The first and second authors completed an initial read of participants' responses to familiarize themselves with the data, aligning with Koenig Kellas and Trees (2006). The authors independently analyzed the responses to each survey question, taking notes, developing preliminary themes for each research question based on initial patterns noticed, and categorizing passages into the preliminary themes. ...
People and policies in the United States have become more affirming of LGBTQ individuals, yet LGBTQ parents face ongoing challenges in the heteronormative, cisnormative family space. The current study identifies contexts in which LGBTQ parents perceive their family identity to be non-normative and examines parents’ psychological and communicative responses in such contexts, including how parents address family identity with non-family members and with their children. Thematic analysis found that a range of social and institutional contexts prompted parents to perceive their family identity as non-normative – a generally negative psychological experience for the parents. To manage family identity-related communication with non-family members, parents primarily enacted the strategies ignoring/avoiding, explaining/discussing, and labeling. Parents tended to use the strategy narrating to communicate about family identity with their children, who expressed understanding in response. Results demonstrate the salience of non-normative family identity for many LGBTQ parents and the variety of strategies LGBTQ parents use to manage potentially challenging communication within and outside of the family. Findings also provide insight into children’s communication with parents in such contexts. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
... Joint family life has advantages including old-age security (Vaidyanathan, 2007), help with child-care (Hungerford & Cox, 2006), shared household responsibilities (Coleman & Ganong, 1999), and more love and time for children (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006). However, (Ilies, Wilson, & Wagner, 2009), and more disputes and disagreements (Judge, Ilies, & Scott, 2006). ...
This study examines processes of early marriage decision-making processes within families and across different caste groups in rural Punjab, Pakistan, and analyses these dynamics in relation to state and non-state women’s empowerment and gender equality policies and programmes. The study draws on feminist standpoint theory, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Framework Theory and Bowen’s Family Systems Theory. Ethnographic methods were used to gather primary data over a period of nine months. In addition, relevant policy and legislative state-level documents and project documents of two non-state organizations working in the research village were analysed using feminist critical frame analysis.
My analysis reveals the central role played by paternal grandmothers in early marriage decision-making processes, but only to the extent that these met the approval of paternal grandfathers, fathers, and elder brothers of the intended bride. A bride’s mother only seemed to participate in marriage decision-making if they were financially independent or had grown-up and ‘earning’ sons. On occasion, the intended bride could participate in decisions ‘when’ to marry, while intended grooms could indicate their ‘readiness’ for marriage, thereby controlling not only decisions as to ‘when’ to marry but, at times, also ‘whom’ to marry.
I conclude by arguing that to develop more comprehensive understanding of early marriage decision-making processes, it is necessary to (i) look beyond the father, and beyond the family, and (ii) attend to shifts in women’s relative power as their position in the family changes. I offer a series of recommendations to better align state and non-state policies and interventions with early marriage decision-making processes.
... "Promotional -Socio indicators" and "Employment indicators" profoundly influenced by variable Family type (see Table2); Nuclear family has a significant strong effect over the above mentioned CBHMs compared to their counterpart Joint family host members. This indicates Nuclear family community members have more decision making power than joint family members in the lines of earlier research (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006) to pursuit promotional-socio factors or employment factors related to handicraft business. ...
Himachal Pradesh is widely known for its beauty, culture, and heritage. The handicrafts of this region maintain cultural integrity among themselves and show it to the rest of the world. This paper aims to investigate the dynamics of socio-demographic variables based on community-based host motivators (CBHM) involved in handicraft tourism in Himachal Pradesh. To conduct this study, a field survey of 277 members of the host community was piloted from December (2020) to January (2021) using a structured questionnaire. Four factors of motivation at the community level were derived: tourism, government efforts, advertising and social indicators, and employment indicators. The results highlighted the relationship between government efforts and all CBHMs; qualifications strongly influenced tourism, government efforts, and advertising factors while government initiatives have greatly contributed to the empowerment of women. In contrast, the nuclear family has more decision-making power than the joint family with regard to CBHMs.
... Interactional sense-making may provide a unique lens for understanding and examining interactions in CBC. Interactional sense-making extends beyond the examination of discrete speech patterns in conversations to uncover dyadic communication qualities that both facilitate an understanding of a shared experience (e.g., a child's social-behavioral concerns at home and school) and enable the development of joint conclusions regarding the meaning of the experience (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006). Undergirding the practice of CBC is the importance of cooperation, collaboration, and coordination among parents and teachers to effectively support students' behavioral functioning. ...
Conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC) is a model of consultation wherein parents and teachers partner to address children’s social-behavioral concerns. The teacher-parent relationship has proven critical to the success of CBC, yet little is known about the dynamics in CBC that may promote these relationships. This study explored interactions among teachers and parents during CBC. Using latent profile analysis, four interactional sense-making behaviors (i.e., engagement, perspective-taking, turn-taking, and coherence) were examined among 193 parents and teachers participating in CBC. Three classes of interactions emerged – one class characterized by high interactional sense-making (18%), another characterized by moderate interactional sense-making (69%), and one class characterized by low interactional sense-making (13%). Follow-up analyses suggested differences in the quality of this relationship based on the interactions displayed by parents and teachers, with dyads that displayed high and moderate patterns of interactional sense-making reporting better quality relationships than those demonstrating low patterns of interactional sense-making.
... To answer the research questions, this study employed thematic analysis through analytic induction (Bulmer, 1979). Analytic induction involves abstracting categories without a priori classification, allowing for interplay between the data and the coding scheme, which is unavoidably guided by the researchers' own notions and prior research (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006). Initially, the first two authors read through the open-ended responses addressing GTA misbehaviors, perception of the misbehaviors, handling and reporting misbehaviors. ...
The study explores graduate teaching assistants’ (GTAs) perceptions of misbehaviors of other GTAs across multi-section introductory communication courses. Utilizing the teacher misbehaviors’ typology, this study examines novice teachers’ perceptions of teacher misbehaviors. A convenience sample of current introductory course graduate teaching assistants (N = 55) responded to open-ended questions about what constituted teachers’ misbehaviors, why these communicative acts were perceived as misbehaviors, and how these misbehaviors were managed. Employing a thematic analysis, participants indicated the most frequent misbehavior related to indolence, followed by offensiveness and incompetence. Three new subcategories emerged as misbehaviors for this sample: inappropriate use of social media, coolness/peer affirmation, and dress/attire. Five categories for why behaviors and actions were perceived misbehaviors and six categories emerged as responses for managing the teacher misbehavior. The findings offer practical solutions and pedagogical suggestions for GTAs and course directors.
... Bulmer, 1979) to identify emergent themes in the data. Analytic induction involves abstracting categories without a priori classification, allowing for interplay between the data and the coding scheme, which is unavoidably guided by the researchers' own notions and prior research (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006). To derive themes, the data was analyzed after several iterative reading sessions. ...
Ghosting describes a popular contemporary dating disengagement strategy that abruptly ends communication using technological medium(s). For the target of ghosting, the noninitiator, the action usually creates an incomplete account of the loss. This investigation explores the non-initiators’ retroactive rationalization of ghosting as loss. Utilizing Amazon
Mechanical Turk, we conducted two studies. In Study I, noninitiators (N=189) provided reasons for why they were ghosted. Utilizing analytic induction, eight themes emerged from non-initiators accounts. In Study II, (N¼169), the themes were further examined to determine validity. The retrospective rationalizations determine the incoherent account-making processes in post-dissolution from ghosting.
... As an example, Jody and her colleagues have examined the communication processes by which people co-construct family identity and make sense of stressors and difficulties by analyzing videotaped conversations between relational partners who jointly tell shared stories. Koenig Kellas and Trees (2006), for instance, analyzed the joint storytelling interactions of family triads and identified four sets of behaviors distinguishing families on the degree to which they made little to no meaning, created individual meanings, or engaged in family-level meaning-making. These behaviors were engagement (warmth and involvement in the storytelling interaction), turn-taking (the degree to which communication was dynamic vs. polite and distribution of talk time), perspective-taking (attentiveness to and confirmation of others' perspectives), and coherence (organization and integration of meanings). ...
In this essay, we trace the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of dialogic interpersonal communication that facilitate the link between quality of communication and quality of life, and we highlight empirical research in interpersonal and family communication that draws inspiration from and/or reflects this approach. We re-introduce uniqueness as an important focus for interpersonal communication and emphasize the co-construction of uniqueness as a rare but decisive practice for enhancing interpersonal engagement. We begin by describing how we use the term “dialogue” and then conceptualize the co-construction of uniqueness as one of its most fundamental processes. We discuss the moral and ethical implications of making such claims and acknowledge the concept’s functional ambivalence. We then review contemporary research that exemplifies, draws inspiration from, and/or begins to approximate the process of collaboratively contacting each other as unique persons in dialogic moments that matter and present guidelines for practicing and studying the process of co-constructing uniqueness.
... The learning process is informed by spiraling cycles of hypothesization-actions-goals and new hypothesization able to create a coordinated system of meanings in a new creative social space (community of practices). Thus, Western-informed thinking is encountering local practices and instruments throughout co-constructed dialogical and narrative process of sensemaking, that enable a productive actionable knowledge on mental health (Denborough, 2008;Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006). ...
In this article, we reflect on decolonizing models of pedagogy with empirically-supported approaches as an epistemological point of departure. We discuss the risk of reproducing a colonial pedagogical framework in a way that promotes a dominant Western voice over indigenous knowledge and local culturally-informed processes of teaching mental health interventions. Gazans experience ongoing trauma, stress, despair, hopelessness, helplessness, loss and lack of security. Consequently, mental health distress, including posttraumatic stress, generalized anxiety, depression and substance abuse are common in the population. Ongoing professional development for clinicians in Gaza is severely curtailed due to the closure imposed by Israel. Only rarely are professional psychologists permitted to leave Gaza to seek further education and training elsewhere. Our point of departure is that psychological services rendered to traumatized individuals in war zones, such as Gaza, constitute a form of social and political activism. The option of withholding psychological treatment will result in further hopelessness and the perpetuation of social distress for the majority of Gazans. A de-colonized pedagogical space is liberatory and able to give voice and an active role to groups who may not have sufficient power for accurate representation and visibility in the dominant Western discourse on mental health. We conclude that Western and post-colonial pedagogies that contribute to the colonization of educational systems of indigenous populations should orient their efforts to recognize and support traditional epistemologies, their contemporary cultural development, along with advancements in psychological sciences at a global level.
... To achieve this, we used a research tool called SenseMaker ® developed by Cognitive Edge. Its fundamental principle, the collection of self-interpreted narratives, is based on the recognition that storytelling is an important form of human communication used by individuals to make sense of their own and their community's experiences (Brown, 2006;Koenig Kellas and Trees, 2006) as well as being a useful method for creating individual and collective memories. (Thomson, 2011) Through the narratives recounted in storytelling, people make sense of their personal experiences (Fivush et al., 2011). ...
When American troops withdrew from Vietnam in April 1975, they left behind a large number of children fathered by American GIs and born to local Vietnamese women. Although there is some documentation of experiences of GI children who immigrated to the United States, little is known about the life courses of Amerasian children who remained in Vietnam, and no comparative data has been collected. To address this knowledge gap, we used an innovative mixed qualitative – quantitative data collection tool, Cognitive Edge’s SenseMaker ® , to investigate the life experiences of three specific cohorts of GI-fathered children from the Vietnam War: (1) those who remained in Vietnam, (2) those who immigrated to the United States as babies or very young children and (3) those who immigrated to the United States as adolescents or adults. The current analysis reflects on the implementation of this mixed-methods narrative data collection and self-interpretation tool as a research methodology in Vietnam and the United States and outlines some of the challenges and lessons learned including recruitment of a hard to reach population, low response rates in the United States and feasibility of using such narrative capture to conduct such research in the United States and in Vietnam.
... In terms of structuration of FHH communication, then, participants may bring an FHH tool back to their family, representing a new communication resource for that family system that then inspires changed communication structures in their family. The dyadic component of the interview protocol shares similarities with previous family joint storytelling research (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006;Trees & Koenig Kellas, 2009) by providing a context for participants to discuss FHH with another family member and to brainstorm possibilities for FHH tool use and FHH communication. Using the lens of SAT builds on that prior research by identifying transformational possibilities within family systems reflecting the double hermeneutic of structuration-based research. ...
Many tools facilitate gathering family health history (FHH) information. Public health initiatives have focused on improving FHH communication. Research indicates that tools remain largely unused in non-clinical settings and people tend to refrain from engaging in FHH communication. Research also indicates that cultural and family relationship factors influence FHH communication and tool use. This study investigated FHH tools as resources for FHH communication within Caucasian, Hispanic, and Pacific Islander families. Interviews with 10 family dyads from each racial/ethnic group included opportunities for participants to evaluate two FHH tools. Using structurating activity theory, the qualitative analysis revealed that participants viewed the tools as a structure for FHH information, a guide for how to communicate about FHH, and a source for stories about family health. Results are discussed in terms of how family system elements and social structures shape perceptions and use of FHH tools. Conclusions include implications for research and practice.
... The discourse of relational resilience takes a variety of other forms that might be observed in stepchild-stepparent interaction. For example, Koenig Kellas and Trees (2006) chronicled the power of joint storytelling as families engaged in sensemaking over difficult or traumatic events. Afifi and colleagues (Afifi & Harrison, 2018;Afifi et al., 2016) emphasized the role of regular relationship maintenance practices in building resources that partners can draw from in times of crisis. ...
Challenges and conflicts experienced by stepfamilies are well documented, but researchers are increasingly focused on communication processes that facilitate resilience in these relationships. In other contexts, communicating forgiveness has been linked to relational healing after transgressions or adversity. In the current study, the researchers sought to understand how stepchildren talk about the role of forgiveness in the development of positive adult stepchild–stepparent relationships. Data were drawn from interviews with adult stepchildren who have a positive relationship with a stepparent. Following an interpretive analysis, the researchers identified five themes representing the ways forgiveness was conceptualized and enacted in these positive stepchild–stepparent relationships: forgiveness as (a) healing family connections, (b) explicit negotiation, (c) maturation and acceptance, (d) a response to vulnerability and compassion, and (e) evidence of relational growth. Theoretical and practical applications for understanding and fostering resilient stepfamilies and the role of forgiveness are discussed.
... Storytelling has often been cited as a major method of making sense of individual or shared events (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006) and coping with these events (Smyth & Pennebaker, 1999). Because of this and the socializing nature of stories, and in order to test CNSN's Proposition 1, I asked: ...
Using Communicated Narrative Sense-Making Theory (Koenig Kellas, 2018), this study tested how grandchildren’s perceptions of risk and knowledge about heart disease in the family, as well as relational satisfaction, changed over the course of 3 weeks as a result of engaging in a storytelling experiment. Participants included 17 grandchild participants who interviewed their grandparents to tell stories about family heart health or discuss everyday events based on random assignment into a treatment or comparison group. Additionally, participants completed measures surrounding their knowledge of heart disease, relational satisfaction with their grandparent, and their perception of risk to develop heart disease in their lifetime. Thematic analysis of the stories revealed three parts to the storytelling sequence: (a) the HD Family Tree, (b) the grandparent’s story and reaction, and (c) advice/lessons learned. Story themes included (a) confusion/shock, (b) acceptance of their health, and (c) disjointed reporting. Statistical analyses revealed trends for an increase in heart disease knowledge in the treatment group over time, as well as increased perceptions of dread risk over time, although relational satisfaction for grandchildren in their grandparent-grandchild relationship did not change over the 3 weeks. The results of this study provide a deeper look into how grandparents may help to socialize their grandchildren in this understudied family relationship, especially in regards to health. Moreover, these results also help to shed light on how CNSM’s proposition relating to intergenerational values, attitudes, and beliefs are communicated through retrospective stories about health and what living family members should be aware of for their own health moving forward. Advisor: Jody Koenig Kellas
Objective
Over the past decade, geopolitical turmoil in Venezuela has resulted in the displacement of 7.1 million people, resulting in a migration and refugee crisis.
Methods and analysis
This current cross-sectional, mixed-method research, which is focused on women and girls, examines differences in Venezuelan refugee/migrant demographics, migration characteristics, experiences and perceptions across nine locations in Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.
Results
A total of 9116 Venezuelan refugees/migrants shared 9339 migration experiences. Respondents in Brazil had been displaced for less time, reported more extreme poverty, perceived that they had received more support from the host community, and had more positive migration experiences. In contrast, respondents in Peru had been displaced for longer, were more likely to share experiences of insecurity/violence, perceived that they had not received adequate support and were more likely to report that the migration experience was negative. Respondents in Ecuador tended to provide more moderate responses somewhere between those from Brazil and Peru with one exception being around the impact of COVID-19, which they perceived more negatively.
Conclusion
It is critical to recognise that Venezuelan refugee/migrant populations are not homogenous and that their experiences, needs and priorities vary by location of settlement and migration route. From these findings, we recommend more open regularisation policies for Venezuelan nationals in Ecuador and Peru in addition to improved socioeconomic integration in accordance with the Quito Process. Sharing of successful models from other contexts may prove helpful.
Public Speaking anxiety is a problem that continues and manifests itself in a variety of ways in schools, colleges and universities particularly among students learning English as a second or foreign language. The fear of speaking in public can come from a variety of places and affect each student distinctively. The current research describes the fears of students taking a public speaking course at a large private sector university in Pakistan along with the coping strategies they use to overcome them. For this purpose, data were collected from (n = 213) individuals and divided into two subsets i.e. anxieties and strategies. As according to the results found, (n=249) self-described anxieties of public speaking are documented in this study along with (n=35) tactics to overcome them. This study adds to our understanding of public speaking anxiety by doing an inductive analysis of students' anxieties of public speaking and a second analysis to coping strategies for public speaking anxiety.. INTRODUCTION Public speaking is a communication act that involves linguistic, physiological, cultural and psychological considerations [9]. It is a strategic skill for gaining some competitive edge, credibility, and a positive reputation, and it is one of the predictors of professional success [19]. Moreover, Oral communication ability is a requirement for personal, professional and academic success [24]. A prefatory course of oral communication at the university level is a critical
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are potent with promise and peril. On the one hand, ICTs provide an unprecedented amount of information, an ability to network across the globe, and interactive entertainment and socializing. On the other hand, the same properties are at risk of misuse to bully, to spread misinformation, and to commit other acts of harm. The purpose of this chapter is to consider the theoretical and conceptual significance of studying cyberbullying from a family communication perspective. The aim is to explain essential features of cyberbullying, to situate cyberbullying as a communication phenomenon, and to propose important conceptual and theoretical frameworks in family communication (including trait verbal aggression, developmental assets, family rituals, family communication patterns theory, and inoculation theory) for future research. The hope is that this chapter will inspire more family communication researchers to better understand, study, and provide solutions for the destructive and harmful effects of cyberbullying.
The neutrality norm, journalists’ ability to remove their opinions and emotions from coverage, is typically studied linguistically, not nonverbal communication, how something is said. More understanding is needed on how journalists maintain professional nonverbal neutrality norms during crises. Utilizing qualitative interviews with journalists analyzed through the lens of the needs of meaning framework, this study shows journalists are continually negotiating nonverbal neutrality boundaries. Results suggest journalists are not fully aware of nonverbal behaviors’ impact on overall neutrality, trained in controlling nonverbal behaviors, nor receiving coping support. Suggestions for individual and organizational practices are provided.
Based on the results of the analysis of narrative interviews of three generations of residents of Lipetsk, this article identifies and comprehends the features of the representation of family time, the main types of events in family history and the forms of continuity of family traditions. The methods of constructing time and eventfulness were analyzed in the context of cultural practices of everyday life, perceived as traditions of work, everyday life and leisure. On the basis of the biographical method of Fritz Schütze, positive and negative curves of biographical stories were identified, which were compared with the “family scenarios” represented in the narratives of the people of Lipetsk. The combination of F. Schütze's biographical method and S. Jaeger's critical discourse analysis allowed us to identify and compare general tendencies that, on the one hand, turned out to be dominant in the family memory narratives of three generations of Lipetsk residents, and on the other hand, were clearly represented in the media discourse of public commemorations. The first trend was the unconditional growth of the meaningfulness of family history as the age of our respondents increased. The second most important trend was the use by respondents of the events of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 as a kind of "worldview" framework for interpreting the events of family history and its basic meanings. The third trend was the pronounced desire to avoid comprehending the tragic events of family history and the uncritical perception of the biographies of family members during the era of repression in the 1930s. The fourth trend was the absolute dominance of a strong type of continuity in relation to family traditions. It was revealed that the deployment of family temporality appears as a process of constant and dynamic interaction with the semantic space of the historical culture of the region and its practices of using the past.
The growing phenomenon of transnational families where the mothers work abroad has reinvigorated the debate on the fluidity of contemporary families. Family is no longer defined as household-bound, and family obligations are constantly negotiated. Research shows migrant mothers utilize communication technologies, most recently smartphones, to (re)constitute family intimacy and maternal identity from afar through everyday family practices. However, most research has focused on the material reconfiguration of family practices, essentially sidelining the discursive workings of intimacy and identity via mobile media. To address this gap, this ethnographic study draws on the narrative theories, particularly the small stories approach, to examine the narratives of Indonesian mothers in Hong Kong as embedded in their smartphone communication. The participant observation and narrative interviews with 25 migrant mothers revealed that maternal storytelling on smartphones is routine, eclectic, and personalized. These enable migrant mothers to craft and tell family stories to (1) rationalize distance and (2) bolster family resilience. This article concludes by reflecting upon the authorial privilege in constructing family narratives on mobile media. The implications on our understanding of the contextualizing power of narrative and power dynamics underlying mediated family communication are discussed.
Despite growing attention to health impacts of parental migration on children left behind, little is known about the mechanism through which parental migration may affect children’s mental health. This study examined how various parental migration experiences — namely, migration history, paternal migration, maternal migration, or both parents’ migration — are associated with children’s mental health. Moreover, we adopted a stress-and-coping model to examine the mediating roles of daily stress and sense-making in the association between parental migration and children’s mental health. Using a multi-stage probability strategy, the sample included 1907 students with a mean age of 13.66 in Western China. Results showed that children with both parents having migrated had increased risk of being depressive, and children with a migrant father were less likely to have flourishing mental health compared with children whose parents had no migration history. Left-behind children’s vulnerability towards poor mental health could be explained by increased levels of daily stress. Sense-making could mediate the negative impacts of daily stress on mental health outcomes. Social services are required to promote left-behind children’s mental health, with a focus on reducing daily stress and enhancing children’s coping capabilities.
Doubt is a common, yet challenging form of uncertainty to have about another’s illness. Although navigating illness uncertainty is a process of continual (re)appraisal and management, existing research narrowly examines windows of uncertainty experience. To illustrate how uncertainty management in the context of doubt is recursive, nonlinear, and ongoing, we apply a process approach to communication to uncertainty management theory. Drawing on interviews with 33 U.S. adults, our findings explicate a prominently teleological (i.e., goal-driven) process wherein participants’ uncertainty management served to accept or deny illness, depending on the extent individuals valued their own and the other’s identity and the relationship. Participants generally moved through this process along one of three trajectories: growth, stagnation, or resentment. We also observed dialectical, evolutionary, and life cycle processes in the data. Findings demonstrate the heuristic value of studying uncertainty management as a multiple motor process.
Communicated Narrative Sense-Making Theory was applied to 14 semistructured
interviews to explore stories of sorting through a deceased family
member’s belongings/changing the home after death (“cleaning out the
closet”). Family stories about “cleaning out the closet” yielded retrospective
storytelling content themes regarding why changes were made/not made,
how family members communicated when deciding to make any changes,
and what changed or didn’t change as a result of “cleaning out the closet.”
These results advance the claim that “cleaning out the closet” functions as
a unique site where the instrumental task meets narrative communication
openings for families, and that this task offers key opportunities for sensemaking,
socialization, and well-being during the turbulent period of
bereavement.
The purpose of this chapter is to analyze parental use of an online support group about their children with disabilities. A content analysis was conducted of 1,718 emails from a listserv support group for parents of children who have been diagnosed as eligible for special education services. The findings suggest that parents use the group for the following purposes: (a.) expressive story-telling, (b.) seeking and giving advice, (c.) seeking or offering validation or encouragement, (d.) seeking or providing information, (e.) seeking or suggesting resources, and (f.) sharing celebrations and telling success stories for hope. Parents often discussed: How to deal with professionals (e.g., teachers, physicians), family, testing and diagnosis of disability, communicating with educators and the school context, Individualized Education Program (IEP) team meetings and reports, and family dynamics. The communication skills parents are most concerned about are writing and reading.
In this manuscript we review multiple approaches to family communication research, and provide directions for future research as they relate to family culture. Specifically, we review family communication research that is either explicitly or implicitly tied to family culture. Given the importance of families and understanding the first social group that individuals often belong to, it is necessary to synthesize programs of research related to family culture. Thus, in order to further the progression of family research we provide an overview of where current research on family communication converges, present additional factors for family scholars to include in their work, and conclude with suggestions for scholarship that builds on and integrates existing research.
This study used relational turbulence theory to examine (a) how the relational impact of miscarriage corresponded with bereaved mothers’ grief responses and (b) the association between a partner’s supportive conversational behaviors and relationship qualities. The sample included 193 women who had experienced a miscarriage within the previous year. As predicted, relational uncertainty was positively associated with women’s negative appraisals of miscarriage; facilitation from a partner was positively associated with women’s negative emotions; bereaved mothers’ negative appraisals and negative emotional responses covaried; and a partner’s supportive conversational behaviors were positively associated with facilitation from a partner. Contrary to our predictions, interference from a partner was not associated with more intense negative emotions, and a partner’s supportive conversational behaviors were positively associated with relational uncertainty and interference from a partner. The discussion highlights the relational impact of miscarriage on bereaved mothers’ experiences of grief.
Although hurt feelings might be inevitable in parent–adolescent relationships, follow-up conversations provide an opportunity for reconciliation and learning. This research considers how interaction patterns affect empathic accuracy and perceived understanding by examining the conversations of 98 parent–adolescent dyads regarding an event when adolescents felt hurt by something their parent said or did. Analysis of the interactions revealed three distinct interaction patterns: parental probing/adolescent withdrawal, mutual confrontation, and supportive listening. Although empathic accuracy remained low for all groups, supportive listening was associated with greater empathic accuracy for children and greater perceived understanding for both parents and adolescents. Analysis of specific thoughts reported during video review of the interactions revealed that parents often over-attributed negative thoughts to children, especially parents in the probing/withdrawal group.
Family communication about the family's health history (FHH) is an important step in alerting individuals to their hereditary disease risks and facilitating prevention. Individuals often communicate about the FHH of hereditary cancer as a story, which highlights the importance of analyzing family narratives of hereditary cancer to better understand their relation to psychological and physical well‐being. This study investigates the content of family stories by examining how narrative tone and framing relate to coping, perceptions of risk, and medical decision‐making. The current study recruited 42 family dyads with a prevalent FHH of hereditary cancer to participate in dyadic phone interviews to jointly tell their family narrative of hereditary cancer. Using an iterative analysis, findings examine how families create a shared understanding of FHH and hereditary risk. Narrative tone reflects participants' psychological well‐being and contributed to the way families framed their experiences. Common frames to family narratives of hereditary cancer included empowerment, adversity, laissez faire, and discrepant. Each frame gave insight into how families were coping, their perceptions of risk, and how they make medical decisions to manage those risks. Developing a better understanding of how families communicate about their hereditary cancer risks can aid in designing clinical interventions to help families re‐frame their stories to promote improved health outcomes.
This study explored the relational dimensions of grieving within the family unit. Three families bereaved of a child, participated. Using the Qualitative Action-Project Method, individual and joint interviews were conducted with family members. Data analysis illuminated family grieving processes and demonstrated that grieving was an interactive process with individual, dyadic, multi-adic, and community levels of processing. The family grieving process included intentionality in grieving together and separately, recognition of differing grieving styles, and meaning came through the incorporation of ongoing rituals and remembrances. A finding emerged of family connection facilitated through an ongoing, shared, continuing bond with the deceased child.
The construction of narratives has been shown to assist sufferers of emotional or traumatic events - such as the ending of relationships - in making sense of and coming to terms with the event. Despite this connection, few studies have explored how the completeness of the narratives contributes to positive outcomes. Building on research in both communication and psychology, we conceptualized a complete narrative as one that clearly and extensively (1) segmented the experience episodically/sequentially, (2) represented causes and consequences in the explained events, (3) developed characters relative to the story, (4) evoked and made sense of affect, (5) drew meaning from the events in the narrative, (6) provided a coherent narrative, and (7) attributed responsibility to the characters in the story. We collected and analyzed the break-up stories of 90 participants. We then rated the narratives to see if relationships exist between narrative completeness and adjustment to relationship dissolution as well as to the teller's role in the break-up and his or her current relationship status. In addition to the implementation of a new method for coding and analyzing narrative content, the results indicate that certain elements of completeness are more related to adjustment than are others.
Two studies were conducted to investigate the link between the themes of stories individuals feel describe their family and the way people evaluate their family relationships. Individuals described a story characterizing their own family and then re-told that story so that it reflected an ‘ideal’ family. The themes that emerged from these stories, as well as the discrepancies between the themes portrayed in the two stories, were examined. Findings indicated that the themes typifying people’s stories about their own family were associated with individuals’ family satisfaction. Stories reflecting care, togetherness, adaptability, reconstruction, and humorwere positively linked to satisfaction, whereas those portraying disregard, hostility, chaos, divergent values, and personality attributeswere negatively related to individuals’ feelings about their family. The themes characterizing people’s stories about what they saw as the ‘ideal’ family, by contrast, were unrelated to satisfaction. But, as expected, the discrepancies between many of the themes represented in people’s own family stories and those portrayed in their ‘ideal’ stories were associated with the way individuals felt about their family relationships. Furthermore, the way people perceived their own family stories was linked to their beliefs that, at some point, their own stories would change to become more like their ‘ideal’ stories.
A new qualitative method for investigating parental identity, the Parenting Narrative Interview (PNI), is introduced. Participants included 28 married couples (N = 56 individuals) with preschool children. Narratives of five meaningful temporally bounded parenting experiences (Marker Experiences) and meaningful experiences in five parenting domains (Domain Experiences) were coded for `parenting voice': I Only, I Context, We Complementary, We Compare, and We Joint. Across all narratives, We Joint and I Only voices were most frequently used. In Marker Experiences, no sex differences in voice usage were evident, but parents predominantly used We Joint voice in describing how they became parents, shifting to I Context and I Only for early experiences, and then to I Only for recent experiences as well as for anticipated future experiences. In Domain Experiences, fathers less often than mothers used I Voice in caregiving, promoting development, and arranging and planning narratives, and more often used We Joint in stories about their relationship with the child. With parenting voice interpreted as reflecting the balance within parental identity among self-as-solo-parent and varying kinds of co-parental selves, parental identity becomes progressively less co-parental and more solo-parental across narrative time. Compared to mothers, fathers construct their parental identity related to caregiving, promoting development, arranging and planning, and their relationship with the child as relatively more co-parental (i.e., more situated in the context of the relationship with the partner).
Humans are inexorably driven to search for order and meaning in their own and others' lives; accounts are a major avenue for sociologists to depict and under-stand the ways in which individuals experience and identify with that meaning and their social world. The accounts concept has a solid foundation and history in early sociological analysis and research. The current work on accounts focuses on "story-like" interpretations or explanations and their functions and consequences to a social actor's life. The concept is useful for gaining insight into the human experience and arriving at meanings or culturally embedded normative expla-nations. This concept deserves greater explicit attention in sociology and is in need of further theoretical development and stimulation. I argue that sociologists should embrace the concept of accounts; the foundation is set for a resurgence of work on accounts in sociology.
This review of the literature suggests that family investigators have responded to the cogent critiques of a decade ago, and that progress has been made in the field of family observational coding. Family observational coding systems are better informed by theory, and advances have been made in the development of methods that are generalizable across tasks, samples, and settings. In particular, it is encouraging that systems have been developed that are sensitive to ethnic diversity, developmental differences, and the multiplicity of family forms. There also is significant diversity among the coding systems themselves, in terms of the constructs they assess, the level of analysis they rely on, and the purposes they are meant to serve. This chapter offers a review of the conceptual issues and dilemmas involved in observational research on the family system, illustrated with examples from the methodologies represented in this volume. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
discuss problems to do with accounting for the different transformations possible in certain kinds of what now come to be called 'close' personal relationships . . . especially with accounting for what seems to be involved in 'falling in love'
discuss very generally the accountability problems to do those kinds of social movements in which a new reality is created
passionate actions, practical reason and transitory social roles / narratives / lexicons and 'image repertoires' (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this groundbreaking work, Robert Sternberg opens the book of love and shows you how to discover your own story—and how to read your relationships in a whole new light. What draws us so strongly to some people and repels us from others? What makes some relationships work so smoothly and others burst into flames? Sternberg gives us new answers to these questions by showing that the kind of relationship we create depends on the kind of love stories we carry inside us. Drawing on extensive research and fascinating examples of real couples, Sternberg identifies 26 types of love story—including the fantasy story, the business story, the collector story, the horror story, and many others—each with its distinctive advantages and pitfalls, and many of which are clashingly incompatible. These are the largely unconscious preconceptions that guide our romantic choices, and it is only by becoming aware of the kind of story we have about love that we gain the freedom to create more fulfilling and lasting relationships. As long as we remain oblivious to the role our stories play, we are likely to repeat the same mistakes again and again. But the enlivening good news this book brings us is that though our stories drive us, we can revise them and learn to choose partners whose stories are more compatible with our own. Quizzes in each chapter help you to see which stories you identify with most strongly and which apply to your partner. Are you a traveler, a gardener, a teacher, or something else entirely? Love is a Story shows you how to find out.
The finding that women report and exhibit higher levels of psychological distress than men has puzzled stress researchers for years (Dohrenwend & Dohrenwend, 1976; Gove & Tudor, 1973; Kessler & McRae 1981; Link & Dohrenwend, 1980). Three major explanations have been offered. The methodological artifact explanation suggests that women are socialized to be more expressive and therefore will admit more emotional symptoms than men in response to standard psychological distress scales (e.g., Newmann, 1984). The stress-exposure argument suggests that women face more stressors in general or more severe, persistent stressors than men (e.g., Gove, 1972; Kessler & McLeod, 1984; Aneshensel & Pearlin, 1987). The vulnerability argument suggests that women lack coping resources, such as high self-esteem, a sense of mastery, or appropriate coping strategies for handling the stressors to which they are exposed (Kessler & Essex, 1982; Pearlin & Schooler, 1978; Turner & Noh, 1983).
The Circumplex Model focuses on the three central dimensions of marital and family systems: cohesion, flexibility and communication. The major hypothesis of the Circumplex Model is that balanced couple and family systems tend to be more functional compared to unbalanced systems. In over 250 studies using the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Scales (FACES), a linear self-report measure, strong support has been found for this hypothesis. In several studies using the Clinical Rating Scale (CRS), a curvilinear observational measure, the hypothesis was also supported. These two assessment tools, the FACES and the CRS, are designed for research, clinical assessment and treatment planning with couples and families.
This chapter explores the nature of confession and inhibition. Conversely, not confiding significant experiences is associated with increased disease rates, ruminations, and other difficulties. This pattern of findings has helped in developing a useful theory of active inhibition that shares many of the assumptions of learning theory, psychodynamic models, and more recent cognitive perspectives. The chapter examines the nature of confession per se. The chapter focuses on the physiological and psychological effects of confronting or actively avoiding past traumatic experiences. Based on a number of laboratory and field studies, it is clear that requiring people to write or talk about traumas is associated with both immediate and long-term health benefits. The chapter presents a formal theory of active inhibition. The links among the theory and Freud, animal learning, and cognitive perspectives are discussed in the chapter. The chapter describes the reexamination of catharsis, the development and breakdown of the self, and the role of psychosomatics in social psychology.
The present paper outlines specific coping benefits derived from conversational interactions. Apart from the input of a supportive listener, these benefits occur as a function of the distressed individual's cognitive system and certain processes necessitated by the act of speaking. Distressed individuals often experience cognitive deficits in the form of intrusive thoughts, and a narrowed focus of attention. For example, an individual coping with the death of a spouse may find him/herself repeatedly distracted by memories of the day his/'her spouse died and unable to concentrate on other mental tasks or to experience thoughts and feelings not relevant to the event. The relationship between speaking about one's problems and subsequent adjustment will be outlined. The role of verbal expression in adjustment will be reviewed
Recently, there has been an increased interest in delineating the strategies by which families cope with stressful and challenging events and circumstances. This essay is an effort to explore the range and variety of such coping strategies. More important, it attempts to show how these strategies are related to one another and to more fundamental adaptive capacities of families; these capacities are manifest in the routines that are typical of the quiescent periods of the families' lives. The relationships we posit are shaped by a theory developing out of an extended series of laboratory and field studies in our center. Kuhn's concept of paradigm has been a helpful organizing metaphor for this theoretical work. It has led us to suspect that a family's adaptive capacities--both its everyday routines as well as its attempts to cope with unusual and stressful events--are shaped by its abiding conception of the social world in which it lives.
Contents: Part I:The Nature of Social Explanations. S.J. Read, Constructing Accounts: The Role of Explanatory Coherence. R. Lamb, M. Lalljee, The Use of Prototypical Explanations in First- and Third-Person Accounts. D.J. Hilton, R.H. Mathes, T.R. Trabasso, The Study of Causal Explanation in Natural Language: Analyzing Reports of the Challenger Disaster in The New York Times. J. McClure, An Economy of Explanations. A. Furnham, Lay Explanations. W. Turnbull, A Conversation Approach to Explanation, with Emphasis on Politeness and Accounting. B. Weiner, Excuses in Everyday Interaction. Part II:Explanations and Social Contexts. L. Bennett, Legal Fictions: Telling Stories and Doing Justice. F.D. Fincham, The Account Episode in Close Relationships. R.J. Bies, S.B. Sitkin, Explanation as Legitimation: Excuse-Making in Organizations. P. Essed, Alternative Knowledge Sources in Explanations of Racist Events. M.J. Cody, D.O. Braaten, The Social-Interactive Aspects of Account-Giving. K. Aronsson, C. Nilholm, Storytelling as Collaborative Reasoning: Co-Narratives in Incest Case Accounts. A.L. Weber, J.H. Harvey, T.L. Orbuch, What Went Wrong: Communicating Accounts of Relationship Conflict. M.L. McLaughlin, M.J. Cody, R. Dickson, V. Manusov, Accounting for Failure to Follow Advice: Real Reasons Versus Good Explanations.
This paper presents a case study of a conversational storytelling in which a recipient redirects an ongoing storytelling. The storytelling begins as one which threatens to make another recipient its “butt.” In redirecting the storytelling, the “butt” is rescued. The account of how these activities are achieved indicates, first, that storytelling may be a way of accomplishing interpersonal activities, both for teller and recipients. Secondly, it demonstrates that recipient is an active participant in the storytelling, both in determining what the storytelling comes to be “about,” and in working out the interpersonal activities it performs. Conclusions are drawn about the work of storytelling in the interactive construction of experience.
Some ways in which shared stories are begun and told are described using conversation analysis. Tellings shared by two persons who participated together in the events to be narrated display how coparticipants encounter and resolve the problems of having two potential tellers, and a “knowing” recipient present. The stories examined are begun with a three‐part series of turns: a “remote” approach, a forwarding, and a ratification of the forwarding. The body of the telling includes techniques which involve the knowing recipient in the telling without necessarily challenging the current teller's role as teller. Implications are drawn for the study of how pairs of persons “do” their relationship in public.
This longitudinal study focused on the level of optimism expressed in stories that mothers and fathers told about their adolescent children, and its relations to subsequent parenting practices. The investigation involved 35 families, focusing on adolescents aged 14 at Time 1 and 16 at Time 2, on average. Stories of an incident illustrating how the parent had taught values to the child were scored for two separate indices of optimism, overall tone of the narrative, and a focus on growth rather than control in socialization. As predicted, narrative optimism at Time 1 was generally associated at Time 2 with reports of more autonomy-granting to the child and with less punitiveness. This research provides supportive evidence for a construct of `parent optimism,' and indicates that it is reflected in meaningful ways in the stories that parents tell about family life and relationships.
This article describes three coding systems used to analyze systematically joint narratives told by 344 black and white newlywed couples about the `story of their relationship', as part of a program of study of the early years of marriage. The first coding system of these accounts captures the affects mentioned in the stories; the second assesses husband-wife interactions in telling the stories; and the third identifies styles and themes characterizing both the overall story and specific substories within the narratives. A summary of results based on these coding schemes is outlined. Several narrative measures were found to be related to marital quality over time. A number of these measures help clarify ways in which black couples (n = 176) in comparison to white couples (n = 167) are alike and ways in which they are different. We discuss the role of these coding schemes for capturing `meaning-making' in story construction. In addition, we illustrate the possibility for analyzing changes in narrative memory and its connection to affective development in people.
A theoretical view suggests that the impact of social support is based on interactions among three variables: (1) motivations and expectations of providers and recipients, (2) the nature of the relationships in which the supportive exchanges occur and (3) the type of situation at which the supportive behaviors are directed. We discuss research findings that illustrate the need for such an interactional approach to clarify conflicting findings and to enlarge the understanding of social support.
Recent research indicates that the inclusion of emotional and casual/explanatory language in adults' narratives of stressful experiences is related to psychological well-being, but research with children is mixed. Based on research demonstrating the role of parental scaffolding on the content of children's developing autobiographical memories, we examined 27 mostly White mixed SES mother-child dyads discussing one chronic experience and one acutely stressful experience related to the child's asthma. Analyses of the content of these discussions suggested that the contribution of a mother to the discussion of each experience was highly related to the contribution of her child. However, these analyses also showed that the content of conversations about the acute experience differed from the content of conversations about the chronic experience. Most importantly, mothers who used more emotional and causal explanatory language when discussing the chronic stressor had children who showed better emotional well-being on the Child Behavior Checklist. Implications for the role of parent-guided narratives about stressful events for children's coping and well-being are discussed.
One hundred eighty young adults completed measures of family cohesion and adaptability, communication expressiveness and clarity, and problem solving. The results of polynomial regression trend analyses yielded a linear relationship between cohesion and communication expressiveness, clarity, and problem solving whether cohesion was defined linearly as emotional bonding or curvilinearly as family togetherness. There also was a linear relationship between adaptability, defined linearly as flexibility to master family life cycle stage transitions and these facets of family communication. However, the relationship for communication clarity was curvilinear when adaptability was defined in a curvilinear way as the degree of power, control, and organization in the home. Overall, these results tend not to support Olson’s circumplex model of couples and family systems.
The transition from adolescence to adulthood involves a relational renegotiation that, at least in part, is reflected in communication. This study describes the communication difficulties that older adolescents felt they had experienced with their parents and explored whether those communication problems or the perceived qualities of the problems are more strongly associated with relational satisfaction. Results indicated that the most frequent type of current communication problem involved personal criticism. Past problems were more likely to focus on parent-adolescent tensions related to behavioral restriction. There were few significant differences between very satisfied and dissatisfied adolescents in terms of the types of difficulties reported. However, older adolescents' attributions for their past and present communication problems significantly predicted their current satisfaction. Particularly notable is the finding that the specific type of problem experienced by adolescents may contribute substantially less to their satisfaction with parents than the ways they interpret the problems.
For the past decade, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated that when individuals write about emotional experiences, significant physical and mental health improvements follow. The basic paradigm and findings are summarized along with some boundary conditions. Although a reduction in inhibition may contribute to the disclosure phenomenon, changes in basic cognitive and linguistic processes during writing predict better health. Implications for theory and treatment are discussed.
Family stories work to construct family identity. Little research, however, has examined storytelling in families. This study examined storytelling content and process to assess the extent to which families jointly integrated or fragmented a shared sense of identity and how these discursive practices relate to family qualities. Results of a study involving 58 family triads indicate relationships between story theme (e.g., accomplishment vs. stress), person referencing practices (e.g., we-ness vs. separateness), and interactional storytelling behaviors (e.g., engagement, turn-taking). Moreover, story framing, perspective-taking, statements about selves-in-the-family, and identifying as a “storytelling family” emerged consistently as positive predictors of family satisfaction and functioning. The results offer a portrait of how families communicate identity and functioning in joint storytelling interactions and further position storytelling as a communication phenomenon worthy of consideration.
Using Koerner and Fitzpatrick’s general theory of family communication, this study extends Olson’s circumplex model of family functioning by examining the degree to which three dimensions of family communication schemata (i.e., expressiveness, structural traditionalism, and conflict avoidance) facilitate family cohesion and adaptability. Participants included 426 young adults from first‐marriage families who completed a series of survey measures. Results indicated that family expressiveness was positively associated with family cohesion and adaptability, whereas structural traditionalism and conflict avoidance were inversely associated with both dimensions of family functioning. Collectively, all three dimensions of family schemata accounted for 51% of the variance in family cohesion, though expressiveness and avoidance emerged as the only significant predictors in the model. Likewise, all three dimensions of family schemata accounted for 53% of the variance in family adaptability, including an interaction effect of expressiveness and structural traditionalism. Finally, discriminant analyses revealed that family expressiveness was primarily responsible for distinguishing among different types of family systems.
This chapter provides an overview and integration of what we know about human emotion and features of effective comforting messages in order to suggest how the two are linked. The first section of the chapter summarizes the results of several streams of research examining the features of more and less effective comforting messages. Next, we provide an extended discussion of appraisal theories of emotion, focusing particularly on how affective distress is conceptualized by appraisal theories. We then present a reformulation of the comforting process from the perspective of appraisal theory, specifying how supportive conversations can assist distressed persons in coping with their emotions. Finally, we describe how a variety of conversational behaviors and message strategies can help accomplish critical functions in constituting and conducting effective supportive interactions, detailing some of the mechanisms through which these behaviors and strategies may work. We conclude the chapter by elaborating some implications of our analysis for future empirical work examining the comforting process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
examine what is known about the role of early experience in shaping people's perceptions of themselves and of what they can expect from relationships / show how the effects of both perceived support and supportive behavior can be better understood by studying them in the context of the ongoing relationships in which they occur (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
begins with an example of what narrative counseling looks like in practice / some of the key concepts are brought to life through the exploration of a series of interviews with a [12-yr-old] client, Peter, who developed a fear of seeing [and his parents] / concludes by describing narrative counseling as an attitude and a way of thinking about problems rather than merely a box of tricks or clever techniques (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
the study of accounts can be a relatively non-reactive process and it can be undertaken by examining both the written and the oral reports of respondents / specific examples of written material containing accounts include newspaper articles, musical lyrics, and diary entries
role of accounts / memories and accounts / accounts have careers
synthesis / story-telling and social validation / motivations for account-making / self-esteem / emotional purging / establishing a sense of control / search for closure / search for understanding / accounts as ends in themselves / utility of accounts
account-gathering methods (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Narrative therapy . . . is based on the idea that problems are manufactured in social, cultural, and political contexts. Each person produces the meaning of his or her own life from the stories that are available in these contexts. As "Narrative Therapy in Practice" demonstrates, it is the spirit of collaboration that guides clinicians who use this innovative approach. Together they work to help clients unearth competencies, talents, abilities, and resources and create a transformed "redescription" of themselves. The information presented is grounded in solid theories and research in learning, language, and cognitive behavior. Using practical examples, clinicians are shown how narrative therapy can be applied in a variety of situations such as treating alcoholics, group counseling, work with indigenous native communities, and treating male sexual abuse survivors.
[This book] is the result of [a] collaboration of therapists, counselors, community and mental health workers, educators, and students who share a firm belief in the hopeful and cooperative style of this therapeutic process. The end result is a book that is . . . filled with illustrative examples that describe the nature of narrative therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Anyone who has ever entrusted a troubling secret to a journal, or mourned a broken heart with a friend, knows the feeling of relief that expressing painful emotions can bring. This book presents evidence that personal self-disclosure is not only good for our emotional health, but boosts our
physical health as well.
The author has conducted controlled clinical research that sheds light on the mind–body connection. This book interweaves his findings with case studies on secret-keeping, confession, and the hidden price of silence. "Opening Up" explains: How writing about your problems can improve your health; How long-buried trauma affects the immune system; Why it's never too late to heal old emotional wounds; and When self-disclosure may be risky—and how to know whom to trust. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Evaluated reactions to the recent ending of a close relationship among 25 female and 15 male undergraduates (aged 20–33 yrs) who had in the last 8 mo terminated an exclusive, close, heterosexual relationship that had been maintained for at least 6 mo. Ss completed a questionnaire regarding their relationship break-up, reactions to the loss, themselves, and the ended relationship. Women were more likely than were men to confide in good friends to recover. Men were more likely to quickly begin dating others as a means of recovery. To the extent that Ss felt the relationship was psychologically over they felt better about the relationship ending. The more complete the Ss' accounts about why the relationship ended, the more they felt that the relationships were over and that they had control over their recovery processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This . . . volume focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the process, structure, and function of communication in support and helping relationships. Researchers present diverse perspectives showing how support is co-constructed between providers and recipients. Unique in its approach, chapters examine functional and dysfunctional patterns involved in the communication of support, and offer both scholarly and applied audiences an understanding of social support as a communication process grounded in ongoing relationships.
"Communication of Social Support" is [intended] for anyone studying or working in social support environments and a valuable text for courses in social psychology, social interaction, personal relationships, interpersonal communication, communication theory, and related areas. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two main questions guided this research: (a) How do newlyweds' affective statements and interactive styles found in narratives told about their relation-ship help us understand the meaning they make of their marriages? (b) How does analysis of the affective statements and interactive styles of Black couples (n = 136) in comparison to White couples (n = 135) help us understand the differential meaning in these groups? The representative sample was inter-viewed from 5 to 8 months after marriage. The narrative procedure asked the couples to tell the story of their relationship. By and large, Black couples and White couples showed similar patterns of affective reactions: They were gener-ally positive, emphasizing individual rather than communal affects, many of which dealt with the external world rather than their own interpersonal lives. In comparison to White husbands, Black husbands are more often perceived as the focus of affective life in the relationship. White couples refer to the external world in their affective statements more frequently than Black couples. With regard to interactive styles in the storytelling, there were more Black-White differences. Although most couples' interactions were mainly collaborative, Blacks showed less cooperative styles of interaction and greater conflict than did Whites. Using the developmental, cultural variant, and cultural equiva-lent perspectives, the article presents interpretations of the similimilarities and differences found for Black and White couples' narratives.
(Psychology; an-thropology)
Addresses the lack of literature dealing with social and relational context in which stressors are experienced with a focus on communal coping in which both appraisals of the stressor and development of coping strategies are considered. The chapter goes beyond the small body of earlier work on the social aspects of coping to present a new framework that integrates the social dimension—communal coping. Communal coping applies not just to collective stressors such as natural disasters but also includes stressors that are usually defined as individual such as illness or job loss. Through a review of the coping literature and a variety of examples, the chapter clarifies how focus on the individual has limited understanding of the coping process and how the focus in the context of relationships can enrich understanding of that process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)