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Literary arts and the development of the life story
Abstract
Throughout adolescence, children begin to develop their life story: a coherent account of their experiences and selfhood. Although the nature of this development is still being uncovered, one promising direction for research is the examination of factors that could encourage life story development. Here the authors explore the idea that exposure to the literary arts (i.e., poetry and fictional literature) might promote the formation of a coherent autobiographical narrative. Taking a critical look at both theoretical proposals along with the current empirical research, they provide a brief survey of this intriguing hypothesis.
... Participatory arts may encompass performing or auditory arts activities -such as drama, dance, singing and music-based activities -the less performative but albeit participatory literary arts -comprising fictional literature, creative writing, storytelling and oral histories (e.g. Mar et al., 2011) -and visual arts -art-making using different mediums or forms such as painting, drawing, sculpture and textiles (e.g. Rose & Lonsdale, 2016). Given the broad range of activities, art forms, settings, and processes that fall under 'participatory arts', it would be insightful to conduct a thorough review on the insights of existing literature specifically investigating dementia experiences with participatory arts. ...
Community-based participatory arts are being increasingly promoted for the wellbeing of people living with dementia and their carers. Yet, there remains variability in the arts-based programmes available, inconsistencies in how they are evaluated, and ambiguity around wellbeing definitions. Moreover, the voices of people with dementia are lacking in the research process. This ESRC-funded CASE project collaborated with Theatre by the Lake, Cumbria, to examine the effectiveness of their ‘Setting the Scene’ participatory multi-arts programme. The project involved a participatory action research (PAR) and sensory ethnography design, with qualitative and visual multi-methods. An ‘in the moment’ theoretical lens was developed by integrating more-than-representational theory, therapeutic landscapes and relational wellbeing concepts. Four resulting empirical chapters illustrate how people with dementia and carers contributed to, and were benefited by, Setting the Scene’s arts, objects, people and landscapes. The first chapter explores person-centred, ‘in the moment’ and strength-based engagements, elicited by the programme’s multi-arts, multi-modal, and thematic design. The following chapter examines the plurality of communication and participation in art-making through more-than-verbal, more-than-human tenets. The final two chapters examine the nuances of therapeutic landscapes and acts of caring within the programme, respectively. Overall, this thesis considers participatory multi-arts for enabling socio-spatial-material therapeutic encounters through emergent, non-judgemental, creative landscapes. Setting the Scene is understood as producing important ‘in the moment’ relational wellbeing benefits for people impacted by dementia, alongside the joint respite potential for carers. New contributions are made to a more-than-verbal reconceptualization of ‘voice’ to support the inclusivity of people with dementia in research and practice. Through novel integration of ‘more-than’ theories and methods so far lacking in dementia research, this thesis demonstrates how people with dementia can be acknowledged as ‘more than’ their symptoms through the arts; being recognised for enduring skills, narratives and authenticities that contribute to ‘being’ and ‘doing’ well.
... Although parent-child talk about real-life narratives (i.e., reminiscing) similarly contributes to this goal (Recchia et al., 2014), the narrative fiction context is unique because it illuminates hard life decisions in a highly coherent manner (Mar & Oatley, 2008). Therefore, conversations about narrative fiction might represent a privileged context for training of more complex forms of social reasoning (Mar et al., 2011). ...
Educators read narrative fiction with children not only to promote their literacy skills, but also to support their sociomoral development. However, different approaches strongly diverge in their explanations and recommended instructional activities. Informed by theoretical understandings of reader-text transactions, this integrative review presents three different conceptions about how children learn socially from narrative fiction. The first approach explains sociomoral learning through narrative fiction by children’s extraction and internalization of the text’s moral message. The second approach refers to children’s training of mindreading and empathy as they become immersed in a fictional social world and imaginatively engage with the fictional characters’ perspectives. The third approach focuses on children’s social reasoning development through engagement in argumentative dialogues with peers about the complex sociomoral issues raised in narrative fiction. The article aims to theoretically position a wide range of literary programs to clarify their psychological foundations as well as critically discuss their strengths and limitations.
... Cependant, le raisonnement autobiographique fait appel à une cognition plus élevée, liée au soi narratif (Habermas, 2011). Dès lors, ces correspondances entre le Soi et le texte en soi, issues de l'interprétation textuelle et de l'intégration en mémoire de l'expérience vécue, mènent à une « lecture de soi » parallèle à la lecture du texte, découlant conséquemment sur une amélioration de la réflexivité de soi, de la continuité phénoménologique, de la cohérence narrative et thématique (Mar, Peskin & Fong, 2011). Se développant de façon biographique (Habermas, 2011), la personnalité peut également se trouver sujette à fluctuations suite à la lecture de fictions littéraires (Djikic, Oatley & Carland, 2012 ;Djikic & Oatley, 2014) Toutes ces altérations, produites par la lecture de fiction littéraire, ont été temporaires et idiosyncratiques, comme une brève ouverture de la CdS. ...
The past few years have seen a strong development of research both on recovery in schizophrenia and bibliotherapy (i.e. therapy by reading). Some similarities between these two fields of studies can be highlighted, like their connexion with the theory of mind and the development of subjects' self-consciousness. Therefore, we draw the hypothesis that the opportunity to access bibliotherapy would lead subjects through a better recovery by a firmer representation of the theory of mind and a better self-awareness. In order to verify this hypothesis, we developed an experimental protocol of seven sessions of bibliotherapy, which was performed on a sample of three subjects with schizophrenia. The data were collected using scales and semi-structured interviews, and were both qualitative and quantitative. By analyzing them, we concluded that the protocol led subjects to adopt and psychotherapeuthical mindset towards bibliotherapy. It conducted them to a clarification of self-consciousness and an expanded perception of the other's existence in one's self-experience which allowed them to a better anchorage in a self-change process. Although our results do validate our hypothesis, they also lead us to consider these evolutions as a subjective process of development rather than an objective healing. As a conclusion, we take the liberty to discuss how our conclusions may lead to further practical and theoretical researches.
... Overall, they may encompass performing or auditory arts activities -such as drama, dance, singing and other music-based activitiesas well as the less performative but albeit participatory literary artscomprising fictional literature, creative writing, storytelling and oral histories (e.g. Mar et al, 2011) -and visual artsart-viewing and art-making using different mediums or forms such as painting, drawing, sculpture and textiles (e.g. Rose and Lonsdale, 2016). ...
Background
The drive towards living well with dementia has resulted in a growing recognition of the value of community-based participatory arts activities. This review aimed to explore their overall impact and holistic benefits for people with early to moderate stages of dementia.
Methods
Using a scoping review methodology and thematic analysis, this review explored relevant literature published between 2008 and 2019.
Results
26 published papers were identified, comprising visual arts, literary arts, comedy, music and dance. The key themes included person-centred, in-the-moment approaches; participation and communication; attention and cognition; social cohesion and relationships; and the role of space, place and objects.
Conclusions
There is strong evidence in support of using participatory arts for dementia, regardless of art form. In-the-moment and person-centred approaches were deemed impactful. Further research is needed to explore the importance of setting, material culture and the methodological or theoretical perspectives in participatory arts and dementia research.
... Most evolutionary literary study still uses the discursive, speculative methods characteristic of the humanities. A few evolutionary literary scholars have assimilated empirical methods from the social sciences and a few evolutionary social scientists have taken literature as their subject matter Gottschall, 2008a;Johnson, Carroll, Gottschall, & Kruger, 2008Kruger, Fisher, & Jobling, 2003;Mar, 2004;Mar & Oatley, 2008;Mar, Oatley, Djikic, & Mullin, 2011;Mar, Peskin, & Fong, 2011;Miall & Dissanayake, 2003;Oatley, Mar, & Djikik, 2012;Whissel, 1996). ...
In the 1990s and early 2000s, much of the work done in evolutionary literary study was polemical and programmatic. Scholars attacked the cultural constructivist ideas prevailing in the academic literary establishment, rehearsed the basic logic of the adaptationist program, and made exploratory efforts to formulate principles of interpretation that could be linked to specifically evolutionary ideas. Over the past decade, polemics and programmatic rehearsals have diminished while literary theory and interpretive literary criticism have matured. Many evolutionists in the humanities argue that basic human motives are channeled into specific cultural norms, that specific cultural norms are articulated in imaginative form through myths, legends, rituals, images, songs, and stories, and that humans universally regulate their behavior in accordance with beliefs and values that are made vividly present to them in the arts. Evolutionary literary scholars aim at analyzing the thematic, tonal, and formal features of literary works; locating the works in a cultural context; explaining the cultural context as a particular organization of the elements of human nature within a specific set of environmental conditions; registering the responses of readers; describing the sociocultural, political, and psychological functions the works fulfill; locating those functions in relation to the evolved needs of human nature; and linking workscomparatively with other artistic works, using a taxonomy of themes, formal elements, affective elements, and functions derived from a comprehensive model of human nature.
... Most evolutionary literary study still uses the discursive, speculative methods characteristic of the humanities. A few evolutionary literary scholars have assimilated empirical methods from the social sciences and a few evolutionary social scientists have taken literature as their subject matter Gottschall, 2008a;Johnson, Carroll, Gottschall, & Kruger, 2008Kruger, Fisher, & Jobling, 2003;Mar, 2004;Mar & Oatley, 2008;Mar, Oatley, Djikic, & Mullin, 2011;Mar, Peskin, & Fong, 2011;Miall & Dissanayake, 2003;Oatley, Mar, & Djikik, 2012;Whissel, 1996). ...
This chapter presents some background and context for adaptationist literary study, outlining the main historical movements in literary theory over the past 150 years or so and locating adaptationist critics in relation to that history. It then identifies the kinds of work done by adaptationist literary scholars and gives a concise guide to their chief contributions. The chapter distinguishes adaptationist criticism from other schools that are in some way associated with evolutionary thought and discusses the debate, within evolutionary psychology itself, about the adaptive status and function of literature and the other arts. The concept of human nature is central both to Darwinian social science and to Darwinian literary study. Adaptationist literary theorists argue that literature is produced by human nature, is shaped by human nature, and takes human nature as its primary subject.
... We do not seek in this work to suggest that all students should become professional critics but rather to suggest that the habit of reading literature as a lifelong disposition holds great potential for supporting people's development as humans (Holland, 1975;Mar, Peskin, & Fong, 2011). Furthermore, having a rich repertoire of knowledge, strategies, and dispositions opens up more expansive opportunities for engaging with a wider array of literary texts within but also beyond school. ...
This article presents a framework and methodology for designing learning goals targeted at what students need to know and be able to do in order to attain high levels of literacy and achievement in three disciplinary areas—literature, science, and history. For each discipline, a team of researchers, teachers, and specialists in that discipline engaged in conceptual meta-analysis of theory and research on the reading, reasoning, and inquiry practices exhibited by disciplinary experts as contrasted with novices. Each team identified discipline-specific clusters of types of knowledge. Across teams, the clusters for each discipline were grouped into 5 higher order categories of core constructs: (a) epistemology; (b) inquiry practices/strategies of reasoning; (c) overarching concepts, themes, and frameworks; (d) forms of information representation/types of texts; and (e) discourse and language structures. The substance of the clusters gave rise to discipline-specific goals and tasks involved in reading across multiple texts, as well as reading, reasoning, and argumentation practices tailored to discipline-specific criteria for evidence-based knowledge claims. The framework of constructs and processes provides a valuable tool for researchers and classroom teachers' (re)conceptualizations of literacy and argumentation learning goals in their specific disciplines. 2016
... Memory for narrative information is integral to everyday functioning as it characterises communications of our own life experiences and allows us to gather knowledge about others (Kropf & Tandy, 1998). We communicate in everyday life in a manner that resembles storytelling (Miller, 1995), and the integration of personal narratives has been thought to influence the overall coherence of self identity (Mar, Peskin, & Fong, 2011) and maintaining a sense of self through time (Bluck & Habermas, 2000;Tulving, 2002). Nevertheless, previous research demonstrates that older adults exhibit impaired memory for narrative information when compared to their younger adult counterparts (Byrd, 1985;Hultsch & Dixon, 1984;Olofsson & Backman, 1993;Zelinski, Light, & Gilewski, 1984). ...
The self-reference effect (SRE), enhanced memory for information encoded through self-related processing, has been established in younger and older adults using single trait adjective words. We sought to examine the generality of this phenomenon by studying narrative information in these populations. Additionally, we investigated retrieval experience at recognition and whether valence of stimuli influences memory differently in young and older adults. Participants encoded trait adjectives and narratives in self-reference, semantic, or structural processing conditions, followed by tests of recall and recognition. Experiment 1 revealed an SRE for trait adjective recognition and narrative cued recall in both age groups, although the existence of an SRE for narrative recognition was unclear due to ceiling effects. Experiment 2 revealed an SRE on an adapted test of narrative recognition. Self-referential encoding was shown to enhance recollection for both trait adjectives and narrative material in Experiment 1, whereas similar estimates of recollection for self-reference and semantic conditions were found in Experiment 2. Valence effects were inconsistent but generally similar in young and older adults when they were found. Results demonstrate that the self-reference technique extends to narrative information in young and older adults and may provide a valuable intervention tool for those experiencing age-related memory decline.
... Plausible as this all sounds, the idea that an intergenerational literary class could help both Elders and high-school Students to develop wisdom has yet to be tested empirically (Mar, Peskin, & Fong, 2010). Preliminary results of a teaching for wisdom study we have recently completed, showed that high-school Students have difficulty understanding complex literary material because they lack the necessary life experience (Ferrari et al., 2011). ...
Although the psychological benefits of intergenerational learning environments have been well documented, no study has yet investigated wisdom as an outcome of intergenerational classroom engagement. In this study, Elders between the age 60–89 were recruited to participate in a high-school English classroom. We hypothesized that participating in an intergenerational high-school classroom would benefit both Elders and Students by fostering the conditions for both groups to develop greater psychological wisdom. Our findings indicate that both Elders and Students actively engaged the five dimensions of wisdom identified by Webster (2003, 2007) during their time in the intergenerational class. Further, we find that while Students and Elders both demonstrated aspects of wisdom, they understood the concept of wisdom in strikingly different ways.
Рассматривается становление макроструктуры автобиографической памяти как результат согласованного взаимодействия процессов социализации и индивидуализации в ходе развития данной мнемической подсистемы. Раскрывается положение о том, что источником социальной обусловленности автобиографической памяти является присвоение культурных жизненных сценариев. Ставится вопрос об источниках индивидуализации содержаний автобиографической памяти. Обсуждается гипотеза о вариативности культурных жизненных сценариев даже в рамках одной общности, поскольку субъект обладает возможностью выбирать из потенциально доступных сценарных форм те, по образцу которых он будет строить личную историю прошлого. Предложены следующие типы сценариев, выступающих в качестве социокультурных средств организации автобиографии: типичный, семейный, медийный.
The Self-Reference Effect (SRE), enhanced memory for self-related information, has been established in healthy young and older adults but has had limited study in age-related memory disorders such as amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI). Additionally, the majority of SRE studies have been conducted using trait adjective paradigms, which lack ecological validity; memory for narrative information has real-world importance and has been shown to decline in healthy aging and, to a greater extent, in aMCI. The present study investigated whether self-referential processing promotes memory for narrative information in healthy aging and, for the first time, in aMCI. The promotion of recollection (vivid re-experiencing of an event) through self-referential processing, termed the Self-Reference Recollection Effect (SRRE; Conway and Dewhurst, 1995), was also examined, as was the potential impact of material valence on the SRE. Twenty individuals with aMCI and thirty healthy older controls encoded short narratives under self-reference, semantic, and structural conditions. Memory for narrative details was subsequently tested. Results indicated a SRE for narrative information in both aMCI and healthy control groups on a recognition memory test. The SRRE was found in healthy controls and individuals with aMCI. Material valence did not impact the SRE in either group. The SRE appears to be powerful enough to circumvent loss of hippocampal function in aMCI, possibly due to the multimodal nature of narrative information. Findings from this study highlight the potential of the SRE as an effective intervention tool for improving memory for narrative information in aMCI.
In this article you find the third part of a roundtable on Wolfgang’s Iser legacy with Gerald Prince, Mark Freeman, Marco Caracciolo and Federico Bertoni. In Part III we discuss with Marco Caracciolo the common grounds of Iser and cognitive literary approaches and the role of interpration in cognitive literary studies.
Our article reviews empirical work that claims to provide evidence for the psychological benefits and effects of engaging with literature. Psychological research has considerable potential for addressing the limitations of traditional reader-response theories, especially if such research is conducted in an interdisciplinary context where literary scholars can actively shape the experimental setup. In the first part of the article we consider the work carried out in this connection by psychologist Keith Oatley and literary scholar Frank Hakemulder, calling attention to a number of important issues that, in our view, haven't been adequately addressed in their empirical studies. In the second part we turn to our more positive arguments, suggesting that the investigation of the psychological effects of reading cannot abstract from phenomenological data based on readers’ own self-reports. Building on philosophical and psychological views of the self as a narrative construction, we argue that the analysis of readers' life stories may offer important insights into how literary reading can have an impact on readers. The descriptive, qualitative, phenomenological route is less fraught with presuppositions and normative assumptions than Oatley's and Hakemulder's approaches, and deserves being taken into serious consideration.
The life story is a special cognitive-communicative format which allows understanding persons from a biographical perspective through autobiographical reasoning and life narrating. Reviewing research on the development of the life story from the past 15 years, we clarify the conceptual and developmental specificity of the life story by comparing it to single event stories, and the specificity of autobiographical reasoning by comparing it to other forms of reasoning. To support the claim that the life story emerges only in adolescence, we review the earlier development of self and autobiographical remembering leading up to the life story. We outline the significance of autobiographical reasoning for bridging biographical ruptures, and we discuss the meaning of the cultural context for the development of the life story and its functionality. Finally, we suggest major developmental research questions that remain to be pursued.
https://www.jstor.org/tc/accept?origin=%2Fstable%2Fpdf%2F26765107.pdf%3Fab_segments%3D0%25252Fbasic_SYC-5152%25252Ftest%26refreqid%3Dexcelsior%253A307c6fa9d172f82a9da3114b58c1963a&is_image=False
This essay argues that the sciences most relevant to literary study form an integrated complex summarized by the term “biocultural theory.” Foundational theories accepted currently in literary scholarship are incompatible with a biocultural understanding of the evolved character of the human mind. Psychological and social theories that form part of the amalgam designated “poststructuralism” identify important areas of human concern but can now be replaced with empirically grounded concepts that are more complete, more correct, more nuanced. The most important elements in biocultural theory are the theory of human life history and gene-culture coevolution. Biocultural theorists argue that basic human motives are channeled into cultural norms that are articulated in imaginative form through myths, legends, rituals, images, songs, and stories. Biocultural theory offers an opportunity to develop literary research in company with our developing scientific understanding of human motives, emotions, identity, social interactions, and forms of cognition.
Against the long consensus in literary studies that differences in identity influence what, how, and why we read fiction, I argue that the kinds of literary experiences and feelings often valued and promoted by educators and literary scholars--deep, meditative reading, introspection, sensuous aesthetic apperception, and using literature to develop one’s identity--will be differentially sought and successfully developed in individuals moderately high in a heritable personality dimension called openness to experience. While literature is not the sole origin of openness-typical experiences and feelings, research in personality should make us wonder just how far literature can go in producing them. In addition to providing teachers and scholars with a more empirically defensible vocabulary for discussing human individuality, a more robust conception of personality, grounded in evolved dispositions and sensitive to cultural influences, can help literature teachers develop a more complex and sympathetic understanding of how different fictions are likely to satisfy and frustrate different readers’ emotional and cognitive needs.
Narratives of the self are embedded within families in which narrative interaction is a common practice. Especially in adolescence, when issues of identity and emotional regulation become key, narratives provide frameworks for understating self and emotion. The authors' research on family narratives suggests that adolescents' personal narratives are at least partly shaped by intergenerational narratives about their parents' childhoods. Both personal and intergenerational narratives emerge frequently in typical family dinner conversations, and these narratives reflect gendered ways of being in the world. Adolescents who tell intergenerational narratives that are rich in intergenerational connections and perspective-taking show higher levels of well-being. These findings suggest that individual narrative selves are created within families and across generations.
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/02/11180038/1118003802-55.pdf
Autobiographical reasoning is the activity of creating relations between different parts of one's past, present, and future life and one's personality and development. It embeds personal memories in a culturally, temporally, causally, and thematically coherent life story. Prototypical autobiographical arguments are presented. Culture and socializing interactions shape the development of autobiographical reasoning especially in late childhood and adolescence. Situated at the intersection of cognitive and narrative development and autobiographical memory, autobiographical reasoning contributes to the development of personality and identity, is instrumental in efforts to cope with life events, and helps to create a shared history.
--- see http://www.psychologie.uni-frankfurt.de/57297385/2014-Habermas-Koeber-Memory-AR-buffers-self-continuity-postprint.pdf?
In the life story, autobiographical remembering and self-understanding are combined to create a coherent account of one's past. A gap is demonstrated between developmental research on the story-organization of autobiographical remembering of events in childhood and of life narratives in adulthood. This gap is bridged by substantiating D. P. McAdams's (1985) claim that the life story develops in adolescence. Two manifestations of the life story, life narratives and autobiographical reasoning, are delineated in terms of 4 types of global coherence (temporal, biographical, causal, and thematic). A review of research shows that the cognitive tools necessary for constrtlcting global coherence in a life story and the social-motivational demands to construct a life story develop during adolescence. The authors delineate the implications of the life story framework for other research areas such as coping, attachment, psychotherapeutic process, and the organization of autobiographical memory. DOI 10.1037/0033-2909.126.5.748
This article considers how children and young people conceptualize and construct different types of texts. The initial parts of narrative and expository texts written by grade-schoolers, adolescents, and adults were analyzed, on the assumption that the opening to a piece of discourse serves as a window on the text as a whole. Analysis was conducted on 3 dimensions: discourse functions—providing background in narratives and introducing the topic in expository texts; organizational pivot—temporality in narratives and generality in expository texts; and linguistic forms—verb tense and semantics in narratives and nominal structure and content in expository texts. The openings to narrative texts emerge as better constructed at an earlier age than in expository texts, but fully proficient openings are a late development in both cases. We attribute this to the fact that, for younger children, the spoken modality and narrative mode of discourse predominate; however, with age and greater literacy, expository discussion increasingly shapes the way people think and give written expression to their thoughts.
The first goal of this study was to examine young children's developing narrative comprehension abilities using theory-based, authentic measures of comprehension processes. The second goal was to examine the relations among young children's comprehension abilities and other early reading skills. Children ages 4 and 6 listened to or watched two authentic narratives. We measured their comprehension of these narratives as well as vocabulary and skills associated with word decoding. The results revealed that even the younger children were sensitive to the underlying structure of the narratives and that this sensitivity increased with age. Measures of narrative comprehension were not consistently correlated with skills associated with word decoding, such as phonological awareness. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical models of comprehension and of reading development. Practical implications of the findings are also explored.
This article argues for rethinking and reorientation in the study of narrative coherence and its development in young children. The most influential model guiding current research in this area (a) tends to equate narrative coherence with causal linkages between events and (b) suggests that the primary (or exclusive) strategy used by children to achieve coherence is to embed causally-connected event sequences in the goal-directed actions of a single major protagonist. Despite its undoubted contributions, this approach is misleadingly narrow in several respects, and it has not been able to reconstruct the actual dynamics and trajectories of young children's narrative development. A first step toward overcoming these limitations is to undertake the foundational work of reconstructing and examining the range of actual modes and strategies of narrative coherence used by children, beginning with young children, which must include delineating the different narrative purposes and intentions these embody and the distinctive ways that they integrate events and event structures with the depiction and coordination of characters and relations between characters. I offer some theoretical and methodological proposals along these lines, illustrated with empirical examples.
Although the ability to tell a story of a personal experience is learned between two and six years and is refined during middle childhood, how to coherently narrate the story of one's life seems to be acquired only during adolescence. The life story integrates autobiographical memories with a biographical view of the self. In an initial cross-sectional study of how life narratives gain in global coherence across adolescence, a sample of 12-, 15-, and 18-year-olds produced life narratives that were analyzed for elements that contribute to global coherence and for ways in which the textual openings set the stage for one's life. Results indicate linear age-trends for the temporal extension of causally linked statements, for causal links between events and personal change, for past-present comparisons, for other biographical concepts, and for hedges relating to explanations. There were also age-differences in the degree to which family history served as a setting for the life narratives. [Pilot study for the MainLife Study]
Extending research on age norms in adults, the development of the knowledge of two components of the cultural concept of biography, biographical salience of and age norms for life events was studied from late childhood to early adulthood in Study 1 and across adulthood in Study 2. The largest increase in knowledge was found between ages 8 and 12, with knowledge reaching its maximum at age 16. Across adulthood knowledge was relatively stable, with a small decline in older adults. In addition, across adolescence, personal memories increasingly corresponded to norms of biographical salience, although idiosyncratic events continued to dominate. The acquisition of knowledge of the cultural concept of biography may parallel developments in autobiographical memory, reminiscing, and life narratives. [Based on wave 1 of the MainLife Study]
This study assessed storybook reading at home with reference to kindergartners’ empathy, socioemotional adjustment, language, and alphabetic skills. Beyond considering the frequency of storybook reading, measures included maternal expertise in choosing books. Findings indicated various relations between aspects of storybook reading and early development. Frequency of storybook reading was related to the child's language ability, whereas maternal expertise in choosing books was related to the child's empathy and socioemotional adjustment. These results suggest the need for further study of differential connections between shared reading and child development.
Researchers from diverse psychological subdisciplines have increasingly turned their attention to the storied aspect of human thought. Narrative processing and autobiographical reasoning are 2 forms of this conscious thought. Narrative processing is the tendency to create thought units that use vivid imagery, sequential plots, characters, and salient goals. Autobiographical reasoning consists of interpreting and evaluating remembered experiences. Both forms of thought are discussed in D. P. McAdams's (see record
2001-06545-002) personality theory and D. B. Pillemer's (see record
2001-06545-003) cognitive research. S. Bluck and T. Habermas (see record
2001-06545-004) highlight developmental aspects of narrative processing and autobiographical reasoning, particularly in adolescent identity formation. U. M. Staudinger (see record
2001-06545-005) illustrates how autobiographical reasoning about memories and life stories serves as a springboard for wisdom at different stages of the life cycle. Implications for integrating subdisciplines of psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
There is growing consensus that, for trained readers, poetic-text processing involves a genre decision, which triggers genre-based conventional expectations and directs attention to the textual devices. This research examines how students recognize and process texts in poetic versus prose form at different points during their literary education. The study compared 48 students, 16 in each of Grades 4, 8, and 12 as they thought aloud when reading poems in the graphic shape of poetry, as well as prose. Results showed that the 4th graders did not yet categorize a poem as a poem. The 8th graders made significantly more poetic-genre categorizations than the 4th graders, but only the 12th graders spent more time processing the texts in poetic form than prose, thinking aloud about their genre-based expectations and the textual devices. Developing the structure of knowledge needed for poetic literacy seems to require a long process of formal literary education.
Current work on autobiographical memory does not take the term autobiographical seriously enough. Doing so requires taking not just single events, but the whole life and its coherence, into account: Only memories that are linked to self through their emotional or motivational significance over one's life are truly autobiographical. We introduce a new construct, the life story schema, a skeletal mental representation of life's major components and links. The life story schema provides 5 conceptual extensions to current models of autobiographical memory. The conclusion that results from these extensions is that the life story schema serves to bind autobiographical memory and the self over time. Research needed to substantiate our claims and further questions generated by the life story schema construct are discussed.
In a longitudinal study the development of literary response of students in upper secondary education is investigated. The theoretical model of literary response is corroborated. In addition, all seven aspects of literary response measured for this study decrease with age from grade 7 to 11. On average, in grade 7 students take a positive position towards six of these response aspects. The one negative response score indicates that students do not like to link characteristics of the author to aspects of his or her work. In grade 11 students show a negative response towards three of the seven aspects of literary response. The decrease in literary response scores is less for girls, for students with larger vocabularies, for students who read much fiction in their spare time and for students coming from a culturally more sophisticated home environment. Literary education that emphasizes text experiencing slows down the decrease in literary response scores in all grades. Structural analysis and literary history also slacken the decrease in response scores, but only in higher grades. Structural analysis seems inappropriate for students younger than 15 years.Educational and research implications are discussed.
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/02/11180038/1118003802-55.pdf
Autobiographical reasoning is the activity of creating relations between different parts of one's past, present, and future life and one's personality and development. It embeds personal memories in a culturally, temporally, causally, and thematically coherent life story. Prototypical autobiographical arguments are presented. Culture and socializing interactions shape the development of autobiographical reasoning especially in late childhood and adolescence. Situated at the intersection of cognitive and narrative development and autobiographical memory, autobiographical reasoning contributes to the development of personality and identity, is instrumental in efforts to cope with life events, and helps to create a shared history.
--- see http://www.psychologie.uni-frankfurt.de/57297385/2014-Habermas-Koeber-Memory-AR-buffers-self-continuity-postprint.pdf?
Research on narrative identity in late adolescence and early adulthood has not extensively examined how conversational storytelling affects the development of narrative identity. This is a major gap, given the importance of this age period for narrative identity development and the clear importance of parent-child conversations in the development of narrative identity. The authors present a series of 3 studies (n = 220) examining how late adolescents and early adults construct narrative identity in ways that are shaped by their listeners. The findings suggest that late adolescents and early adults construct more meaning-laden, interpretive accounts of their everyday experiences when they converse with responsive friends. Further, even within this sample's abbreviated age range, the authors found evidence for age-related increases in the factual content of personal memories. Such findings illuminate the importance of friends in the construction of narrative identity during this key developmental period.
The ontogeny of the ability to describe people culminates in adolescence in the development of the life story. An overarching temporal macrostructure and framing by a prehistory and a future-oriented global evaluation of life helps integrate disparate autobiographical memories into a coherent story. Two life narratives each of 8-, 12-, 16-, and 20-year-olds (N=102) were analyzed in terms of how well-formed their beginnings and endings are and how much they follow a linear temporal order. By age 12, the majority of life narratives began with birth, ended in the present, and followed a chronological order. In late adolescence and early adulthood, more elaborate birth narratives and retrospective evaluations of life and outlooks into the future were added. These formal characteristics were related to biographical practices, biographical knowledge, and fluid intelligence. Text-analytical methods are proposed as a method for the analysis of biographical and autobiographical reasoning and understanding. [Based on wave 1 of the MainLife Study]
Please note: The expanded longitudinal follow-up across 8 years is published as: Köber, C., & Habermas, T. (2017). The development of temporal macrostructure in life narratives across the lifespan. Discourse Processes 54(2):143-162. Doi: 10.1080/0163853X.2015.1105619
In the life story, autobiographical remembering and self-understanding are combined to create a coherent account of one's past. A gap is demonstrated between developmental research on the story-organization of autobiographical remembering of events in childhood and of life narratives in adulthood. This gap is bridged by substantiating D.P. McAdams's (1985) claim that the life story develops in adolescence. Two manifestations of the life story, life narratives and autobiographical reasoning, are delineated in terms of 4 types of global coherence (temporal, biographical, causal, and thematic). A review of research shows that the cognitive tools necessary for constructing global coherence in a life story and the social-motivational demands to construct a life story develop during adolescence. The authors delineate the implications of the life story framework for other research areas such as coping, attachment, psychotherapeutic process, and the organization of autobiographical memory.
For a test longitudinal test of the model see:
Köber, C., Schmiedek, F., & Habermas, T. (2015). Characterizing lifespan development of three aspects of coherence in life narratives: A cohort-sequential study. Developmental Psychology, 51, 260-275. 10.1037/a0038668
Köber, C., & Habermas, T. (2017). The development of temporal macrostructure in life narratives across the lifespan. Discourse Processes. Online publication. 10.1080/0163853X.2015.1105619
For a more recent review see:
Habermas, T., & Reese, E. (2015). Getting a life takes time: The development of the life story in adolescence and its precursors. Human Development, 58, 172-202. 10.1159/000437245
Literacy plays an important role in the development of language in school-age children and adolescents. For example, by reading a variety of books, magazines, and newspapers, students gain exposure to complex vocabulary, and reading becomes a prime opportunity for learning new words. Despite the importance of reading for lexical development, little is known about the pleasure reading habits of today's youth. The first goal of this investigation was to examine the preferences of older children and young adolescents with respect to reading as a leisure-time activity and its relationship to other free-time options that are likely to compete for their attention. The second goal was to examine the amount of time that young people spend reading for pleasure each day and the types of materials they most enjoy reading. The third goal was to determine if preferences for free-time activities and reading materials would evince age- and gender-related differences during the period of development from late childhood through early adolescence (ages 11-15 years). The findings could serve as a reference point for understanding what is reasonable to expect of students during this age range.
The participants were 100 sixth graders (mean age = 11;7 [years; months]) and 100 ninth graders (mean age = 14;8) attending public schools in western Oregon. Each group contained an equal number of boys and girls, all of whom spoke English as their primary language and were considered to be typical achievers. All participants completed a survey concerning their preferred free-time activities and reading materials. They also reported the average amount of time they spent reading for pleasure each day.
The most popular free-time activities were listening to music/going to concerts, watching television or videos, playing sports, and playing computer or video games. Least preferred activities were cooking, running or walking, writing, and arts and crafts. Reading was moderately popular. The most popular reading materials were magazines, novels, and comics; least popular were plays, technical books, and newspapers. Interest in pleasure reading declined during this age range (11-15 years), and boys were more likely than girls to report that they spent no time reading for pleasure.
Given the importance of reading to lexical development in school-age children and adolescents, reading should be promoted as a leisure activity during these years. School-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs), in their role as language consultants, can benefit from understanding the pleasure-reading patterns of today's youth. It is especially important for SLPs to monitor these patterns in students who have language disorders, as it is common for these young people to experience deficits in reading and in lexical development. Fortunately, much can be done in school settings to encourage strong literacy habits in all students if SLPs work collaboratively with teachers, principals, psychologists, librarians, parents, and students. Suggestions are offered for ways to encourage young people to spend more time reading for pleasure.
This study analyzed the development of expressive elaboration in fictional narratives for school-age children.
The analysis was derived from high-point analysis, but it was tailored to capture the artful aspects of fictional storytelling. Narratives were elicited with a short picture sequence of a likely life event from 293 children whose ages ranged from 5 to 12 years.
Results showed a significant age effect for expressive elaboration with narrative length controlled. For three age clusters (5-6 years, 7-9 years, and 10-12 years), the 13 types of expressive elaboration showed diverse patterns of acquisition in terms of presence, frequency, and developmental change. Appendages (introducer, abstract, theme, coda, ender) were lowest in both presence and frequency, and increased in presence with age. Orientations (names, relations, personality) were more common and increased in presence with age. Evaluations (modifiers, expressions, repetition, internal states, dialogue) were most frequent and showed age changes in both presence and frequency.
This study provides an additional window on narrative competence. The analysis and results can guide narrative assessment and intervention.
If a person's internalized and evolving life story (narrative identity) is to be considered an integral feature of personality itself, then aspects of that story should manifest some continuity over time while also providing evidence regarding important personality change. Accordingly, college freshmen and seniors provided detailed written accounts of 10 key scenes in their life stories, and they repeated the same procedure 3 months and then 3 years later. The accounts were content analyzed for reliable narrative indices employed in previous studies of life stories: emotional tone, motivational themes (agency, communion, personal growth), and narrative complexity. The results showed substantial continuity over time for narrative complexity and positive (vs. negative) emotional tone and moderate but still significant continuity for themes of agency and growth. In addition, emerging adults (1) constructed more emotionally positive stories and showed (2) greater levels of emotional nuance and self-differentiation and (3) greater understanding of their own personal development in the 4th year of the study compared to the 1st year. The study is the first to demonstrate both temporal continuity and developmental change in narrative identity over time in a broad sampling of personally meaningful life-story scenes.
This article is focused on the growing empirical emphasis on connections between narrative and self-development. The authors propose a process model of self-development in which storytelling is at the heart of both stability and change in the self. Specifically, we focus on how situated stories help develop and maintain the self with reciprocal impacts on enduring aspects of self, specifically self-concept and the life story. This article emphasizes the research that has shown how autobiographical stories affect the self and provides a direction for future work to maximize the potential of narrative approaches to studying processes of self-development.
ABSTRACT: Extending the study of autobiographical narratives to entire life narratives, we tested the emergence of globally coherent life narratives in adolescence, as hypothesized by McAdams (1985). Participants were 102 children and young adults (ages 8, 12, 16, and 20 years) who narrated their lives twice. Between narrations, half of each age group participated in tasks designed to train autobiographical reasoning; the other half participated in control tasks. Coherence was measured by the relative frequency of local temporal, causal, and thematic linguistic indicators identified qualitatively at the level of propositions, as well as by quantitative global rating scales measuring the impressions of the listeners. Coherence increased across the age span. Overall, repeated narrating and training did not increase coherence. Crystallized and fluid intelligence, number of negative life events, and frequency of biographical practices and confiding in others did not contribute substantially to the prediction of coherence beyond age. Results are interpreted in the context of adolescent identity development. [Based on wave 1 of the MainLife Study]
PLEASE NOTE: The expanded longitudinal follow-up across eight years was published in: Köber, C., Schmiedek, F., & Habermas, T. (2015). Characterizing lifespan development of three aspects of coherence in life narratives: A cohort-sequential study. Developmental Psychology, 51, 260-275. 10.1037/a0038668
Here are some ideas and teaching strategies to reach adolescents through poetry. A complete poetry unit is included with stated rationale, activities, and suggested materials for use in middle or high school.
The present investigation was based on the analysis of twenty respondents, ten men and ten women, all retired. The written texts were obtained from the archives of one of the authors who gathered autobiographies using a guided method of assigned topics of life. The main objective for this analysis was to find those central life goals and dominant activities around which the projects of life were formed. Sorting of life projects was done according to the constant comparison method described by Glaser and Strauss in their Grounded Theory model. Five types of life projects were identified in the narratives: living is achieving, living is being social, living is loving, living is family life, living is struggling. Considerable gender differences appeared in the findings with women showing a broader participation and interpretation of life where family life, community work and job careers were important. The men tended to be more monothematic focusing either on a personal achievement or a career development in a more social context. The rhetoric in the discourse of life themes was quite different between the sexes reflecting the sex role scripts of the cohort studied. Only in some of the types was the class dimension clearly visible where the type living is achieving and to a certain extent even living is being social reflected upper middle class and upper class occupations while living is loving reflected middle class occupations. The positive narrative tone and the telling of well-managed life projects and success stories in most of the accounts were considered as American features in comparison to some Finnish life stories that contained more of the telling of hardships. The most gender bound accounts such as the masculine living is achieving and the feminine living is loving life projects showed the greatest resemblances between these two western cultures revealing comparable master scripts.
Whenever a person’s life is passed in review, either in an autobiography, a biography, a psychohistory, or a clinical report, a more or less implicit assumption is made that the life in question has a certain coherence, a form and purpose which is in some way uniquely different from that of others (Bühler and Massarik 1968; Pascal 1960). In fact a biography would be unimaginable if the life events of a person followed each other randomly or if they were determined only by the vector forces of genetics and social milieu. The assumption behind any biography is that the subject’s actions over time reflect a unique theme played out against a wider background of historical themes.
Pedagogy 6.1 (2006) 173-178
So writes Jay Parini in his Rilke-like "Letter to a Young Teacher" near the end of The Art of Teaching. I must say, reading a letter actually directed to a young teacher is refreshing. So many books in the autobiography of literary pedagogy genre seem to be products of a midlife crisis or end-of-career reminiscence of youth, with very little thought given to the young teachers who are actually reading the books and who need advice the most. Here, at least, Parini is willing to address those young teachers directly and to confront the difficulties they face. I can even forgive him for the section's opening sentence, "okay, you've got your first job," where Parini directs his advice to young professors, neglecting those graduate students, like me, who have been teaching for a number of years still hoping to land their first "real" job (105). And I can pass by his earlier assumption that students "will often have spent the previous year or two in the library, completing a dissertation: the worst preparation for teaching," when in fact many graduate students do not have this luxury and must find time both to teach and to write (61).
What I find more difficult to deal with, however, is Parini's claim that every teacher is different and that teaching is a process of self-discovery. If this is indeed true, then how helpful is any advice that Parini could give us? More specifically, how can the perspective of a professor who received his graduate education in Scotland, who teaches at Middlebury College, and who considers himself primarily a poet enlighten a young teacher completing his education at a large research university where he routinely teaches bloated introductory classes and is still trying to discover his personal and academic self?
Such questions are crucial to understanding Parini's pedagogy, which is necessarily colored by his particular experiences and the circumstances under which he does his teaching. While Parini's pedagogical approach is ostensibly teacher centered, it is necessarily dependent on a command of his subject matter and a commitment to his students, making it a combination of the three general approaches to teaching literature that Elaine Showalter outlines in Teaching Literature (2003)—the subject-centered, teacher-centered, and student-centered approach. As the names suggest, the first approach gives primacy to the subject or the text, seeing the act of teaching as a transference of information from teacher to student; the second approach places less emphasis on the subject matter itself and more on the teacher's performance in the classroom; the third approach places the needs of the student(s) first.
Parini relates how, after having met with some initial difficulty teaching, he "began to think about teaching in a different way, as a conscious act of self-creation, as self-performance" (65). It would be easy to confuse this approach with a simple performance model of teaching attacked by such critics as Jane Tompkins in "Pedagogy of the Distressed" (1990). Tompkins dismantles such a model, whose goals, she argues, are to demonstrate to students how smart and prepared the teacher is and ultimately to teach them "how to perform within an institutional academic setting in such a way that they will be thought highly of by their colleagues and instructors" (170).
Parini's model, however, is more complicated and potentially more productive. In advocating a performance model of teaching, Parini relies on what becomes the book's central metaphor: the mask. He traces this trope from its early use in Greek tragedy as an instrument through which one speaks, to its modern meaning, as illustrated by W. B. Yeats's "The Mask," as a symbol...
Visual and ICT media are often perceived as a threat to book reading in leisure time. They are accused of taking time and interest away from children and adolescents' book reading by offering them more approachable alternatives. Children and adolescents' book reading habits and the way these habits have changed over time are in focus. Is there any cause for concern regarding reading interest in the ever‐hardening media competition? The main questions are: how have children and adolescents' reading habits changed during the past 25 years? In what way are reading habits related to social background, age and gender? Is it reasonable to maintain that TV and other media take time from book reading? The analysis is based on quantitative data from the longitudinal research programme Media Panel. The reading habits of two age groups, 11–12‐year‐olds and 15–16‐year‐olds, are analysed at eight successive points in time between 1976 and 2002. The new media introduced into the media environment during each period have characterised the different media contexts.
It is argued that empirical studies of readers' responses to literary texts are required, which would test current theoretical models of response. The present paper proposes that literary texts possess an intrinsic structure, which can be demonstrated in readers' responses. A study is reported in which response data from readers was obtained while they read a Virginia Woolf story phrase by phrase. Two of the protocols are analysed in detail, showing a commonality of response in three areas: in phrases requiring interpretation, in relationships between phrases, and in anticipations of passages or themes that occur later in the story. At the same time, the individual interpretations of readers differ, sometimes incompatibly: readers bring different experiences and values to bear on the text, which endow it with personal significance. Further studies are required which would map the boundary between the common and the individual aspects of response to literary texts.
In this study we argue that narrative storytelling and expository discussion, as 2 distinct discourse genres, differ both in linguistic expression and in their underlying principles of organization - schema-based in narratives and category-based in exposition. Innovative analyses applied to 160 personal-experience narratives and expository essays written by schoolchildren, adolescents, and adults on the shared topic of interpersonal conflict point to certain apparently contradictory facts about developing discourse abilities in the 2 genres. For example, genre differentiation is established early on (even the youngest children distinguish between the 2 types of discourse), but with age, participants tend to diverge from genre-typical content (by including expository-type generalizations in narratives and narrative-like incidents in expository texts). Also, across age groups, in local linguistic expression, participants use more advanced vocabulary and grammar in expository than in narrative texts, but in global-level discourse organization, they achieve command of expository text construction only in adolescence, whereas the principles governing narratives are established by middle childhood. We suggest that this apparent paradox can be accounted for by several interlocking factors: cognitive and linguistic development, increased experience with different varieties of discourse, and the communicative context in which a piece of discourse is produced.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether children's voluntary use of library centers and their attitudes toward reading could be positively affected by involvement in a literature program emphasizing the enjoyment of books. Six second-grade classes were assigned to one control group and two experimental groups-a group in a school-based program and a group in a school- and home-based program. Questionnaires and observations were used to assess students' attitudes and behaviors before, during, and after involvement in the program. Voluntary use of the library center during free-choice time in school significantly increased in both experimental groups. Moreover, this effect continued after the intervention had ended. Girls engaged in library center activities significantly more than boys and were more responsive to the intervention. However, achievement level was unrelated to library center use or to responsiveness. The intervention had no effect on students' attitudes toward reading nor on reading habits at home. Because the results of a parent questionnaire suggest that parents did not fully implement the home-based program, increases in use of the library center in both experimental groups can be attributed to the school-based intervention. /// [French] Cette étude visait à déterminer si l'utilisation volontaire d'une "bibliothèque" dans la salle de classe par les enfants et leur attitude face à la lecture pouvaient être affectés significativement par une participation à un programme littéraire soulignant le plaisir procuré par la lecture. On a assigné six classes de sixième année à un groupe contrôle et à deux groupes expérimentaux; un groupe dans un programme applicable à l'école et un groupe dans un programme applicable à la maison. On a utilisé les techniques du questionnaire et de l'observation pour rendre compte des attitudes et comportements des élèves avant, pendant, et après la participation au programme. Le taux d'utilisation volontaire de la bibliothèque durant les temps libres à l'école a augmenté considérablement dans les deux groupes expérimentaux. D'ailleurs, cet effet a persisté même après la fin de l'intervention. On a également constaté que les filles participaient plus que les garçons aux activités proposées et qu'elles étaient plus réceptives lors de l'intervention. Toutefois, le niveau de rendement n'était pas relié à l'emploi de la bibliothèque ou au degré de réceptivité. L'intervention n'a produit aucun effet sur l'attitude des élèves envers la lecture ni sur leurs habitudes de lecture à la maison. L'accroissement de l'utilisation de la bibliothèque observé dans les deux groupes expérimentaux n'est attribuable qu'à l'intervention survenue à l'école puisque, selon les résultats d'un questionnaire destiné aux parents, ceux-ci n'ont pas appliqué entièrement le programme prévu pour la maison. /// [Spanish] En este estudio pretendimos determinar si el uso voluntario de las bibliotecas y las actitudes de los niños hacia la lectura podían ser afectados positivamente al participar en un programa de literatura que enfatizaba el placer por el uso de los libros. Seis clases de segundo grado fueron asignadas a un grupo control o a dos grupos experimentales: de los dos grupos experimentales, uno estuvo en un programa con base en la escuela y otro con base en la casa. Se usaron cuestionarios y observaciones para medir la actitud y el comportamiento de los estudiantes antes, durante y después de la participación en el programa. Se encontró que el uso voluntario de las bibliotecas por los estudiantes, durante su tiempo libre, aumentó significativamente en ambos grupos experimentales. Es más, este efecto continuó aún después que la manipulación había terminado. También se encontró que las niñas se involucraban de manera más significativa, en las actividades de las bibliotecas, que los niños, y que éstas respondieron más, también, a la manipulación. Sin embargo, el nivel de aprovechamiento no estuvo relacionado ni al uso de la biblioteca ni a la receptividad de los niños. La manipulación no tuvo efecto en las actitudes de los estudiantes hacia los hábitos de lectura o de no lectura en la casa. Dado que los resultados de un cuestionario dirigido a los padres sugiere que estos no implementaron totalmente el programa con base en la casa, los incrementos en el uso de las bibliotecas en ambos grupos experimentales puede atribuirse a la manipulación con base en la escuela. /// [German] In dieser studie versuchten wir festzustellen, ob von einem Literaturprogramm, das die Freude an Büchern betont, die freiwillige Benutzung von Bibliotheken und ihre Einstellung dem Lesen gegenüber positiv beeinflußt werden kann. Sechs Klassen der zweiten Jahrgangsstufe wurden in eine Kontrollgruppe und zwei Versuchsgruppen aufgeteilt: eine Programmgruppe in der Schule und eine Programmgruppe zu Hause. Fragebogen und Beobachtungen wurden benutzt, um die Einstellung und das Verhalten der Schüler vor, während und nach der Teilnahme am Programm zu bestimmen. Die freiwillige Benutzung der Bibliothek während der frei zur Verfügung stehenden Zeit in der Schule stieg bedeutend in beiden Versuchsgruppen. Zudem dauerte diese Wirkung über das Ende des Programms hinaus an. Wir stellten auch fest, daß Mädchen die Bibliotheken weit mehr benutzten als Jungen und stärker auf das Programm reagierten. Die Leistungen waren jedoch nicht in Beziehung zu setzen zu der Benutzung der Bibliothek oder zu der Reaktionsbereitschaft auf das Programm. Das Programm hatte weder Auswirkungen auf die Einstellung der Schüler zum Lesen, noch auf die Lesegewohnheiten zu Hause. Da die Ergebnisse eines Elternfragebogens darauf schließen lassen, daß die Eltern das Programm zu Hause nicht voll anwandten, kann die vermehrte Benutzung der Bibliothek durch beide Gruppen auf das Schulprogramm zurückgeführt werden.
A growing number of psychological theorists, researchers, and therapists agree that people create meaningful selves through the individual and social construction of coherent life stories. But what is a coherent story? And are good life stories always coherent? This article addresses the problem of narrative coherence by considering the propositions that coherent life stories (1) provide convincing causal explanations for the self, (2) reflect the richness of lived experience, and (3) advance socially-valued living action. Like all stories, life stories exist to be told or performed in social contexts. Most criteria for coherence, therefore, reflect the culture within which the story is told and the life is lived.
Story plays an essential part in the growth and development of the mind and all that it contains. It gives insights into human nature, expression to thoughts, ideas and desires and aids in the organisation of experience. It opens up the possibilities of other ways of life, of new and different approaches and views in human relationships. New worlds we didn't know existed are created and familiar worlds are given new structures, put into new frameworks and we are given a deeper understanding of our own, and others', intentions, attitudes and emotions.Reading the following article in the light of the power of story, we find that narrative in the form of books becomes an important part of learning and ultimately in shaping lives and society. Writers, parents and teachers, therefore, should consider the values presented in books, whether implicit or explicit, and be able to justify what they offer to children in the form of literature.This article was written with the intention of showing the importance of narrative in the development of young minds. It considers the responses we can make to literature and how this may determine the shape of our thinking. Tracing the history of children's books and the social pressures exerted on them, we see the importance placed on the values that are presented. In the light of the power of story, we see the important part books play in influencing individual lives, and the responsibility of adults in what they offer to children.
Narrative understanding has been identified as a primary mode of human thought that informs us about the nature, causes, and consequences of human actions and interactions and, as such, underlies social knowledge. The development of narrative thought was investigated by analyzing the structural complexity and social-psychological understanding displayed in the story compositions of 151 adolescents aged 10 to 18 years. A clear developmental progression was observed in structural complexity in terms of plot structure and the construction of flashbacks. Also observed was a clear developmental trend in social-psychological content from an intentional understanding of human behavior in terms of immediate feelings, thoughts, and goals to an interpretive understanding in terms of personal history, long-standing psychological traits, and broader contextual factors. Gender differences were also noted, with girls outperforming boys on some measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Exposure to different forms of narrative media may influence children's development of theory-of-mind. Because engagement with fictional narratives provides one with information about the social world, and possibly draws upon theory-of-mind processes during comprehension, exposure to storybooks, movies, and television may influence theory-of-mind development. We examined 4–6 year-olds’ inferred exposure to children's literature, television, and film, using an objective measure that controls for socially desirable responding. Theory-of-mind was assessed using a battery of five tasks. Controlling for age, gender, vocabulary, and parental income, inferred exposure to children's storybooks predicted theory-of-mind abilities. Inferred exposure to children's movies also predicted theory-of-mind development, but inferred exposure to children's television did not.
Listeners generally attempt to understand oral conversational stories by figuring out what the narrator is ‘getting at’; their understanding is point-driven in this sense. Analogously, a form of reading in which readers expect to be able to impute motives to authors may also be called point-driven; it is a mode that seems especially useful for reading so-called ‘literary’ texts. Point-driven reading is conceptually distinguishable from story-driven and information-driven types. We argue that each type is asociated with a number of cognitive strategies, with point-driven reading, specifically, characterized by coherence, narrative surface, and transactional strategies. Using a modern short story, we illustrate how point-driven readings might be differentiated from other kinds. An advantage of this conceptualization is that it enables one to generate empirically testable hypotheses about literary reading; we suggest a number of such hypotheses and methods of testing them.
At a theoretical level this work is an attempt at establishing the empirical study of literature in the phenomenologically influenced theory within reader response criticism. The theoretical frame of reference reflects more exactly the social-constructivist and phenomenologically influenced orientations off Schutz and Berger and Luckmann and the related theories of Fish and Bleich. A study was designed to assess children's and adolescents' spontaneous interpretations of potentially symbolic poetry. 72 subjects participated in the study, equally divided between three age-levels: 11, 14 and 18. The general question of the study may be stated as follows: What kind of interpretive strategies, especially along the dimension interpretive-descriptive and symbolic-non-symbolic, are practiced by readers at various age-levels in order to make sense of contemporary, potentially symbolic, poetry? It was predicted that the number of interpretive responses, including symbolic interpretations, increases with age. The hypothesis was confirmed. In addition, it was possible to categorize the symbolic responses according to level of appropriation, as ranging from rather superficial responses possible to characterize as quasi-symbols, via interpretations based on conventionalized motifs or popular notions, to particularized meanings at a relatively deep level of appropriation. The number of particularized symbolic responses was shown to increase with age. The quantitative results are complemented with comprehensive qualitative descriptions and analyses of the various categories of interpretation discerned.
Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of South Carolina, 1998. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 252-256).
In line with theories that children's pretend play reflects and extends their narrative skills, children with imaginary companions were predicted to have better narrative skills than children without imaginary companions. Forty-eight 5(1/2)-year-old children and their mothers participated in interviews about children's imaginary companions. Children also completed language and narrative assessments. Twenty-three of the children (48%) were deemed to have engaged in imaginary companion play. Children with and without imaginary companions were similar in their vocabulary skills, but children with imaginary companions told richer narratives about a storybook and a personal experience compared to children without imaginary companions. This finding supports theories of a connection between pretend play and storytelling by the end of early childhood.
The present study examined narrative identity in adolescence (14-18 years) in terms of narrative content and processes of identity development. Age- and gender-related differences in narrative patterns in turning point memories and gender differences in the content and functions for sharing those memories were examined, as was the relationship between narrative patterns and self-esteem. The narrative patterns focused on were meaning-making (learning from past events) and emotionality of the narratives, specified as overall positive emotional tone and redemptive sequencing. Results showed an age-related increase in meaning-making but no gender differences in the degree of meaning-making. Results further showed that gender predicted self-esteem and that boys evidenced higher self-esteem. Emotionality also predicted self-esteem; this was especially true for redemption and for boys. In terms of telling functions, girls endorsed more relational reasons for telling memories than did boys. Results are discussed in terms of potential gendered and nongendered pathways for identity development in adolescence.
The authors examined the relation between children's narrative ability, which has been identified as an important contributor to memory development, and suggestibility. Across 2 studies, a total of 112 preschool-aged children witnessed a staged event and were subsequently questioned suggestively. Results from Study 1 indicated that children's ability to provide a high-quality narrative of the event was related to resistance to suggestive questions, and narrative ability appeared to supersede age as a predictor of such resistance. In Study 2, children's general language and narrative abilities were measured in addition to their ability to produce a high-quality narrative about the target event. These results replicated Study 1's findings that children's ability to produce a high-quality narrative of a previously experienced event predicted resistance to suggestion. However, the quality of children's autobiographical memory narratives predicted shifting from denial to assent. Findings are considered in light of narrative's role in memory development and underlying mechanisms that may explain children's suggestibility.
This article presents the findings of the final phase of a 5-year longitudinal study with 168 middle- and upper middle-class children in which the complex relations among early home literacy experiences, subsequent receptive language and emergent literacy skills, and reading achievement were examined. Results showed that children's exposure to books was related to the development of vocabulary and listening comprehension skills, and that these language skills were directly related to children's reading in grade 3. In contrast, parent involvement in teaching children about reading and writing words was related to the development of early literacy skills. Early literacy skills directly predicted word reading at the end of grade 1 and indirectly predicted reading in grade 3. Word reading at the end of grade 1 predicted reading comprehension in grade 3. Thus, the various pathways that lead to fluent reading have their roots in different aspects of children's early experiences.
This study focuses on parent-child book reading and its connection to the development of a theory of mind. First, parents were asked to report about frequency of parent-child storybook reading at home. Second, mothers were asked to read four picture-books to thirty-four children between 4;0 and 5;0. Both frequency of parent-child storybook reading at home, and mother's use of mental state terms in picture-books reading tasks were significantly associated with success on false belief tasks, after partialling out a number of potential mediators such as age of children, verbal IQ, paternal education, and words used by mothers in joint picture-book reading. Among the different mental state references (cognitive terms, desires, emotions and perceptions), it was found that the frequency and variety of cognitive terms, but also the frequency of emotional terms correlated positively with children's false belief performance. Relationships between mental state language and theory of mind are discussed.
Narrative thought is a primary mode of human cognition that underpins key human capabilities such as meaning-making and social-psychological understanding.
We sought to further our understanding of the development of narrative thought during adolescence, particularly in terms of the structure and content of narrative interpretations.
Participants were 151 grade 4 to grade 12 students from six schools in a major urban centre in Western Canada. They included average and high-average students.
A cross-sectional design was used with four age groups: 10, 12, 14 and 17 years. Participants read a short story incorporating two substories and multiple layers of meaning. They then summarized it, described the two main characters, generated story morals and answered multiple choice interpretation questions. Responses were scored for both structural complexity and social-psychological content of narrative thought. Multivariate and univariate analyses of variance were conducted to identify developmental trends.
A clear developmental pattern in structural complexity was discerned in which students were increasingly able to understand complex multiple layers of meaning within a story. A striking shift in social-psychological thought was also identified as students demonstrated understanding that moved from an intentional focus on immediate and specific mental states to an increasingly interpretive focus on enduring states, character traits and second-order psychological interpretations.
Significant transformation occurs during adolescence in the structure and content of narrative thought as well as in capacity for the fundamental human endeavour of meaning-making.
This study examined narrative identity in 2 groups of participants who were younger (ages ranging from late adolescence through young adulthood) and older (over the age of 65 years). Participants completed an extensive interview in which they reported three self-defining memories. Interviews were coded for several characteristics of autobiographical reasoning: self-event connections representing self-stability or self-change, event-event connections, reflective processing, and thematic coherence. Results showed that the older and younger groups were not different in terms of the frequencies of self-event connections or the levels of reflective processing. However, in comparison with the younger group, the older group had more thematic coherence and more stories representing stability, whereas the younger group had more stories representing change. Gender differences also emerged, suggesting that females may have an advantage in the development of narrative identity. Results are discussed in terms of the different ways to represent narrative identity at 2 ends of the life span.
Differences in autobiographical narratives of English teachers, col-lege freshman, and seventh grade author(s). College Composition and Communica-tion
- R Beach
Beach, R. (1987). Differences in autobiographical narratives of English teachers, col-lege freshman, and seventh grade author(s). College Composition and Communica-tion, 38, 56–69.