Effects of parental maltreatment on children's conceptions of interpersonal relationships.

39 maltreated and 60 nonmaltreated Black 6–14 yr olds from lower income families told stories about kind or unkind initiatives from child to child, adult to child, or child to adult and then told what the recipient would do next. In contrast to their nonmaltreated counterparts, maltreated 6–8 yr olds told more stories in which children reciprocated the kind acts of adults and fewer stories in which adults or peers reciprocated the kind acts of children. Maltreated Ss of all ages justified their parents' unkind acts on the basis of their own bad behavior. Developmental trends in story content and story context measures differed for maltreated boys and girls; boys showed less development toward mature interpersonal peer relations. Findings suggest that the modes of adaptation used by abused and neglected children may be cognitively and emotionally similar. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The emotional impact of loss narratives: Event severity and narrative perspectives.

Out of the complex influences of event, narrative and listener characteristics on narrative emotions, this paper focuses on event severity, narrative perspectives, mood, and dispositions for emotion regulation and empathy. Event severity and perspective representation were systematically varied in sad autobiographical narratives to study their influence on quantity and quality of readers' emotional response. Each of three stories were manipulated to contain elaborated perspectives, only the past protagonists' perspective (dramatic narration), and very little perspectives at all (impersonal narration). We predicted that event severity influences the quantity of emotional response, while degree of perspective representation influences plausibility and whether emotional responses are sympathetic or interactional, that is, directed against the narrator. Hypotheses were confirmed except for plausibility, and perspective representation had an effect only on anger against and dislike of the narrator. In a second study, impersonal narration evoked anger at and negative evaluations of the narrator which were related to blaming the narrator for showing too little emotional involvement. The generalizability of findings across emotions and implications for sharing of emotions in everyday and clinical settings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Late Adolescent Identity Development: Narrative Meaning Making and Memory Telling.

Personally important autobiographical memories are the smallest unit of the life story, which begins to emerge in adolescence. This study examined 2 features of self-defining memories in late adolescence, the meaning made of the memories to garner an understanding of the narrative construction of identity as a life story and how those memories were told with an emphasis on the functions for telling and audiences to understand the social component of narrative identity development. For late adolescents (N=185), meaning was infrequently reported for the entertainment function in comparison with the self-explanation function. At later ages, adolescents' audiences were more likely to be peers, and at earlier ages, adolescents' audiences were more likely to be parents. Discussion focuses on the individual and social levels of identity construction that are apparent in personally important autobiographical memory narratives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aristotle vindicated.

Reviews the book, Behavior and mind: The roots of modern psychology by Howard Rachlin (see record 1993-99016-000). There is an important story about causality in psychology that needs to be told. It is a story which was once well told and widely understood during the Hellenic era, but a number of influential forces in our culture have conspired since then to sweep this story into a dark corner of our intellectual warehouse. In recent centuries, this story has been retrieved from its corner only rarely, and then it has been interpreted in a manner both unnatural to its originators and uncongenial to modern scientists. Authentic reconstructions of this story regarding causes and their effects began to re-emerge in the second half of the twentieth century among biologists and physicists, but it is still rarely heard in psychology. Rachlin's new book, however, tells this story as one of the central themes of the narrative. For this, if for no other reason, this is a book that should be read and carefully considered by all psychologists. The story alluded to is generally called "teleology," and it received its first full treatment by Aristotle in the fourth century before the Christian era. Rachlin delineates these origins, traces them carefully to the present day and develops a persuasive argument for the value and significance of this story for any complete psychological science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The next-in-line effect: Encoding or retrieval deficit?

The phenomenon that people cannot remember what happens when they are next-in-line to perform was investigated in 2 experiments with 144 undergraduates to determine whether this memory deficit reflects a failure to encode or an inability to retrieve preperformance events. In Exp I, 96 Ss participated in 4 memory trials; in each trial, half the Ss were called on to read words, and the other half merely listened. Before each trial, Ss were told whether they would be readers or listeners and the order in which numbers would be called. Thus, readers could anticipate precisely when they would be called on to perform. After hearing the 28 words in random order, all Ss wrote down the recalled words on cued or noncued sheets. Although the semantic cues strongly facilitated access to memories, they did not moderate the next-in-line effect. In Exp II, Ss were told—either before or after performing—to make a special effort to remember preperformance events. If instructed afterward, Ss displayed the usual memory deficit. If instructed beforehand, they reversed the deficit and showed a superior preperformance recall. It is concluded that the next-in-line effect is a failure at encoding, not at retrieval. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From social talk to social action: Shaping the social triad with emotion sharing.

Seemingly trivial social talk provides fertile ground for emotion sharing (a narrator and audience's realization that they experience the same emotional response toward a target), which in turn creates a coalition between the narrator and the audience, configures the narrator and audience's relationship with the target, and coordinates their target-directed action. In this article, the authors use 4 studies to investigate this thesis. In Studies 1 and 2--where participants rated scenarios in which narrators told them anecdotes--the authors found that when there was emotion sharing (a) participants were more bonded with narrators, (b) the narrator and audience's relationship with the target (as reflected in action tendencies) was determined by the emotionality of the anecdotes, and (c) they coordinated their target-directed actions. Study 3 demonstrated that this effect was indeed due to emotion sharing. Study 4 provided behavioral evidence for the effects of emotion sharing using a 2-person trust game. Together, these studies reveal that the everyday act of social talk is a powerful act that is able to shape the social triad of the narrator, the audience, and the social target, with powerful consequences for social structure and group action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of maltreatment on preschoolers' narrative representations of responses to relieve distress and of role reversal.

A total of 80 low-socioeconomic status maltreated preschoolers were contrasted with 27 nonmaltreated preschoolers on their narrative representations. The children completed story stems, taken from the MacArthur Story-Stem Battery (MSSB; I. Bretherton, D. Oppenheim, H. Buchsbaum, R. N. Emde, & the MacArthur Narrative Group, 1990), that introduced stressful family situations. Using the MacArthur narrative coding manual (J. Robinson, L. Mantz-Simmons, J. Macfie, & the MacArthur Narrative Group, 1992), coders rated portrayals of parental and child character responses, as well as participant responses, to relieve children's distress. They also rated role reversal (children caretaking their parents) from the narrative emotion coding manual (S. L. Warren, L. Mantz-Simmons, & R. N. Emde, 1993). Maltreated preschoolers portrayed parents and children as responding less often-yet themselves as stepping into the story more often to relieve children's distress-than did nonmaltreated preschoolers. Abused children (sexually, physically, or both) portrayed the most participant responses, and neglected children (with no abuse) portrayed the fewest child responses. Role reversal was associated with physical abuse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experiments as parables.

Comments on G. S. Howard's (see record 1991-17124-001) article on narrative in which K. Gergen remarked on the paucity of important experiments in narrative psychology. In social psychology, however, these few have become classics. The 1963 experiment for which S. Milgram is remembered had all of the elements of a parable: vivid imagery, conceptual simplicity, a story line, and an outcome that few expected. Such narratives can be told as parables and are the mythical underpinnings of social psychology; they form the culture that tells social psychologists who they are. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Counter-transference: A story.

Presents a short story to illustrate how developmental themes of therapists' own lives are inextricably tied to their therapeutic styles, and to the client issues that rivet attention. The story tells about an aging man who sits in his office and looks at his paintings and imagines that his paintings are looking back at him. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of attention in "lie-detection."

Randomly assigned 80 male college students to 1 of 4 groups. Tape-recorded instructions directed Ss in Groups 1 and 2 to evaluate a psychological case history or a newspaper story, respectively. Group 3 read about a kidnapping after being told they were participating in a lie-detection experiment and would be questioned on the material later. Group 4 was given the same information as Group 3, but was told that they should not reveal the information when questioned. Galvanic skin responses (GSRs) were measured as Ss listened to tape-recorded questions on the material read; no verbal responses were made. The E then attempted to determine "blindly" which target information S had received by examining the GSRs. The number of Ss whose given information was successfully detected was significant in Groups 2, 3, and 4. Results suggest that simply attending to or focusing upon relevant information is a sufficient condition for detectability in a lie-detection situation. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of instruction in narrative structure on children's writing.

Examined the possibility that direct instruction in story constituents and their interrelations could enhance 4th-grade children's organization in story writing. Whether the special instruction might affect quality, coherence, use of temporal and causal relations, and creativity in writing was also examined. 19 4th graders who scored at a low level on measures of knowledge of narrative structure were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatments—instruction in knowledge of story structure or instruction in dictionary-word study. The instruction included a short-term, intensive phase with 6 sessions during 2 wks and a long-term, intermittent phase with 10 sessions during 5 wks. Instruction in narrative structure had a strong positive effect on organization in storywriting and also enhanced quality. There were no differential effects of the 2 treatments on coherence, use of temporal or causal links in writing, or creativity. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethnic identity development of internationally adopted children and adolescents: implications for family therapists

The life story of the internationally adopted child tends to be an emotional one. How the story is told and retold in the family can have lasting consequences for the child's adjustment and well-being. In telling the story, parents are faced with a unique challenge: To what extent is it desirable to encourage their children, who already struggle with identity issues related to adoption, to identify with their cultures of origin? Therapists working on these issues with multiethnic adoptive families can find little guidance in the family systems literature. To fill this gap, the present article reviews the literature on racial/ethnic identity development and the available research on ethnic identification, self-esteem, and the psychological adjustment of cross-ethnically adopted children and adolescents. Implications for practice include developmental considerations, identifying children and families at risk, and recommendations for those in need of intervention.     

Living stories, telling stories, changing stories: Experiential use of the relationship in narrative therapy.

In narrative therapy, the therapeutic relationship is seen as facilitative, although constructionist thinking emphasizes the relational nature of meaning, suggesting that the client-therapist relationship is central to developing the client's story. By contrast, humanistic/existential theories stress the mutative nature of the therapeutic relationship. This article integrates these perspectives by developing a rationale for using the story both as lived in relation to the therapist and as verbalized. The implications of this rationale for the therapist's use of his or her own experience in treatment, the active use of the relationship, and the use of reflexive procedures that draw upon the I (subject/author) versus me (object/protagonist) distinction in the client's narrative are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of caffeine, impulsivity, and gender on the components of text processing and recall.

The present study examined the effects of caffeine, impulsivity, and gender on specific components of text processing as indicated by measures of reading time and recall. High- and low-impulsive male and female participants received 0, 2, or 4 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. Participants read 3 narrative and 3 expository passages from a computer terminal at their own rate. Immediately after reading each story participants recalled the passage. Participants given caffeine took longer to read the passages and recalled more idea units than participants given a placebo. The effects of caffeine on reading time and recall were not specific to any component of text processing but resulted in a general slowing of reading time and improvement in recall. The effects of caffeine were influenced by both gender and impulsivity. Additionally, results suggest that manipulations that increase encoding difficulty may result in enhanced recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Storytelling in psychotherapy: The client's subjective experience.

14 adult therapy clients were asked to report their recollections of their experience of therapy sessions. Among their recollections were reports on the subjective experience of storytelling. It was found that storytelling is primarily a way of dealing with inner disturbance. When prepared in principle to enter into the disturbance, clients may use a story to delay the entry. When reluctant in principle to make contact with the disturbance, they may tell a story as a way of managing their beliefs associated with the disturbance. Regardless of the motivation giving rise to a story, once engaged in it, clients frequently contact the inner disturbance whether they intend to or not. The subjective experience of telling a story in therapy sheds a different light on what has been referred to in the literary criticism literature as the functions of narrative, and raises implications for the practice of psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Narrative approaches to supervision and case formulation.

Reviews the literature on the use of narrative in personality theory and its application in the clinical practice literature. A constructionist approach to supervision is proposed that integrates narrative approaches with the supervisory process. Clinical supervision and case formulation are discussed as the result of a dialog between the supervisor and supervisee about the client's story, the supervisee's story about the client, and the professional story offered by the supervisor, resulting in a new case formulation and treatment plan. The new narrative allows a collaborative, empathic approach to both the supervisee and client. Case examples of a single male in his early 20s with complaints of feeling overwhelmed, nervous, and experiencing sleep and appetite disturbances, and of a single mother in her early 30s presenting with concerns about raising her 4-yr-old son illustrate the narrative approach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Equity in effort: An explanation of the social loafing effect.

Previous researchers have demonstrated an effect termed social loafing: People expend less effort when working in groups than when working alone. The explanation of this decrement has been that people can get away with poor performance because their individual outputs are not identifiable; however, holding identifiability constant eliminates the loafing effect. Another possible explanation, which was tested in the present study with 42 female undergraduates, is that people, when working in groups, expect their co-performers to loaf and therefore reduce their own efforts to establish an equitable division of labor. Each S was told that she was going to participate in a test of shouting ability and was given an individual practice trial after being paired with another female confederate who ostensibly was also given an individual trial. When the experimenter left the room, the confederate told S that she had tried hard and would continue to do so or had tried hard but would not continue to do so. In a 3rd condition, the confederate made small talk until the experimenter returned. Results indicate, consistent with the hypothesis tested, that Ss whose original expectations were violated by new information regarding the confederate's intended level of effort matched their own efforts to these new expectations. Ss matched the confederate's level of effort whether their individual outputs were identifiable or not. As with identifiability, holding constant the expectations about partner performance eliminated the loafing effect. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explanation-based decision making: Effects of memory structure on judgment.

This article reports research that supports an explanation-based model of decision making applied to judicial decisions. In Experiment 1, recognition memory responses demonstrated that subjects spontaneously evaluated evidence in a legal judgment task by constructing an explanatory representation in the form of a narrative story. Furthermore, an item's membership in the story associated with the chosen or rejected verdict predicted subjects' ratings of its importance as evidence. In Experiment 2, subjects listened to evidence from criminal trials presented in various orders designed to manipulate the ease with which a particular explanatory summary of the evidence (story) could be constructed. The order manipulation shifted verdict choices in the direction of the more easily constructed story, implying that story structure causes decisions. In addition, the coherence of the explanatory story structure and the strength of alternative stories were major determinants of perceptions of strength of evidence and of confidence in the decision. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Audience stress, personality, and speech.

"Forty-eight children, aged 10 to 12 years, told two stories to the experimenter alone and two to an audience of six adults… . Almost every subject told a longer story in the private compared to the audience situation. Highly exhibitionistic children were least influenced in this respect whereas self-conscious children reduced the length of their stories drastically before the six observers. Children who were both highly exhibitionistic and self-conscious made the most speech errors." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2FC69L. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)