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Article #211: This Is Your Life... And How You Tell It

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The way people talk about their pasts middle age. They also describe several
reveals a lot about how they approach and crucial scenes in detail, including high
write the future points (the graduation speech, complete
For more than a century, researchers have with verbal drum roll); low points (the
been trying to work out the raw college nervous breakdown); and turning
ingredients that account for personality, points. The entire two-hour session is
the sweetness and neuroses that make the recorded and transcribed.
sluggishness and sensitivity that make In analysing the texts, the researchers
Andrew Andrew. They have largely ignored found strong correlations between the
the first-person explanation -- the life content of people's current lives and the
story that people themselves tell about stories they tell. Those with mood
who they are, and why. problems have many good memories, but
Stories are stories, after all. The these scenes are usually tainted by some
attractive stranger at the airport bar dark detail. The pride of college
hears one version, the parole officer graduation is spoiled when a friend makes
another, and the PTA board gets something a cutting remark. The wedding party was
entirely different. Moreover, the tone, wonderful until the best man collapsed
the lessons, even the facts in a life from drink. A note of disappointment
story can all shift in the changing light seems to close each narrative phrase.
of a person's mood. By contrast, so-called generative adults
"When we first started studying life -- those who score highly on tests
stories, people thought it was just idle measuring civic-mindedness -- tend to see
curiosity stories, isn't that cool?" said many of the events in their life in the
Dan P McAdams, a professor of psychology reverse order, as linked by themes of
at Northwestern and author of the 2006 redemption. They flunked sixth grade but
book, The Redemptive Self. "Well, we find met a wonderful counsellor and made
that these narratives guide behaviour in honour roll in seventh. They were laid
every moment, and frame not only how we low by divorce, only to meet a wonderful
see the past but how we see ourselves in new partner. Often, too, they say they
the future." felt singled out from very early in life
Researchers have found that the human -- protected, even as others nearby
brain has a natural affinity for suffered.
narrative construction. People tend to In broad outline, the researchers report,
remember facts more accurately if they such tales express distinctly American
encounter them in a story rather than in cultural narratives, of emancipation or
a list, studies find; and they rate legal atonement, of Horatio Alger advancement,
arguments as more convincing when built of epiphany and second chances. Depending
into narrative tales rather than on legal on the person, the story itself might be
precedent. nuanced or simplistic, powerfully
During a standard life-story interview, dramatic or cloyingly pious. But the
people describe phases of their lives as point is that the narrative themes are,
if they were outlining chapters, from the as much as any other trait, driving
sandlot years through adolescence and factors in people's behaviour.






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