Sunday, 27 May 2007
Telling Our Stories to Know Ourselves
Last week The New York Times, published an article about what researchers can learn about personalities from how we tell our personal stories. There is a lot about the psychological differences between first person and third person telling, and how mood affects the content of stories, but I was more interested in some other findings:
“Researchers have found that the human brain has a natural for narrative construction. People tend to remember facts more accurately if they encounter them in a story than in a list, studies find; and they rate legal arguments as more convincing when built into narrative tales rather than on legal precedent.”
- - The New York Times, 22 May 2007
Which is, of course, what humans have been doing since cave men passed on their lore and teachings around the campfire. It appears from this new research that storytelling does not develop until adolescence:
“…most people do not begin to see themselves in the midst of a tale with a beginning, middle and eventual end until they are teenagers. “Younger kids see themselves in terms of broad, stable traits: ‘I like baseball but not soccer,’” said Kate McLean, a psychologist at the University of Toronto in Mississauga. “This meaning-making capability – to talk about growth, to explain what something says about who I am – develops across adolescence.”
Our stories change, say the researchers, with repeated telling through the years:
“…the research so far suggests that people’s life stories are neither rigid or wildly variable, but rather change gradually over time, in close tandem with meaningful life events.“…The way people replay and recast memories, day by day, deepens and reshapes their larger life story. And as it evolves, that larger story in turn colors the interpretation of scenes.”
And here I thought I was just embellishing to make a better story. Perhaps I’m just seeing them in a different light. Also, according to the researchers, the themes of our personal narratives can shift our behavior:
“Depending on the person, the story itself might be nuanced or simplistic, powerfully dramatic or cloyingly pious. But the point is that the narrative themes are, as much as any other trait, driving factors in people’s behavior…”“Seeing oneself as acting in a movie or a play is not merely fantasy or indulgence; it is fundamental to how people work out who it is they are, and may become.”
So telling our stories not only entertains and enlightens others and leaves a legacy for our descendants, we are at the same time telling and retelling ourselves who we are. Part 4 of David Wolfe's series on Jung's seven tasks of aging is titled, "It's Not About Nostalgia; It's About Life Review."
[EDITORIAL NOTE: The queue of upcoming stories is getting too short for comfort. If you’ve been thinking about submitting a story, now is a good time to do it. Remember, they can be original for The Elder Storytelling Place or have been published in a magazine, other website or blog. All storytellers retain their copyright.]
Posted by Ronni Bennett at 02:14 AM | Permalink | Email this post
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Interesting NYT article to which you refer here. Writing does often seem quite revealing. I have little difficulty in believing the stories we remember, how we perceive them, then, later relate them, can tell us much about ourselves. Certainly, I am aware that my view of events in my life, both present and past, evolve and change, as would any story I might tell about them at various times. The core truth would always be present, but all else might vary.
Posted by: Joared | Sunday, 27 May 2007 at 02:53 PM