Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Uzer Yıldız T. (Yürütücü)
Yükseköğretim Kurumları Destekli Proje, 2022 - 2024
Narrative coherence refers to a person's telling or writing of events and their details in logical, clear and understandable ways for the listener/reader in terms of the narrative’s temporal, casual and thematic components (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Habermas & Reese, 2015; Waters and Fivush, 2015). Previous studies on narrative coherence and well being heavily focused on adolescent and emerging adulthood samples (Adler, et al., 2016; Chen, McAnally, Wang & Reese, 2012; Habermas & Reese, 2015; Reese et al., 2017; Vaneken, Smeeths, Bijttebier & Hermans, 2021; Waters & Fivush, 2015).
Little is known about what could be the possible mechanisms that would explain the relation between narrative coherence and mental health. The most widely studied mediating variable in these studies was social support (Vanaken, Bijttebier, Fivush & Hermans, 2022; Vanaken & Hermans, 2020).
The importance of social support in the relationship between narrative coherence and well-being cannot be denied; however, these studies assume that people share their experiences only or mainly to establish social bonds. However, the reminiscence functions literature demonstrates that people share or remember their memories for different reasons. Researchers focusing on autobiographical memory functions have revealed that there are three main reasons for sharing past experiences: identity formation (i.e., reflective function) , social bonding (i.e., social function) and directive function (i.e., generative function; Bluck, 2000; Harris, et al., 2014). There are also studies showing that frequency of these functions differ across different life periods (Harris et al., 2014).
In short, the coherence of the memories we share may vary according to participant age and why people intend to share their experiences. Thus, the effect of narrative coherence on psychological well-being would be different for different reminiscing functions across life-span. Considering these differences as well as different underlying mechanisms is crucial in understanding the relationship between narrative coherence and psychological well-being across life-span.
Two studies are proposed to clarify how reminiscence functions and participant age would interact with each other in explaining the relationship between narrative coherence and well-being. The first study will include 400 participants from four different agegroups (18-22; 25-30; 40-45; and 65+). Participants will narrate one of their turning point memories in detail. Next, they will respond to autobiographical memory functions, social support, emotion regulation, psychological, social well-being scales, and verbal fluency task. Independent coders will code coherence of narratives by using Reese et al (2011)'s narrative coherence manual. We will investigate how participant age and reminiscence functions will moderate the relationship between narrative coherence and well-being.
Second study will replicate and expand the first study by making participants narrate four events that achieved social, ruminative, reflective and generative functions of autobiographical memory. Next, participants will complete social support, well-being and emotion regulation scales, and verbal fluency task. We expect to replicate Study 1 results and confirm that not only intended use of memory (Study 1) but also its adaptive value (i.e., achieving a particular function; Study 2) is important to understand the relationship between narrative coherence and well-being across different ages.