It is Not What You Say, It is How You Say It

8/8/2019 It is Not What You Say, It is How You Say It

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European Journal of Social Psychology

Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 35, 785796 (2005)

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.277

Making sense of life stories: The role of narrative perspective inperceiving hidden information about social identity

TIBOR POLYA1

, JANOS LASZLO1

*

AND JOSEPH P. FORGAS2

1Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy

of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary2University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Abstract

Does the narrative perspective people adopt when describing important life events convey any hidden

information to audiences about their social identities? In this experiment, participants (who were

either professional psychotherapists, or laypersons) formed impressions about, and judged the

identities of narrators who described important identity-related life events (being Jewish, being

gay, being infertile) from one of three different narrative perspectives (retrospective, experiencing and

re-experiencing). Results showed that narrative perspective had a highly significant influence on

impression formation and identity judgments even when the same events were described. Narrators

using the retrospective perspective were generally judged to be better adjusted, more socially

desirable and less anxious and dynamic than were narrators describing the same events from the

experiencing or re-experiencing perspectives. Copyright# 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION: NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE AS INFORMATION

In everyday life people often tell each other about significant life events, and such verbal exchanges

represent an important means for presenting and constructing social identities. This study investigates

the intriguing possibility that subtle and often unconscious shifts in the narrators perspective when

recounting important identity-relevant life events may convey hidden information to an audience

regarding the actual characteristics of the narrator, what we call identity state. For example, negativeidentity-relevant life events recounted from a retrospective narrative perspective (I was . . . I did . . . )

may subtly communicate a degree of detachment from, and closure on, the identity conveyed in the

Received 27 November 2003

Copyright# 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 10 March 2005

*Correspondence to: Janos Laszlo, Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Victor Hugo Street 18-22,Budapest, Hungary. E-mail: [email protected]


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story and so may convey a sense of a stable, resolved identity state to an audience. Exactly the

same life story when told from an actively experiencing or re-experiencing narrative perspective

(I am . . . I do . . . ) conveys a very different latent message about the narrators identity state in

relation to the events depicted. By indicating an inappropriate level of intensity of involvement in the

negative life events, these narrative perspectives may signal the presence of unresolved identity

issues and may create an impression of tension, anxiety and lack of adjustment. In order to

explore these processes, in this experiment we asked participants to make identity judgments andimpression formation judgments about individuals on the basis of dramatic life stories related to

potentially problematic social identities (being Jewish, being gay, being an infertile woman).

Although the negative life events were always the same, narrative perspective was systematically

manipulated.

LIFE STORIES

The idea that life stories can convey significant information about a persons identity was first

suggested by Erikson (1959), who thought that one could trace identity development through the life

histories or significant life episodes of ordinary individuals (p. 110). A more systematic exploration ofthe relationship between life story and identity was associated with the narrative psychological

approach (Bruner & Feldman, 1996; Laszlo, Ehmann, Peley, & Polya, 2002; McAdams, 1988, 1996,

2001; Pasupathi, 2001; Sarbin 1986). For example, McAdams (1988) life story model of identity

argues that adults create their identities mainly through the psychosocial construction of life stories.

According to Pasupathi (2001) recounting of life events in everyday social situations can be seen as a

potential mechanism by which people socially construct their identities. In a similar vein, linguistic

approaches focus on the discursive strategies used by a narrator in constructing an identity (Davies &

Harre 1990). According to Schiffrin (2000), narrative contributes to the construction and display of

our sense of who we are our own personal being as an integrated whole, with properties of stability

and continuity over time (p. 1).

There are reasonable grounds to assume that the way a narrator recounts a life story may indeed

convey hidden information about their identity states. There are a number of research traditions inpsychology that suggest that the way something is communicated is often more informative than is the

content of the message itself. For example, Argyle, Alkema, and Gilmour (1971) showed that

friendliness and hostility are far more likely to be communicated by how a message is conveyed than

by the actual verbal content of the message. In a similar way, the way a narrating person recounts a life

story may be as informative about the person as is the content of the story itself. For example,

according to McAdams (1988) life story model of identity, the narrative complexity of a life story

predicts the narrating persons stage of ego development. More recent investigations by Woike,

Gerskovich, Piorkowski, and Polo (1999) also reported that persons with agentic personal motives use

more differentiation while persons with communal motives use more integration when structuring

their narrative reports. Others, such as Georgesen and Solano (1999), have demonstrated that the

actual motivational state of the narrator has a subtle influence on the causal structure of the narratives

produced. In other words, the way a life story is recounted may contain hidden, and potentially useful

linguistic information that can be revealing about the narrators identity state. However, no prior

studies have looked at the role of narrative perspective as a useful source of information to an

audience (Laszlo et al., 2002). In this experiment, we aim to show that there is a systematic

relationship between narrative perspective adopted in a life story and the perceived psychological

characteristics of the narrator as inferred by an audience.

786 Tibor Polya et al.

Copyright# 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 35, 785796 (2005)


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SOCIAL IDENTITY AND LIFE EVENTS

Life stories that reveal critical information about a persons social identity such as his or her

membership in salient minority groups such as being Jewish, gay or infertilecan be particularly

informative to an audience. In his seminal work Tajfel (1978; Tajfel & Forgas, 1981) suggested that the

social self-concept is that part of an individuals self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his

membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached

to that membership (Tajfel, 1978, p. 63). It is our prediction here that subtle shifts in narrative

perspective can be highly informative to an audience, because they can signal the narrators

acceptance of, and emotional response to, the identity categories described in their life stories. This

idea is in line with other suggestions that social identity is not necessarily a stable, permanent construct

but is highly dependent on contextual influences, and can undergo dramatic changes depending on the

particular social situation (Deaux, 2000; Forgas & Williams, 2002; Tajfel & Forgas, 1981; Turner,

Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty 1994). In other words, a persons identity state as conveyed in a life story

is a dynamic construction, its salience and intensity may fluctuate over time, and the particular

linguistic choices made by a narrator can be subtly revealing about the identity conveyed.

OPERATIONALIZATION OF NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE

What are the possible narrative perspectives that can be adopted by a person when describing life

events to an audience? We define narrative perspective as the relation of the narrating person to the

content of a life story. We describe three variations of narrative perspective (see Table 1). In the first

case, what we term retrospective perspective, the narrators position is located in the present of the

narration and the life story content is located in the past of the narrated events. The important feature of

the retrospective form is that the narrators position and content are located differently. In the cases of

the two other forms of narrative perspective the narrators position and the life story content have the

same locations. However, they differ significantly in the way how the narrator achieves the same

location. In a second case, what we term experiencing perspective, the narrator moves his or her

position from the present of the narration to the past of the narrated events. As a consequence both thenarrators position and content are located in the past of the narrated events. In the third case, what we

term re-experiencing perspective, the narrator moves the life story content from the past of the

narrated events to the present of the narration. Consequently, both the narrators position and content

are located in the present of the narration.

One advantage of this conceptualization is that the three perspective forms of interest can be

linguistically operationalized. This is the case because spoken language features several linguistic

markers for indicating the location of both the narrators position and the life story content such as verb

tense, deictic terms (these are terms whose full meaning depend on the extra-linguistic context in

which they are used), and reported speech (Jakobson, 1970; Lyons, 1981). The retrospective

perspective uses past tense, distal deictic terms (e.g. there instead of here) and reported speech

Table 1. Three forms of narrative perspective

Narrative perspective form Location of narrators position Location of life story content

Retrospective Narration Narrated eventsExperiencing Narrated events Narrated eventsRe-experiencing Narration Narration

Narrative perspective 787



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to recount life events (e.g. I went to the house . . . There was nobody there . . . He said he was alone . . .

etc.). The experiencing perspective features present tense, proximal deictic terms (e.g. here instead

of there), and direct speech to recount the same life events (e.g. I am going to the house . . . there is

nobody here . . . He says I am alone . . . etc.). The re-experiencing perspective also uses present

tense, proximal deictic terms, and direct speech to recount the same life events, and, in addition,

frequent uses of mental state terms (see underlined) indicates that the events are being re-experienced

by the narrating person (e.g. I remember vividly. . .

I am going to the house. . .

There is nobodyhere . . . I can hear even now as he is saying I am alone . . . etc.).

What do these different linguistic forms, and the different narrative perspectives they represent,

convey about the narrator to an audience when the narrator reports on a negative life event?

Specifically, we may formulate three predictions regarding the perception of the narrators actual

identity state. First, when the narrator takes a retrospective form his or her position is clearly

differentiated from the negative events. We assume that this differentiation reflects the real situation

and makes more effective the selection of the relevant life events and hence results in a more coherent

life story. Based on this assumption, we predict that readers of a negative life story should perceive the

retrospective narrators identity state as coherent and settled. Second, when the narrator takes an

experiencing or re-experiencing perspective, his or her position is merged with the negative events. We

assume that this non-differentiation makes more intense the emotions related to the life events and

results in an emotionally intense life story. In line with this idea, we predict that readers of a negativelife story should perceive the experiencing and re-experiencing narrators identity state as burdened

with unresolved identity issues. Whereas, both the experiencing and re-experiencing perspective

forms indicate an emotional involvement, we assume that the experiencing narrators identity state is

more organized, because, in this case the location of the narrative content remains unchanged.

Consequently, we predict that readers of a negative life story should perceive the experiencing

narrators identity state as less problematic than the re-experiencing narrators identity state.

Of course, different individuals may show different sensitivity to the subtle identity cues conveyed

by the different narrative perspectives. For example, those experienced in listening to life stories and

trained in identifying significant latent cues may be more influenced by how a story is told. To test

these predictions we recruited two groups of participants in this study: psychotherapists and

laypersons, who were asked to judge the narrator. Since psychotherapists have specialized training

and more practice in inferring psychological qualities from their clients life stories, we expect thatprofessionals should be more sensitive to the information conveyed by different narrative perspectives.

METHOD

Participants

Participants were 26 qualified psychotherapists (professional group, three males, 23 females, mean

age: 33.29 years, SD: 6.77) and 61 undergraduate students (non-professional group, 18 males, 44

females, mean age: 20.39 years, SD: 1.92) from a large university campus in Hungary. They

participated in the study in group sessions.

Materials

Three identity stories were constructed on the basis of a careful analysis of previously collected life

story interviews with Jews, gays, and infertile women (Ehmann & Eros, 2002; T. Polya, unpublished




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doctoral dissertation, 2003). Each life story described a critical episode in which the narrators identity

was at stake. The content of the three life stories was as follows:

Being Jewish: This life story recounted the time when the narrator first discovered that he/she was

Jewish. The story relates a childhood episode when the narrator showed a Christmas present to a

friend, who expressed surprise that a Jewish family would celebrate Christmas (not unusual within

Hungarys highly assimilated Jewish community). The narrator reacted with fear and dismay to the

realization of being a member of a recently persecuted minority.

Being homosexual: this life story described the episode when after a family dinner, the narrator first

communicated to his family that he was homosexual. The parents reacted with desperation, and the

narrator experienced relief as a result of this episode.

Being infertile: this life story recounts an experience when the female narrator is informed by a

doctor that attempts to induce an artificial pregnancy have failed. The narrator reacts with despair

and questions her feminine identity.

Procedure

Every participant was asked to read three life stories which recounted events relevant to the narrators

identity as (a) Jewish, (b) gay, and (c) infertile female. Further, each identity story was reported from

one of three possible narrative perspectives: retrospective, experiencing or re-experiencing. Narrative

perspective was manipulated using the discursive linguistic markers discussed above. Each variant of

each identity story had an equal number of words. The stories and narrative perspectives were

combined in a Latin squares design so that each participant read each identity story from one of three

different narrative perspective forms.

Judgments

After reading each life story participants were asked to answer eight questions about the narratorsidentity on seven-point bipolar scales (identity judgments) and to form impressions of the person on

16 seven-point bipolar adjective scales (impression formation judgments). The identity questions

were always presented in the same order, but the order of adjectives was randomly varied. The

questions about the narrators identity state included: 1. To what extent is being Jewish/infertile/gay a

problem for the narrator? 2. To what extent does the narrator realize the underlying connection

between the narrated events and his/her identity? 3. Does this story come from a person who is

mentally ill/well balanced? 4. To what extent does the Jewish/infertile/gay identity determine the

narrators life? 5. How intense were the narrators emotional reactions to the event in the past,

and 6. How intense are they in the present? 7. To what extent does the narrator appear to accept that

he/she is Jewish/infertile/gay? 8. To what extent is it important for the narrator that he/she is Jewish/

infertile/gay?

The 16 impression formation adjectives were selected from the person perception literature in orderto cover the major impression formation dimensions such as social and task evaluation, self-

confidence and potency that were previously identified as important in social judgments. The

seven-point rating scales assessed a variety of the personal characteristics of the narrator, such as

being intelligent, judicious, vigorous, impulsive, anxious, tense, resigned, balanced, self-confident,

happy, sympathetic, empathetic, friendly, shy, well-spoken and communicative.




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RESULTS

Factor Analysis

Given the number of dependent measures used (eight identity judgments and 16 impression formation

adjectives) there may well be some redundancy among these measures. If all 24 responses were

analysed independently, the likelihood of Type I errors influencing the results is considerable. In order

to control for this possibility, two separate principal components factor analyses were performed with

the objective of combining overlapping judgments, and creating a smaller number of non-redundant

dependent measures for identity and impression formation judgments respectively. Items with factor

scores less than 0.35 were excluded.

Identity Questions

The factor analysis of the eight identity questions resulted in a three-factor solution, reflecting Identity

acceptance, Identity importance and Mental adjustment.

The first factor had an Eigenvalue of 2.98 and accounted for 37.3% of the variance, and consisted offour judgments reflecting the perceived acceptance of the identity by the narrator (emotional intensity

of the narrator in the past (0.848) and in the present (0.750), the extent to which the identity was

perceived as problematic (0.780), and was accepted (0.728) by him/her).

The second factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.58 and accounted for 19.8% of the variance, and indicated

the Identity importance to the narrator, and consisted of two questions: whether the identity was seen

as important to the narrator (0.825), and was seen as determining his/her life (0.795).

The third factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.14, accounted for 12.7% of the variance and reflected the

perceived Mental adjustment of the narrator. This factor consisted of two questions: whether the

narrator was seen as mentally ill (0.884) and his/her ability to perceive the relationship between his/her

identity and the narrated event (0.571).

Impression Formation Judgments

The factor analysis of the 16 impression formation adjectives resulted in a four-factor solution,

identified as Social evaluation, Anxiety, Dynamism, and Shyness.

The first factor was a Social evaluation factor with an Eigenvalue of 4.30 and accounted for 26.9%

of the variance, loading on the intelligent (0.819), sympathetic (0.806), communicative (0.726),

empathetic (0.674), friendly (0.632), and judicious (0.616) adjectives.

The second factor had an Eigenvalue of 2.60 and accounted for 16.2% of the variance, and reflected

the perceived Anxiety of the narrator, consisting of six adjectives: self-confident ( 0.824), happy

(0.798), tense (0.678), balanced (0.648), anxious (0.600) and resigned (0.586).

The third factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.78, accounted for 11.15% of the variance and indicated theperceived Dynamism of the narrator, with three adjectives loading on this factor: vigorous (0.859),

impulsive (0.846) and communicative (0.494).

The fourth factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.22, accounted for 7.6% of the variance and consisted

of two adjectives: shy (0.785), and judicious (0.358). We interpreted this factor as indicating

Shyness.




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The Effects of Narrative Perspective on Identity and Impression Formation Judgments

Based on the results of the factor analysis, the eight original identity judgments were combined into

three non-redundant judgmental dimensions and the 16 impression formation adjectives were

combined into four non-redundant impression formation dimensions, using the factor score coeffi-

cients as weights. Next, a 3 3 2 MANOVA was conducted to examine the overall effects of a

narrative perspective (retrospective, experiencing, and re-experiencing), narrative content (beingJewish, homosexual and infertile) and therapeutic experience of the judges (psychotherapists and

laypersons) on the seven judgmental factors as dependent measures. There was a significant main

effect due to narrative perspective, F(14, 436) 3.76, p< 0.001). Furthermore, there was also a

significant main effect due to content, F(14, 436) 17.46, p< 0.001). There was no significant main

effect due to psychotherapy experience (F(7, 217) 1.31, p> 0.10). Among the two-way interactions

only narrative perspective and content interaction is significant (F(28, 880) 1.62, p< 0.05). Next, a

series of univariate analysis explored the nature of these effects (see Tables 2 and 3). On four factors

(Mental adjustment, Anxiety, Dynamism, and Shyness) both narrative perspective and content have an

effect. On Social evaluation factor only narrative perspective has an effect, while on Identity

acceptance and Identity importance factors are influenced only by life story content.

Our first prediction suggests that readers perceive the retrospective narrators identity state as more

coherent and settled than the experiencing and re-experiencing narrators identity state. We tested thisprediction by taking into consideration the Mental adjustment and Social evaluation factors.

Judgments of perceived Mental adjustment of the narrator were significantly influenced by

narrative perspective (F(2, 240) 7.26, p< 0.001). In line with the first prediction the contrast

analysis indicated that the retrospective narrators identity state (M 5.47, SD 1.29) is perceived

as more mentally adjusted than the experiencing (M 4.73, SD 1.51) and re-experiencing

(M 4.62, SD 1.45) narrators identity state. The content also has an effect on the perceived Mental

adjustment (F(2, 240) 5.42, p< 0.001). Follow-up t-tests of the cell means showed that the

homosexual narrator (M 5.38, SD 1.35) is perceived as more mentally adjusted than the female

(M 4.68, SD 1.55; tHF (170) 3.14, p< 0.01) and the Jewish (M 4.76, SD 1.39; tHJ(170) 2.94, p< 0.01) narrators. The respondents therapeutic experience had no effect on perceived

Mental adjustment, and there was no significant interaction between the independent variables.

Table 2. The effects of narrative perspective (retrospective, experiencing, re-experiencing) on the perceivedfactors. The results of the univariate F-tests are shown in the right hand column; the means identified by differentsuperscripts within each row are significantly different from each other in terms of contrast analysis

Perceived factors Narrative perspective form ANOVA

Retrospective Experiencing Re-experiencing

M SD M SD M SD

Identity judgmentsIdentity acceptance 0.23 0.77 0.16 0.86 0.41 0.84 F(2,243) 1.24Identity importance 5.71 1.42 5.57 1.56 5.60 1.41 F(2,243)< 1

Mental adjustment 5.47a 1.29 4.73b 1.51 4.62b 1.25 F(2,240) 7.26**Impression formation judgments

Social evaluation 5.01a 1.07 4.32b 1.24 4.51b 1.18 F(2,229) 7.36**Anxiety 0.13a 1.11 0.02b 1.19 0.34c 1.12 F(2,235) 5.29**Dynamism 4.09a 1.28 4.70b 1.32 4.16a 1.24 F(2,241) 4.81**Shyness 3.72a 1.34 3.34b 1.27 3.69a 1.18 F(2,240) 3.09*

*p< 0.05; **p< 0.01.




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Judgments on the Social evaluation measure were also significantly influenced by narrative

perspective (F(2, 229) 7.36, p< 0.001). Also in line with our first prediction the contrast analysis

indicates that the retrospective narrators identity state (M 5.01, SD 1.07) is valued more positively

than the experiencing (M 4.32, SD 1.24) and re-experiencing (M 4.51, SD 1.18) narrators

identity state. The content and therapeutic experience of the judges had no main or interaction effects

on this measure.

Our second and third predictions regard the extent of the unresolved identity issues. We expected that

the retrospective narrators identity state is less problematic, the experiencing narrators identity state is

more problematic, and the re-experiencing narrators identity state is the most problematic. We tested

this expectation by investigating the Anxiety, Dynamism, Shyness and Identity acceptance factors.

Narrative perspective had a significant influence on the perceived Anxiety of the narrator

(F(2, 235) 5.29, p< 0.01). The contrast analysis revealed that readers perceived the retrospectivenarrators identity state as less anxious (M 0.13, SD 1.11), followed by an experiencing narrator

(M 0.02, SD 1.19), and the re-experiencing narrators identity state as the most anxious

(M 0.34, SD 1.12). This pattern is in perfect line with the second and third predictions. Narrative

content also had an effect on the perceived Anxiety of the narrator (F(2, 235) 40.73, p< 0.001).

Follow-up t-tests established that readers perceived the homosexual narrator as less anxious

(M 0.68, SD 0.96), followed by the Jewish narrator (M 0.06, SD 1.09; tHJ (167) 4.71,

p< 0.001), and the female narrator (M 0.88, SD 0.83; tJF(152) 5.43, p< 0.001) is perceived as

the most anxious.

Psychotherapeutic experience also had an effect on the perceived Anxiety (F(1, 235) 4.77,

p< 0.05). Psychotherapists (M 0.28, SD 1.02) perceive the identity identity-state of a narrator

more anxious than laypersons (M 0.01, SD 1.20; t(165) 1.99; p< 0.05). There was no any

interaction effect.

Judgments of the narrators Dynamism were also significantly influenced by narrative perspective

(F(2, 241) 4.81, p< 0.01). A contrast analysis showed that readers perceived the experiencing

narrators identity state as more dynamic (M 4.70, SD 1.32) than the re-experiencing narrators

identity state (M 4.16, SD 1.24), and this is line with our third prediction regarding the difference

between these two perspectives. However, contrary to our expectation, the retrospective narrators

Table 3. The effects of narrative content (being Jewish, homosexual or infertile) on the perceived factors. Theresults of the univariate F-tests are shown in the right hand column; the means identified by different superscriptswithin each row are at least tendentially different from each other in terms of follow-up t-tests of cell means

Perceived factors Life story content ANOVA

Jewish Homosexual Femalenarrator narrator narrator

M SD M SD M SD

Identity judgmentsIdentity acceptance 0.16a 0.72 0.16b 0.79 0.90c 0.56 F(2, 243) 39.15***Identity importance 4.61a 1.57 5.77b 1.24 6.50c 0.78 F(2, 243) 39.87***Mental adjustment 4.76a 1.39 5.38b 1.35 4.68a 1.55 F(2, 240) 5.42**

Impression formation judgmentsSocial evaluation 4.48 1.06 4.76 1.26 4.57 1.25 F(2, 229)< 1Anxiety 0.06a 1.09 0.68b 0.96 0.88c 0.83 F(2, 235) 44.99***Dynamism 4.04a 1.39 4.28a 1.22 4.61b 1.25 F(2, 241) 3.97*Shyness 3.28a 1.21 4.02b 1.36 3.44a 1.14 F(2, 240) 5.57**

*p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001.




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identity state (M 4.09, SD 1.28) was not perceived as more dynamic than the experiencing and re-

experiencing narrators identity states. Narrative content also had an effect on perceived Dynamism

(F(2, 241) 3.97, p< 0.05). Follow-up t-tests have revealed that the female narrator (M 4.61,

SD 1.25) is perceived as more dynamic than either the homosexual (M 4.28, SD 1.22; tFH(172) 1.78, p< 0.10) or Jewish (M 4.04, SD 1.39; tFJ(170) 2.83, p< 0.01) narrator. There

was also a significant interaction between narrative perspective and content (F(2, 241) 3.60,

p< 0.01). Therapeutic experience had no main or interaction effect on this judgment.Finally, there was also a significant main effect of narrative perspective to influence the perceived

Shyness of the narrator (F(2, 240) 3.09, p< 0.05). A contrast analysis revealed that according to the

readers perception the re-experiencing narrators identity state is more shy (M 3.69, SD 1.18)

than the experiencing narrators identity state (M 3.34, SD 1.27). This result confirms again the

third prediction. However, also contrary to our expectations, the retrospective narrators identity state

(M 3.72, SD 1.34) is not perceived as less shy than the two other kinds of narrator. The perceived

Shyness of the narrator also was influenced by life story content (F(2, 240) 5.57, p< 0.01). The most

shy is the homosexual narrator (M 4.02, SD 1.36), followed by the female (M 3.44, SD 1.14;

tHF(172) 3.05, p< 0.01) and Jewish (M 3.28, SD 1.21; tHJ(169) 3.74, p< 0.001) narra-

tors. There was also an interaction between narrative perspective and content (F(2, 240) 2.24,

p< 0.10). There was no main effect due to therapeutic experience, and no interaction effect.

On the factors of Identity acceptance and Identity importance there were no effects of narrativeperspective. However, life story content had effects on both measures (FAc(2, 243) 39.15, p> 0.001;

FIm(2, 243) 39.87, p> 0.001). As readers perceived, the homosexual narrator accepts to the most

extent his identity (M 0.16, SD 0.79), followed by a Jewish narrator (M 0.16, SD 0.72; tHJ(172) 2.78, p< 0.01), and a female narrator accepts the least her identity (M 0.90, SD 0.56;

tJF(169) 7.64, p< 0.001). Regarding importance, identity is most important for the female narrator

(M 6.50, SD 0.78), followed by the homosexual narrator (M 5.77, SD 1.24; tFH(172) 4.64,

p< 0.001), and for the Jewish narrator it is the least important (M 4.61, SD 1.57; tHJ(164) 5.42, p< 0.001). There was no main effect due to therapeutic experience, and there was no

interaction effect on these two measures.

DISCUSSION

This study has investigated the effects of narrative perspective and narrative content on the perceived

characteristics of the narrating person. The results confirm our predictions in several ways. The

predicted coherence of the retrospective narrators identity state is underlined by its perceived Mental

adjustment and Social evaluation. The predicted unresolved identity states of the experiencing and re-

experiencing narrators are confirmed by their perceived Anxiety. Finally, the predicted difference

between these two perspective forms is also confirmed, since the re-experiencing narrators identity

state is perceived as more anxious, more shy and less dynamic than the experiencing.

However, in two respects results contradict our expectations showing that the retrospective

narrators identity state is considered as relatively less dynamic and more shy. One tentative

explanation could be that given the low emotional involvement of the retrospective narrators identity

state readers may perceive it as passive and reserved to some extent. Furthermore, contrary to our

expectations narrative perspective had no effect on the perceived Identity acceptance. One possible

explanation for this lack of narrative perspective effect can be that Jewish, homosexual and female

narrators explicitly deal with the theme of identity acceptance in their life stories, so the content may

have a plateau effect on the readers perception.




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The data also indicate that the content of a life story has a considerably stronger effect on the

perceived quality of the narrators identity state than narrative perspective. However, it should be

mentioned that while the content of life stories was considerably different between Jewish, homo-

sexual and female narrators on the one hand, the difference in narrative perspective reflects only one

part of the narrative structure on the other hand. We may speculate that changing several features of the

narrative structure has a stronger effect on the readers perception.

These results provide clear evidence that the use of different narrative perspectives indeedcommunicates significant, but latent information to an audience about the narrator and his/her

identity, even if the substantive content of the life stories remains the same. Language as a medium

of communication offers a multiplicity of ways of conveying social information beyond the immediate

semantic meaning of the text (Forgas, 1985). Indeed, our experiment adds to growing evidence

suggesting that many of the most important social communicative functions of language are not

inherent in the actual semantic information that is being conveyed, but are communicated using latent

channels, such as subtle shifts in perspective. Consistent with this view, previous research by Semin

and Fiedler (1988) also showed that the selective use of more or less abstract linguistic categories can

function as a subtle and latent communication device.

Why does narrative perspective have such a major influence on how the narrator is perceived? It

seems that audiences are highly attuned to narrative perspective of the retrospective, especially when

the communication concerns a potentially problematic and identity-relevant life event. When thenarrator describes a past event in the past tense using reported speech, this perspective is most likely to

convey an impression of a stable, settled and no longer conflictuous identity state. However, when the

narrator describes a past event as if it was happening now (experiencing the episode), or uses

grammatical forms suggesting being an ongoing participant in the past episode (re-experiencing

perspective), audiences infer a more problematic and troubled identity state, perceive the narrator as

being less well adjusted and more anxious, and form less favourable impressions.

It is particularly interesting that according to our results, such subtle shifts in narrative perspective

influence not only perceptions of the narrators identity, but also give rise to quite marked changes in

general impression formation judgments. Apparently, problematic past life events are best commu-

nicated from a more detached, retrospective perspective if the narrator wishes to avoid being

negatively evaluated and being perceived as anxious and insecure. When the same event is described

as if it was experienced or re-experienced, audiences seem more likely to infer an unresolved andconflicted identity state, and seem to form less favourable impressions of the narrator.

There is reason to assume, although we do not have direct evidence for this in the present study, that

neither the narrator nor the audience are likely to be consciously aware of the communicative

functions that shifts in narrative perspective fulfil. Speakers are rarely able to explicitly monitor such

linguistic features of their messages, and there is good evidence that much everyday verbal

communication occurs in a relatively fast, spontaneous and almost mindless fashion (Forgas, 1985).

In a similar way, audiences are unlikely to be aware that their judgments may be influenced by such

subtle cues as narrative perspective employed by the communicator. Much verbal communication

seems to be executed using such automatic and subconscious processes (Bless & Forgas, 2000).

Greater attention to how such latent cues are spontaneously used in verbal communication seems to be

particularly important, considering renewed recent interest in experimental social psychology in the

role of various automatic mechanisms in the regulation of social behaviour (e.g. Dijksterhuis, Bargh,

& Midema, 2000).

We should also note that the personal background of the audiencein this case, their psychother-

apeutic experienceonly had a limited effect on how narrative perspective was interpreted. Perhaps

not surprisingly, it was only when judging Anxiety that psychotherapists were somewhat more

sensitive to narrative perspective than laypersons. These results suggest that narrative perspective




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represents an effectiveif latentsource of social information that can be understood by everybody

without specialist training.

Theoretical frameworks suggest a close link between identity and life story (Bruner & Feldman,

1996; McAdams, 1988). Georgesen and Solano (1999) offer empirical evidence that temporary

situational factors and motivational states can influence the shape and structure of narrative reports.

Our findings that people are able to infer identity states on the basis of narrative perspective are

consistent with their theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence. However, our experimentcomplements these theoretical frameworks by showing for the first time that nave audiences are

highly sensitive to, and form strong inferences on the basis of such, subtle changes in narrative

perspective. In a way, a dynamic identity-related life story not only helps to construct and display the

self and define who we are (Bruner & Feldman, 1996; Schiffrin, 1996, 2000), but in addition, it can

also be a source of leakage, in the sense of unintentionally revealing hidden information about

problematic and unresolved social identities.

Of course, there are some limitations that should be considered when interpreting these results. In

this study, we used short identity-related life stories about negative life events. However, we think that

narrative perspective has the same effects on perceived coherence and emotional intensity of a narrator

while he or she is recounting positive life events. Another limitation reflects the fact that the life stories

we used featured one consistent narrative perspective form. It is quite possible that everyday life

stories may combine all three forms of narrative perspective, yielding a complex sequential pattern.We expect that complex patterns of shifts and changes in narrative perspective can convey even more

complex information about a narrating persons identity state. For example, such dynamic changes in

narrative perspective may reveal much about subtle shifts in the psychological qualities of an identity

state as its salience and intensity fluctuates over time (e.g. Turner et al., 1994).

We would also like to make a methodological point here. Much research on verbal narratives at the

present time employs non-experimental methods, using descriptive and illustrative techniques instead.

We would like to suggest that controlled experimental methods offer a perfectly reasonable and more

reliable way of studying the communicative functions of various narrative strategies. Although it is

sometimes claimed that the study of narrative strategies is not easily amenable to controlled

experimental methods, we believe that there is much to be gained by applying experimental methods

to the study of narratives and discourse strategies.

In conclusion, we believe, with George Herbert Mead (1934), that language provides the primarymedium whereby social identities and social selves are constructed and displayed. It is by telling

stories about ourselves, and by observing the reactions of our audience that a shared and coherent

sense of identity is established. However, language does far more than just convey semantic

information. Indeed, some of the most important social cues are hidden in the narrative and discursive

choices communicators make in particular situations (Forgas, 1985). The present experiment showed

that audiences are highly attuned to the latent informational content of personal narratives, such as

narrative perspective adopted. Unfortunately, research on the pragmatics of language use remains a

relatively neglected field in experimental social psychology today. We hope that this study will

stimulate further interest in experimental research on the everyday use of language in social situations.

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It is Not What You Say, It is How You Say It