Evolution and function of autobiographical narratives

Narratives based on personal experiences are one of the most widespread cultural, cognitive and linguistic resources used to construct, communicate, and transform autobiographical memories (Pasupathi, 2001; Skowronski & Walker, 2004). Autobiographical narratives must be considered as verbal elaborations based on conscious remembrances of self-experience (Schmidt, 2008). They also play a crucial role in social interactions (Pasupathi 2003; Pasupathi, Weeks & Rice, 2006). People usually use their past experiences in order to both begin and cement new human relationships, talking about their past to show who they are and to accomplish their goals. Autobiographical memories in narrative forms are also utilized to create a feeling of connection and intimacy with partners (Pasupathi, 2003). The next sub-sections provide a brief review of evolutionary, functional as well as structural approaches to narrative research.

In evolutionary terms, the language capacity (linguistic and motor) to form narratives is a skill closely related to the formation of large social groups and cultural complexes (Donald, 1991). In everyday uses narrative capacities were fully developed in the Upper Paleolithic age. They emerged as social products by playing a key role in the creation of myths which support the coherence and cohesion of the community. Donald (1991) claims that narrative skill is the basic driving force behind language use, particularly speech, due to the fact that it is essential to describe and define events and objects.

In the community, shared narrative skills create the conditions for the construction of a collective version of reality. In developmental terms, narrative skills play a central role in the emergence of autobiographical memory capacities which are developed during the later part of preschool years (Fives & Nelson, 2004; Nelson, 2003b; Nelson & Fivush, 2004; Reese, Haden & Fivush, 1993). This process has been previously underpinned by parents or caregivers when their children were around 3 ½ years of age. Nelson and Fivush (2004) argue that during this period of early childhood is when adults generally start to talk with children about their memories. These authors (Nelson, 2003a; Nelson & Fivush, 2004) maintain that the ways in which adults talk about past experiences with their children directly influence the nature of the children’s autobiographical narratives in the future. The emergence of autobiographical memories generates the grounds for the creation of a self-history which is unique to the self and distinct from self-histories of others (Nelson, 2003b).

The meaning-function of autobiographical narratives (Bruner, 1990, 2008; Gergen, 1998) rests upon the fact that they normally operate by attempting to understand life-events as systematically related. Thus, narrative order in terms of causal and coherent interconnected sequences of episodes, events and actions must be fundamental at the time of giving life a sense of meaning and direction.

Narrative schemata (Bruner 1990; Schmidt, 2008; Wertsch, 2002) are the most natural cultural resources for constructing autobiographical narratives. These schemata should be thought of as by-products of cultural models (Kronenfeld, 2008; Shore, 1996). Hence, semantic and episodic memories are highly intertwined in autobiographical narratives, creating an action-oriented socio-cultural self (Nelson, 2003b). Narrative schemata have been acquired by individuals during their socialization (Schmidt, 2008) within specific cultural settings. They function by not only organizing and structuring the verbalization of remembrances, but also the order of the narrated events in individual’s minds, and, in doing so, can form a story which can be told and accepted by a possible audience (Schmidt 2008: 193).

'Family Self-Construction: A Case Study'

Talk given by Jerome Bruner (NYU) at the Marial Center, Emory University in November 2002.

References

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. (2008). Culture and mind: their fruitful incommensurability. Ethos, 36 (1): 29-44.

Donald, M. (1991). The Origins of the Modern Human Mind. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Gergen, K. (1998). Erzahlung, moralische Identität und historisches Bewusstsein. Eine sozialkonstructionistische Darstelung. In J. Straub (ed.) Identität und historishces Bewusstsein (pp.170-202) . Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Pasupathi, M. (2001). The social construction of the personal past and its implications for adult development. Psychological Bulletin 127, 651-672.

Pasupathi, M. (2003). Emotion regulation during social remembering: Differences between emotions elicited during an event and emotion elicited when talking about it. Memory 11, 151-163.

Pasupathi, M., Weeks, T. & Rice, C. (2006). Reflecting on life: Remembering as a major process in adult development. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 25, 244-263.

Schmidt, S. (2008). Memory and remembrance: a constructivist approach. In A. Erll & A.Nunning (eds.) Cultural Memory Studies. An Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp.191-201) Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Skowronski, J. & Richard Walker, W. (2004). How describing autobiographical events can affect autobiographical memories. Social Cognition 22 (5), 555-590.

Shore, B. (1996). Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture and the Problem of Meaning. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wertsch, J. (2002). Voices of Collective Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nelson, K. (2003a). Self and social functions: Individual autobiographical memory and collective narrative. Memory, 11 (2), 125-136.

Nelson, K. (2003b). Narrative and self, myth and memory: emergence of the cultural self. In R. Fivush & C. Haden (eds.), Autobiographical Memory and The Construction of a Narrative Self (pp.131-144). Mahwah, NJ/London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Nelson, K. D., & Fivush, R. (2004). The emergence of autobiographical memory: A social cultural developmental theory. Psychological Review 111(2), 486-511.