Zeynep B. Yenen
Narrating past experiences including autobiographical resoning - that is causally and motivationally linking them to each other and to the past and present self - enables individuals to construct their life stories and to have a coherent self-understanding. Narrating events from such a biographical perspective is not only done for one's personal past, but individuals can also narrate events experienced by their close others and reason biographically about them. However, we do not know whether the same is true for narrating and reasoning biographically about events in fictional characters' lives that are known through books, movies, or TV series. Moreover, it has also not been previously investigated how narratives of others’ past experiences change when they are retold later in life, and how this is influenced by retellings by the other in the meantime.
To address these gaps, this study aims to understand how adolescents who are in the critical period for narrative identity development show (auto)biographical reasoning while narrating life events belonging to themselves, their close friends, and a beloved fictional character; whether the sophistication of (auto)biographical reasoning across these three different perspectives are similar or differ; whether the perceived closeness of the relationship with the person whose story is told is related to narrative characteristics; whether the overall frequency of engagement with narratives is related to (auto)biographical reasoning skills. Moreover, this study also examines how the life events belonging to selves and close others are re-narrated six months later compared to the first narrations; and whether discussing the events with close other and changes in the closeness of the relationship influences how narratives change.
Originalsprache: Englisch, Türkisch
Prof. Dr. Tilmann Habermas (IPU Berlin)
Assoc. Prof. Başak Şahin Acar (Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey)
Projektbeginn: 10/2024
Projektende: 10/2027