Speaking silence: The social construction of silence in autobiographical and cultural narratives

Stillbirth and stigma: the spoiling and repair of multiple social identities

This study investigated mothers' experiences surrounding stillbirth in the United Kingdom, their memory making and sharing opportunities, and the effect these opportunities had on them. Qualitative data were generated from free text responses to open-ended questions. Thematic content analysis revealed that "stigma" was experienced by most women and Goffman's (1963) work on stigma was subsequently used as an analytical framework. Results suggest that stillbirth can spoil the identities of "patient," "mother," and "full citizen." Stigma was reported as arising from interactions with professionals, family, friends, work colleagues, and even casual acquaintances. Stillbirth produces common learning experiences often requiring "identity work" (Murphy, 2012). Memory making and sharing may be important in this work and further research is needed. Stigma can reduce the memory sharing opportunities for women after stillbirth and this may explain some of the differential mental health effects of memory making after stillbirth that is documented in the literature.

Reflecting on a Difficult Life

We examined narrative processes of identity development as they related to desistance from delinquent behavior in a sample of vulnerable adolescents. Building on a robust theoretical and empirical foundation in the field of narrative identity, we examined processes of meaning-making and agency in relation to desistance. Thirty-one adolescents were interviewed to elicit commonly studied autobiographical memories (e.g., turning points, self-defining memories). Interviews were coded for meaning-making and agency. Results showed that desistance was related to agency, but not meaning-making, which was related to higher numbers of past delinquent behaviors. Results are interpreted in terms of the possibilities for desistance and growth from a narrative perspective and are situated within a structural and cultural perspective on the development of vulnerable youth.

Language matters: towards an understanding of silence and humour in medical education

OBJECTIVES

This paper considers the state of the science regarding language matters in medical education, with particular attention to two informal language practices: silence and humour. Silence and humour pervade clinical training settings, although we rarely attend explicitly to them.

METHODS

This paper considers the treatment of these topics in our field to date and introduces a selection of the scholarship on silence and humour from other fields, including philosophy, sociology, anthropology, linguistics and rhetoric. Particular attention is paid to distilling the theoretical and methodological possibilities for an elaborated research agenda around silence and humour in medical education.

RESULTS

These two language practices assume a variety of forms and serve a range of social functions. Episodes of silence and humour are intimately tied to their relational and institutional contexts. Power often figures centrally, although not predictably.

CONCLUSIONS

A rich theoretical and methodological basis exists on which to elaborate a research agenda around silence and humour in medical education. Such research promises to reveal more fully the contributions of silence and humour to socialisation in clinical training settings.

Association between socioeconomic position discrimination and psychological distress: findings from a community-based sample of gay and bisexual men in New York City

OBJECTIVES

We examined the association between discrimination and mental health distress, focusing specifically on the relative importance of discrimination because of particular demographic domains (i.e., race/ethnicity, socioeconomic position [SEP]).

METHODS

The research team surveyed a sample of gay and bisexual men (n = 294) at a community event in New York City. Participants completed a survey on demographics, discrimination experiences in the past 12 months, attributed domains of discrimination, and mental health distress.

RESULTS

In adjusted models, discrimination was associated with higher depressive (B = 0.31; P < .01) and anxious (B = 0.29; P < .01) symptoms. A statistically significant quadratic term (discrimination-squared; P < .01) fit both models, such that moderate levels of discrimination were most robustly associated with poorer mental health. Discrimination because of SEP was associated with higher discrimination scores and was predictive of higher depressive (B = 0.22; P < .01) and anxious (B = 0.50; P < .01) symptoms. No other statistically significant relationship was found between discrimination domains and distress.

CONCLUSIONS

In this sample, SEP emerged as the most important domain of discrimination in its association with mental health distress. Future research should consider intersecting domains of discrimination to better understand social disparities in mental health.

Teens telling tales: how maternal and peer audiences support narrative identity development

Prior research has shown that parents help children to develop the requisite skills to construct an autobiographical self in past event conversations, yet research in adolescence is lacking. Further, friendships increase in importance during adolescence, and these new relationships may play a role in narrative identity development. The current study examined past event conversations between adolescents (n = 22; mean age = 13) and their friends, and adolescents and their mothers. Conversations were reliably coded for degree of personal meaning communicated and listener scaffolding behavior. Results showed that friends showed less frequent explicit scaffolding of narrative identity than mothers, although listener scaffolding behavior was associated with adolescent meaning-making for both friends and mothers. Additional qualitative analysis of the conversations suggests that friends may be more engaged in scaffolding the self-presentational aspects of narrative identity, as well as providing a safe arena for exploration away from mothers.

To reason or not to reason: is autobiographical reasoning always beneficial?

Autobiographical reasoning has been found to be a critical process in identity development; however, the authors suggest that existing research shows that such reasoning may not always be critical to another important outcome: well-being. The authors describe characteristics of people such as personality and age, contexts such as conversations, and experiences such as transgressions, which may hinder adaptive reasoning. They also propose alternatives to autobiographical reasoning for managing challenging events and constructing the life story, which include different kinds of meaning-making than those primarily focused on in the current literature.

The rise and fall of gay: a cultural-historical approach to gay identity development

Research on identity development has paid relatively little attention to the development of marginalised identities such as those of gays and lesbians, whose isolation from the canonical narrative of sexuality may limit the available resources required for establishing a coherent identity. We examined these contested identities in relation to cultural-historical factors that may have played a role in shaping these identities over the past 50 years, and looked at how such factors have impacted the voicing and silencing of gay experiences. Participants (N=251) reported (1) a memory of a cultural event relevant to their sexuality, and (2) a self-defining memory about their sexuality. Those in older cohorts reported cultural memories centred on politics and other external events (e.g., Stonewall riots), and younger cohorts reported more personal memories (e.g., coming out), suggesting that homosexual identities have become less culturally defined, and instead more personally defined. Further, participants of older cohorts reported self-defining events that were predominantly from one private domain (e.g., sex). In contrast, younger participants reported a variety of self-defining events. These results suggest that cultural-historical factors play an important role in defining the developmental pathway of individuals, perhaps especially those who have marginalised identities.