Regulating Emotion and Identity by Narrating Harm

How do young men narrate the redemption story of a sexual assault perpetrator?

Background: Little is known about how young men who have committed sexual assault might acknowledge wrongdoing and eventually change and make amends. There are practical barriers to seeking the real redemption stories of perpetrators.Objective: To explore hypothetical pathways to young men's accountability-taking and amends (i.e. redemption) after perpetration of sexual assault.Method: In a pre-registered, qualitative story completion study, we presented heterosexual, cisgender college men (N = 54) with a date-based sexual assault story written by a fictional male perpetrator. Participants were prompted to complete the story so that the protagonist, who initially denies wrongdoing, eventually changes and becomes a violence prevention advocate.Results: A thematic analysis of the redemption stories revealed that this study's speculative task was a challenging one. Half of the stories did not provide an explanation for how the perpetrator was able to acknowledge wrongdoing. Overall, individualistic themes (e.g. he introspected) were more common than relational, community, or societal facilitators of redemption.Conclusions: Without infrastructure for accountability-taking and repair, or narrative exemplars to draw from in public life, it is difficult to envision redemption from violence. Rare gender-based, structurally attuned analyses of sexual violence in the stories point the way towards a more transformative vision of redemption.

Relational victimization and depressive symptoms: The interactive role of physiological reactivity and narrative processing

Although previous studies have documented that relational victimization serves as a risk factor for depressive symptoms across developmental periods, heterogeneity in effects highlights the possibility that some individuals may be especially vulnerable. This study examined two factors that may influence the link between relational victimization and depressive symptoms: physiological reactivity and narrative processing during the recounting of a past victimization experience. In a sample of 200 college students, we examined narrative processing (i.e., use of disengagement coping strategies, positive resolution, and primary control coping strategies) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity, assessed during a standard laboratory interview, as moderators of the link between self-reported relational victimization and depressive symptoms. Although relational victimization was associated with increased rates of depressive symptoms, a combination of RSA activation and high disengagement coping appeared protective for individuals high in relational victimization. Similarly, a combination of RSA activation and high levels of positive resolution appeared protective against depressive symptoms among individuals high in relational victimization. The findings shed critical light on the interaction of physiological and cognitive processes in coping with relational victimization.

Meta-analytic review on the differential effects of self-compassion components on well-being and psychological distress: The moderating role of dialecticism on self-compassion

Although self-compassion has been extensively studied in the recent decades, the representation of self-compassion as a unitary measure or the presence of self-warmth (i.e., presence of the positive components: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness) and self-coldness (i.e., presence of the negative components: self-judgment, isolation, and mindfulness) remains controversial. Moreover, the differential effects of the six components of self-compassion on mental well-being and psychological distress have not been systematically investigated. To synthesize the differential effects of the six components of self-compassion and to examine how people in different cultures may associate the positive and negative components of self-compassion differentially, the present meta-analysis synthesized 183 effect sizes across 27 cultures. Results showed that the negative components of self-compassion (rs = 0.44 to 0.45) showed greater effect sizes with psychological distress than the positive counterparts (rs = -0.17 to -0.29) whereas the positive components of SCS (rs = 0.29 to.39) showed greater effect sizes with mental well-being than the negative counterparts (rs = -0.29 to -0.36), with the exception of common humanity and isolation (r = 0.29 and - 0.36). Cultural orientation of dialecticism moderated the association between the positive and the negative components of self-compassion, with dialectical cultures showing lower associations between the two opposing components. Findings have implications on the design and implementation of self-compassion interventions cross-culturally.

Beyond the Text Given: Studying the Scaffolding of Narrative Emotion Regulation as a Contribution to Bruner and Feldman's Cultural Cognitive Developmental Psychology

Feldman et al. (Human Development, 36, 327-342, 1993) called for a new kind of psychology, a cultural cognitive developmental psychology. We critically consider their initial studies to discuss the scope of their program. In the spirit of this program we explore the development of scaffolding of narrative emotion regulation in adolescence. We present two co-narrations of sad events between mothers and their 12- and 18-year-old offspring to exemplify these mothers' age-sensitive strategies to scaffold adolescents' narrative emotion regulation. We identified three kinds of narrative arguments which mothers used for scaffolding and which are apparently acquired only in the course of adolescence: Embedding events in extended temporal, biographical contexts, relating events and reactions to individuals' enduring personalities, and re-appraising events by including more others', external, and hypothetical perspectives. They confirm developmental observations made by Feldman et al. (Human Development, 36, 327-342, 1993) and demonstrate their utility in the context of the development of emotion regulation.

Internal Processing in Patients With Pathological Narcissism or Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Implications for Alliance Building and Therapeutic Strategies

Pathological narcissism (PN) and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) have primarily been identified by striking external features, such as superiority, attention seeking and a critical or condescending attitude, and less attention has been paid to the internal processing contributing to this particular personality functioning. High dropout from treatment and challenges in building a therapeutic alliance with these patients call for further understanding of the complexity of disordered narcissism. Recent research on neuropsychological underpinnings to narcissistic pathology have provided valuable information that can inform therapeutic interventions for patients with this personality pathology. Internal processing in patients with PN or NPD is specifically influenced by compromised emotion processing and tolerance, identity diffusion, fluctuating sense of agency, reflective ability, perfectionism-related self- esteem, and ability to symbolize. The aim of this article is to review research studies with relevance for internal processing related to disordered narcissism and integrate findings with therapeutic strategies in alliance building with these patients.

Emotions at the Service of Cultural Construction

Emotions signal flaws in the person’s anticipation systems, or in other words, in aspects of models of how the world works. As these models are essentially shared in society, emotional challenges experienced by any individual are of relevance to the community of others. Emotions emerge at the heart of the individual experience, the only place where collective knowledge can be tested against the world. Once felt, emotions generate a cascade of psychological facts: compelling concern, cognitive work, social sharing, and propagation of the social sharing. The larger the fault detected, the more intense the emotion, the more intensive the cognitive work it generates, and the broader the social sharing of the episodic information. Through the social sharing of emotions, common knowledge is updated and enriched.

Storied Lessons: Learning from Anger in Childhood by Narrating

We evaluated whether narrating anger-provoking events promoted learning from those events, as compared with other responses to anger, and whether the effectiveness of narrative depended on age. In addition, we tested relations between anger-reduction and learning and in a subset of participants, between narrative quality and learning. 248 youth (8 to 17 years old) recalled an anger-provoking experience, and were randomly assigned to one of four activities: recalling the event a second time, narrating the event, and distraction (via video game play or conversation). Youth then recalled the event one last time, and rated the extent to which they had learned from that event. Younger children reported more learning when they had narrated their experience. Older youth reported more learning when they had narrated the event more frequently prior to participation. Stronger reductions in anger following regulation were associated with greater self-reported learning. Finally, more elaborative and less resolved narratives were associated with greater self-reported learning.

Stories for all ages: Narrating anger reduces distress across childhood and adolescence

The study's goals were twofold: (a) to examine the effectiveness of narrating an angry experience, compared with relying on distraction or mere reexposure to the experience, for anger reduction across childhood and adolescence, and (b) to identify the features of narratives that are associated with more and less anger reduction for younger and older youths and for boys and girls. Participants were 241 youths (117 boys) between the ages of 8 and 17. When compared with mere reexposure, narration was effective at reducing youth's anger both concurrently and in lasting ways; though narration was less effective than distraction at concurrently reducing anger, its effect was longer lasting. Contrary to expectation, there were no overall age differences in the relative effectiveness of narration for anger reduction; however, the analyses of the quality of youth's narratives and of the relations between various narrative features and reductions in anger indicated that narration works to reduce distress among youth via processes that are distinct from those postulated for adults. Altogether, this study's findings lend strong support to the potential of narration for helping youth across a broad age range manage anger experiences in ways that can reduce distress. (PsycINFO Database Record