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.

The Greek photographer Nelly's: the interplay of personal and socio-cultural theme of 'rebirth'

This article presents a psychobiography study of the famous Greek photographer Ellie Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari (Nelly's) (1899-1998). Nelly's was born in Aidini (Asia Minor), and in her early years she experienced the tragic events of the Greek-Turkish War (1919-1923). She studied photography in Dresden (Germany), and worked in Athens (Greece) and New York (U.S.A.). A narrative and cultural psychology framework was adopted to explore the way that Nelly's constructed her life story. An adjusted version of the 'Life-Story Interview' (McAdams & Bowman, 2001) was used that distinguishes between redemption versus contamination narratives. The narrative analysis of autobiographical materials revealed turning points and a central life theme. The photographer appeared to construct her life story as a process of reinventing herself or managing 'rebirth'. This construction matches the dominant narrative of Greek refugees of Asia Minor, following what is known in European history as the Asia Minor 'Great Catastrophe' (1922). Both narratives are surviving and thriving stories of 'rebirth'. The importance of making meaning of life stories within a specific socio-cultural and historical context is emphasised. Practice and research suggestions are provided.

The Improvement Default: People Presume Improvement When Lacking Information

People erroneously think that things they know little about improve over time. We propose that, due to salient cultural narratives, improvement is a highly accessible expectation that leads people to presume improvement in the absence of diagnostic information. Five studies investigated an improvement default: a general tendency to presume improvement even in self-irrelevant domains. Participants erroneously presumed improvement over esoteric historical time periods associated with decline (Study 1). Participants arranged a stranger's experiences to produce trends of improvement (Study 2). Participants presumed improvement for a fictional city when given no diagnostic information about it (Study 3). Finally, participants who perceived more past improvement were less supportive of policies that may precipitate further improvement (Study 4). Implications for consequences, such as complacency toward improving inequality, are discussed.

Self-defining memories and past academic stress in Chinese and American college students: a replication and extension of Wang and Singer (2021)

The current study replicated Wang and Singer's ([2021]. A cross-cultural study of self-defining memories in Chinese and American college students. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.622527) finding that Chinese college students from the People's Republic of China (PRC) recalled more self-defining memories (SDMs) focused on high school academic stress than their American counterparts. Seventy-eight American students from a private 4-year liberal arts college and 96 Chinese students from 13 different Chinese universities recalled two SDMs and rated them for affect, recall frequency, and importance. Once again, Chinese college students were more likely than American students to recall academic stress SDMs, but also expressed more redemptive themes in these memories. Overall, Chinese students rated their SDMs as more positive than the Americans, while the American sample tended to recall their negative memories more frequently. Contrasting the SDMs, American students self-reported higher levels of stress about their high school workload and less academic self-confidence. Regressions linked more negative affect in American SDMs to these work load and self-confidence concerns. Chinese students' SDM negative affect was most strongly predicted by perceived academic stress linked to parental and teachers' expectations. The discussion highlights the potential influence of Confucian values in the Chinese students' responses to past academic stress and their internalisation of academic stress memories in their narrative identity.

The cycle of life and story: Redemptive autobiographical narratives and prosocial behaviors

Adults often understand their lives by constructing personal stories and then living into them. Time and time again, a positive relation has been found between the tendency to build redemptive personal stories wherein negative and challenging experiences ultimately give way to positive endings and prosocial behavior. Here, I review the relevant literature in the interest of advancing the notion that redemptive stories and prosociality exist in a virtuous cycle. Engaging in prosocial acts can stimulate the redemptive framing of one's past. By the same measure, once formed, individuals work to bring the story to life, and the ethos of redemption holds the potential to stimulate and sustain prosocial behavior.