Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T12:41:56.077Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Personal narratives as the highest level of cognitive integration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2013

Jacob B. Hirsh
Affiliation:
Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3E6, Canada. jacob.hirsh@utoronto.cawww.jacobhirsh.com
Raymond A. Mar
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON M3J1P3, Canada. mar@yorku.cawww.yorku.ca/mar
Jordan B. Peterson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. peterson@psych.utoronto.cawww.psych.utoronto.ca/users/peterson

Abstract

We suggest that the hierarchical predictive processing account detailed by Clark can be usefully integrated with narrative psychology by situating personal narratives at the top of an individual's knowledge hierarchy. Narrative representations function as high-level generative models that direct our attention and structure our expectations about unfolding events. Implications for integrating scientific and humanistic views of human experience are discussed.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abelson, R. P. (1981) Psychological status of the script concept. American Psychologist 36(7):715–29.Google Scholar
Baerger, D. & McAdams, D. (1999) Life story coherence and its relation to psychological well-being. Narrative Inquiry 9:6996.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. (1986) Actual minds, possible worlds. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. (1991) The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry 18(1):121.Google Scholar
Graesser, A. C., Millis, K. K. & Zwaan, R. A. (1997) Discourse comprehension. Annual Review of Psychology 48(1):163–89.Google Scholar
Hajcak, G. & Foti, D. (2008) Errors are aversive. Psychological Science 19(2):103108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hirsh, J. B., Mar, R. A. & Peterson, J. B. (2012) Psychological entropy: A framework for understanding uncertainty-related anxiety. Psychological Review 119(2):304–20.Google Scholar
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992) Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychology of trauma. Free Press.Google Scholar
Kitayama, S. & Cohen, D. (2010) Handbook of cultural psychology. The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Mandler, J. M. (1984) Stories, scripts, and scenes: Aspects of schema theory. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Mar, R. A. & Oatley, K. (2008) The function of fiction is the abstraction and simulation of social experience. Perspectives on Psychological Science 3(3):173–92.Google Scholar
McAdams, D. P. (1997) The stories we live by: Personal myths and the making of the self. The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
McAdams, D. P. (2006) The problem of narrative coherence. Journal of Constructivist Psychology 19(2):109–25.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. (2003) Self and social functions: Individual autobiographical memory and collective narrative. Memory 11(2):125–36.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. & Fivush, R. (2004) The emergence of autobiographical memory: A social cultural developmental theory. Psychological Review 111(2):486511.Google Scholar
Oatley, K. (1992) Best laid schemes: The psychology of emotions. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oatley, K. (1999) Why fiction may be twice as true as fact: Fiction as cognitive and emotional simulation. Review of General Psychology 3(2):101–17.Google Scholar
Pennebaker, J. W. & Seagal, J. D. (1999) Forming a story: The health benefits of narrative. Journal of Clinical Psychology 55(10):1243–54.Google Scholar
Peterson, J. B. (1999) Maps of meaning: The architecture of belief. Routledge.Google Scholar
Proulx, T., Inzlicht, M. & Harmon-Jones, E. (2012) Understanding all inconsistency compensation as a palliative response to violated expectations. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 16(5):285–91.Google Scholar
Ricoeur, P., Blamey, K. & Pellauer, D. (1990) Time and narrative, vol. 3. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sarbin, T. R. (1986) Narrative psychology: The storied nature of human conduct. Praeger/Greenwood.Google Scholar
Schank, R. & Abelson, R. (1977) Scripts, plans, goals and understanding: An inquiry into human knowledge structures. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Sellars, W. (1963) Science, perception, and reality. Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar