Do good stories produce good health?
-
Nairán Ramírez-Esparza
Abstract
There is a culturally-held belief that good narratives are associated with good mental or physical health. Scores of studies have demonstrated that writing about emotional upheavals can have salutary health effects. Despite the writing-health relationship, there is scant evidence that expressive writing samples that are judged to be good narratives are themselves linked to health change. Across multiple studies, linguistic features of essays have been empirically linked to health changes. For example, use of positive emotions, increasing use of causal and other cognitive words, and shifts in pronoun use are correlated with fewer physician visits. These language markers, however, are not strongly related to the quality of narrative. Whereas most research has been conducted with English-speaking samples, new analytic methods suggest that many of the language findings can be exported to other languages and cultures. Implications for our understanding narrative, language, and culture within the context of new language analytic methods are discussed.
Abstract
There is a culturally-held belief that good narratives are associated with good mental or physical health. Scores of studies have demonstrated that writing about emotional upheavals can have salutary health effects. Despite the writing-health relationship, there is scant evidence that expressive writing samples that are judged to be good narratives are themselves linked to health change. Across multiple studies, linguistic features of essays have been empirically linked to health changes. For example, use of positive emotions, increasing use of causal and other cognitive words, and shifts in pronoun use are correlated with fewer physician visits. These language markers, however, are not strongly related to the quality of narrative. Whereas most research has been conducted with English-speaking samples, new analytic methods suggest that many of the language findings can be exported to other languages and cultures. Implications for our understanding narrative, language, and culture within the context of new language analytic methods are discussed.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introductory remarks 1
- Narrative research and the challenge of accumulating knowledge 7
- The role of narrative in personality psychology today 17
- The promise (and challenge) of an innovative narrative psychology 27
- Biographical structuring 37
- Narrative pre-construction 47
- A new role for narrative in variationist sociolinguistics 57
- Story formulations in talk-in-interaction 69
- Continuity and change in narrative study 81
- Dialogue in a discourse context 91
- Rhetorical aesthetics and other issues in the study of literary narrative 103
- Narrative as construction and discursive resource 113
- The narrative negotiation of identity and belonging 123
- Narratives in action 133
- Thinking big with small stories in narrative and identity analysis 145
- Life “on holiday”? 155
- Stories: Big or small 165
- Entitlement and empathy in personal narrative 175
- Frankie, Johnny, Oprah and Me 185
- Rescuing narrative from qualitative research 195
- The performance turn in narrative studies 205
- Applied ethnopoetics 215
- The self-telling body 225
- Narrative thinking and the emergence of postpsychological therapies 237
- Do good stories produce good health? 249
- Living stories 261
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introductory remarks 1
- Narrative research and the challenge of accumulating knowledge 7
- The role of narrative in personality psychology today 17
- The promise (and challenge) of an innovative narrative psychology 27
- Biographical structuring 37
- Narrative pre-construction 47
- A new role for narrative in variationist sociolinguistics 57
- Story formulations in talk-in-interaction 69
- Continuity and change in narrative study 81
- Dialogue in a discourse context 91
- Rhetorical aesthetics and other issues in the study of literary narrative 103
- Narrative as construction and discursive resource 113
- The narrative negotiation of identity and belonging 123
- Narratives in action 133
- Thinking big with small stories in narrative and identity analysis 145
- Life “on holiday”? 155
- Stories: Big or small 165
- Entitlement and empathy in personal narrative 175
- Frankie, Johnny, Oprah and Me 185
- Rescuing narrative from qualitative research 195
- The performance turn in narrative studies 205
- Applied ethnopoetics 215
- The self-telling body 225
- Narrative thinking and the emergence of postpsychological therapies 237
- Do good stories produce good health? 249
- Living stories 261
