NARRATIVES AND SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING

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DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract): The proposed research is part of a continuing investigation of the cognitive processes that mediate the use of information to make social judgements and decisions. Much of the social knowledge we acquire, either through direct experience or from other persons, is in narrative form. That is, it consists of verbally and nonverbally coded sequences of temporally related events. The research to be proposed is concerned with the mental representation of such narratives, and with how these representations, once constructed, are used in comprehending new information, making inferences and social communication. The research has several objectives. First, it will identify the effects of preexisting narrative representations, pertaining either to people in general or to oneself in particular, the comprehension of new information and on the content and structure of representations that are formed from it. Second, it will evaluate the way in which narratives are indexed in memory and, therefore, the factors that determine which of several alternative representations is likely to be retrieved and used in comprehension or communication. Third, a series of studies will be conducted to establish criteria for comparing similarities and differences in narratives that people have constructed about themselves and others, and to evaluate the utility of applying these criteria in investigating phenomena in which narratives are likely to have a mediating role (e.g., conflict in close relationships, stereotyping, etc.). Finally, preliminary research will evaluate the role of narratives in two areas of central importance in social information processing, namely, (a) person impression formation, and (b) the mental representation of self.