NARRATIVES AND SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING

描述（改编自申请人摘要）：拟议的研究是 这是对认知过程的持续调查的一部分， 利用信息做出社会判断和决定。 大部分 我们通过直接经验或从他人那里获得社会知识， 人，是以叙事的形式。 也就是说，它包括口头和 时间相关事件的非语言编码序列。 了研究 被提议的是关于这种叙述的心理表征， 以及这些表征一旦被构建， 理解新信息、推理和社交。 这项研究有几个目标。 首先，它将确定 预先存在的叙事表征，涉及到的人， 对新信息的理解 以及由此形成的表征的内容和结构。 第二，它将评估叙事在记忆中被索引的方式 因此，决定几种选择中哪一种选择的因素 表征很可能被检索并用于理解或 通信 第三，将进行一系列研究， 比较叙述中的相似性和差异的标准， 人们对自己和他人的看法， 应用这些标准调查现象的效用， 叙述可能具有中介作用（例如，关闭冲突 关系、陈规定型观念等）。最后，初步研究将 评估叙事在社会中两个重要领域的作用 信息处理，即（a）人的印象形成，以及（B） 自我的心理表征

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.