3-087 - New ways to measure discourse: Examining narratives about past events in early childhood, adolescence, and adulthood

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The ability to talk about past events is a critical communicative skill throughout the lifespan (Reese, Haden, & Fivush, 1993). As such, discourse about past events is a useful tool to study facets of development. The papers in this symposium build from classic methods to develop new approaches for examining discourse in relation to social outcomes in early childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

Presentation 1 adapts theory and method from the linguistics literature to examine indirect communication in parent-preschooler conversations about past emotional events. After accounting for classic psychological categorizations of emotion socialization, indirect communication when explaining emotions predicted children’s emotion regulation and social competence. Presentation 2 advances the field by providing an observational (rather than self-report) measure of adolescents’ quality of disclosure when discussing stressful past experiences with mothers. Adolescents’ quality of disclosure predicted prosocial behavior, empathy, and sociability. Presentation 3 takes a person-centered approach to investigate growth-orientation in adults’ narratives about past negative events. This approach innovates by examining patterns of intra-individual variability across multiple narratives. Adults who consistently focused on striving for growth across three negative event narratives reported less avoidance, less desire for revenge, and more benevolence towards transgressors.

Together, these papers demonstrate both the importance of discourse in socio-emotional adjustment and the utility of interdisciplinary adaptation and methodological innovation to advance measurement approaches for the study of discourse. A founding researcher in the study of narratives and development will discuss overarching themes of the papers and directions for future research on discourse.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chair

• Erika Hernandez, Virginia Tech

Discussant

• Robyn Fivush, Emory University

Individual Presentations

• Using linguistics theory to examine parental indirectness as an emotion socialization strategy - Presenting Author: Erika Hernandez, Virginia Tech; Sukran Kilic, Aksaray University; Julie C. Dunsmore, Virginia Tech; Katie Carmichael, Virginia Tech

• Adolescent disclosure quality in mother-adolescent exclusion discussions: Links with social adjustment - Presenting Author: Deborah Laible, Lehigh University; Olivia Conover, Lehigh University; Erin Karahuta, Lehigh University; Mary B Lewis, Oakland University; Gustavo Carlo, University of Missouri

• Intra-Individual Variability of Narrated Growth and Temporal Focus across Negatively-Valenced Events: Implications for Compassion - Presenting Author: Jordan Ashton Booker, Emory University