On rhetoric and ratings: II. Requesting redemptive stories and continuous ratings

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Highlights

  • Three novel techniques to assess redemption are introduced including: (a) directly request redemptive stories, (b) directly request participants rate the degree of redemption in their stories, and (c) quantify the degree of redemption in stories using trained coders.

  • 93% of participants were able to provide a redemptive story when so requested (Study 1).

  • The self-reported tendency to view one’s life as a story was related with greater redemption in directly requested redemptive stories (Study 1).

  • The degree of redemption within directly requested redemptive stories was unrelated to life satisfaction (Study 1), whereas self-and-other ratings of the degree of redemption within self-defining memories corresponded with greater life satisfaction (Study 2).

  • There was significant self-other consensus in ratings of the degree of redemption within self-defining memories (Study 2).

Abstract

The tendency to disclose redemptive stories (negative beginnings, positive endings) is associated with indicators of flourishing. The success of any examination of redemption relies on the methods adopted. Here, we introduce three novel techniques to assess redemption: (a) directly request redemptive stories, (b) directly request participants rate the degree of redemption in their stories, and (c) quantify the degree of redemption in stories using trained coders. We noted a relation between the self-reported tendency to view one’s life as a story and the degree of redemption in stories (Study 1), and self-other consensus in perceptions of this content, with both corresponding with life satisfaction (Study 2). This work expands the methodological toolbox from which to draw in study of redemption.

Introduction

When asked for descriptions of the most salient and important moments from their lives, many people provide redemptive stories. These stories begin on an emotionally negative note before giving way to an emotionally positive resolve (McAdams, 1999). Crafting stories that emphasize the bright side of challenging experiences may represent an adaptive coping strategy (McAdams et al., 2001). Consistent with this notion, those who tend to tell redemptive stories also tend to evince higher levels of a number of adaptive constructs, including well-being, health behaviors, and generativity (for a review, see Dunlop, 2021).

Although redemptive themes within autobiographical narratives have been found to correspond favorably with these aforementioned constructs, for certain people and in response to certain narrative prompts, an inverse relation has been observed between redemption and flourishing, broadly defined (e.g., Bauer et al., 2019, McCoy and Dunlop, 2017). For example, McCoy and Dunlop (2017) noted that, among a sample of college-aged adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs n = 53, non-ACOAs n = 80), the tendency to disclose redemptive stories was positively associated with self-reports of emotional dysregulation (r = 0.33) and depression (r = 0.36). In distinction, Bauer and colleagues (2019) observed a positive relation between redemption as manifest in participants’ stories (n = 206) of low points and life satisfaction (a finding aligning with the broader literature, e.g., Cox et al., 2019, McAdams et al., 2001), but a negative relation between life satisfaction and redemption as manifest in participants’ stories of high points (β = -0.37). It remains the product of speculation as to why themes of redemption within narratives sometimes correspond positively, and on rarer occasion negatively, with adaptive processes and outcomes.

Of course, the success of any effort to further understanding of the nature of relations with redemption will ultimately depend on the methods used to assess participants’ stories and quantify the redemptive content therein. With respect to the former, researchers have most often considered participants’ descriptions of certain self-defining scenes, including life high points, low points, and turning points (e.g., Adler et al., 2017). With respect to the latter, researchers have most often employed a presence/absence dichotomous coding system.1 In this system, trained coders read each story in a dataset and then indicate whether said story is (denoted with a “1″) or is not (denoted with a “0”) redemptive in nature (McAdams, 1999).

Recently, calls have been made to rethink redemption, through a consideration of more varied prompts and more complex and nuanced coding systems (e.g., Cox et al., 2019, Dunlop et al., 2020a, Dunlop et al., 2020b, Perlin and Fivush, 2021). A shift in this manner may be required due to the ubiquity of the redemptive story and the varied forms it may take and functions it may serve. Some research groups have gone so far as to suggest that redemption should be studied using a multi-method approach, in which the objective quantification of its presence within stories be considered alongside additional types of data, including participants’ ratings of their own stories (e.g., Dunlop et al., 2020a, Dunlop et al., 2020b).

It is in the above spirit that we undertook the current work. Over the course of two studies, we sought to apply a small number of as-yet unconsidered assessment techniques and coding systems to examination of the redemptive story. In our first study, we adopted the novel strategy of directly prompting participants for redemptive stories. This shifted the assessment away from a focus on whether participants spontaneously provide redemptive stories when discussing their major autobiographical milestones and towards a focus on whether participants can construct redemptive stories when asked to do so and whether this relates with well-being. To determine the proportion of stories produced under such conditions that were, in fact, redemptive, we quantified the resulting stories using McAdams’ (1999) traditional presence/absence coding system. Building upon previous research (Cox et al., 2019), we then applied a more nuanced approach to the quantification of redemption by seeking to capture the degree of redemption in these stories (rather than presence/absence). The level of redemption in participants’ stories was explored in relation to measures of adaptive functioning including life satisfaction, optimism, and defensive pessimism2 as well as participants’ tendency to think about their lives as if they were stories (life story mindset; Dunlop, 2019). We sought to understand whether directly requested redemptive stories related with broad measures of adaptive functioning and the tendency to view one’s life as a story.

Our second study built upon the first in two ways. First, we again applied our novel coding system targeting the degree, rather than presence/absence, of redemption in participants’ narratives. In the case of Study 2, however, participants were prompted for a type of story more often considered in the narrative identity literature (i.e., a self-defining memory; see Singer & Blagov, 2002). Second, in the interest of further exploring the degree of redemption present in the resulting stories, while also recognizing recent work incorporating self-ratings alongside the more objective ratings provided by trained coders (e.g., Dunlop et al., 2020a), we prompted participants themselves to rate their stories using the same degree-based coding system pioneered in Study 1. This multimethod approach allowed us to gain additional insight into the person, as the self-report data garnered through self-ratings was complimentary to the behavioral data that is traditionally obtained through observers’ ratings (Dunlop et al., 2020b, Paulhus and Vazire, 2007). In addition, researchers have yet to examine consensus between self-and-other ratings of dimensions of narrative identity. Our research advances person-perception literature examining self-versus-other reports of a targets’ personality, beyond personality traits (e.g., Dunlop et al., 2018, Dunlop et al., 2020a). Our intent in Study 2 was twofold. First, we wished to determine the degree of self-other consensus in redemptive ratings. Second, we wished to explore both ratings in relation to life satisfaction. Drawing from past research (e.g., Dunlop et al., 2020a, McAdams et al., 2001), a positive relation between the applicable constructs was anticipated in both cases.

One hundred and sixty-six individuals were recruited from an online survey-based website to take part in this study and received $2.00 USD in exchange for so doing. The mean age of our sample was 35.76 years (SD = 10.17), 45% identified as female, and 74% identified as White/European. After providing informed consent, we requested participants generate a redemptive story in response to the following prompt (the wording of which was drawn from the coding system outlined in McAdams, 1999):

In a redemptive story, a demonstrably ‘bad’ or emotionally negative event or circumstance leads to a demonstrably ‘good’ or emotionally positive outcome. The story plot moves from a negative to a positive valence, bad leads to good. Therefore, the initial negative state is ‘redeemed’ or salvaged by the good that follows it.

In the space below, please describe a redemptive story from your own life. Please provide as much detail as possible about this experience. What happened? Where and when did this occur? Who was involved, and what were you thinking and feeling?

Following the provision of these stories (Mlength = 149 words, SD = 118), participants were asked for a second story unrelated to the current project and to complete a battery of questionnaires, which contained measures of adaptive functioning, broadly defined. This included life satisfaction (Satisfaction with Life Scale; SWLS; Diener et al., 1985) in which participants rated items including “I am satisfied with my life” on a seven-point Likert type scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” (α = 0.92). Optimism (the Life Orientation Test-Revised; LOT-R; Scheier et al., 1994), in which participants rated six items including “I am always optimistic about my future” on a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from “I agree a lot” to “I disagree a lot” (α = 0.89). Defensive pessimism (the Defensive Pessimism Questionnaire-Short Form; Norem et al., 2015), in which participants rated five items including “I usually prepare for the worst” on the same scale as the LOT-R (α = 0.69). Scores of optimism and defensive pessimism were reflected, such that higher values indicated greater levels of these constructs. Lastly, participants completed a measure of life story mindset3 (adapted from Dunlop, 2019), in which participants rated three items including “I often think about my life as if it were a story, complete with characters and a plot” on a five-point Likert type scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” (α = 0.75). Life story mindset was measured to determine how the degree to which one views (1) storytelling as enjoyable and (2) their life as a story relates with whether one produces a redemptive story when so requested.4

Participants’ stories were quantified by two coding teams using two coding systems (see Table 1 for examples of high and low redemptive content). First, in line with the traditional presence/absence coding system (McAdams, 1999) two independent coders read and rated each story to determine if it contained a redemptive sequence (95% agreement, κ = 0.51).5 Second, building upon this system as well as more recent efforts to consider redemption beyond its presence/absence (e.g., Cox et al., 2019), three independent coders, familiar with the concept of redemption and with a history of coding autobiographical narratives, read and rated each story on a four-point scale, ranging from not redemptive at all (“0″), to somewhat redemptive (“1”), pretty redemptive (“2”), and very redemptive (“3”). Relative to Cox and colleagues’ (2019) continuous coding system for redemption, ours was broader in scope in an effort to capture more varied forms of redemption. In addition, the simplistic nature of our coding system was intended to make it more accessible to untrained coders. To determine the degree to which this coding system was intuitive and could be reliably applied by coders with minimal training, the coding team was provided with no further instructions and did not meet regularly to resolve coding discrepancies. This was anomalous to coding conventions in the published literature but allowed us to gauge whether our continuous coding system was accessible to untrained raters (as was undertaken in Study 2). Under these minimal conditions, ratings were found to be reliable and, subsequently averaged (ICC = 0.81).6

Section snippets

Results and Discussion

When interpreted using the classic presence/absence coding system, 93% of stories were deemed redemptive by both coders. We also noted that participants with lower levels of defensive pessimism (r = -0.19, p =.01) and higher levels of a life story mindset (r = 0.25, p = 0.001) produced stories containing a greater degree of redemptive content measured using the continuous rating scale. This story content was unrelated to optimism and life satisfaction (rs ≤ 0.05, ps ≥ 0.54).

Collectively, these

Results

Participants rated their own stories as more prototypically redemptive (M = 2.52, SD = 1.07) when compared to the primary coder (M = 1.93, SD = 1.12, F[1,194] = 53.76, p <.001, d = 0.54). This difference was accompanied by a significant degree of rank-order consistency between self-other ratings (r = 0.47, p <.001). Both ratings related significantly with life satisfaction (rs = 0.18, ps = 0.02).

General Discussion

In the present studies, we explored three novel methods to capture and quantify redemptive autobiographical stories. In Study 1, we introduced a prompt designed to solicit redemptive stories. In both Studies 1 and 2, we used a novel continuous rating scale to capture the degree of redemption in participants’ stories rather than its presence/absence, which is traditionally done (e.g., McAdams, 1999, McAdams et al., 2001). Third and finally, in Study 2, we introduced a parallel self-rating system

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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