Abstract
Feldman et al. (Human Development, 36, 327-342, 1993) called for a new kind of psychology, a cultural cognitive developmental psychology. We critically consider their initial studies to discuss the scope of their program. In the spirit of this program we explore the development of scaffolding of narrative emotion regulation in adolescence. We present two co-narrations of sad events between mothers and their 12- and 18-year-old offspring to exemplify these mothers’ age-sensitive strategies to scaffold adolescents’ narrative emotion regulation. We identified three kinds of narrative arguments which mothers used for scaffolding and which are apparently acquired only in the course of adolescence: Embedding events in extended temporal, biographical contexts, relating events and reactions to individuals’ enduring personalities, and re-appraising events by including more others’, external, and hypothetical perspectives. They confirm developmental observations made by Feldman et al. (Human Development, 36, 327-342, 1993) and demonstrate their utility in the context of the development of emotion regulation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Berntsen, D., & Rubin, D. C. (2004). Cultural life scripts structure recall from autobiographical memory. Memory & Cognition, 32, 427–442. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03195836.
Bruner, J. S. (1973). Beyond the information given: Studies in the psychology of knowing. New York: W. W. Norton.
Bruner, J. S. (1984). Vygotsky's zone of proximal development: The hidden agenda. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 1984(23), 93–97. https://doi.org/10.1002/cd.23219842309.
Bruner, J. S. (1987). Life as narrative. Social Research, 54, 11–32. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190256654.003.0001.
Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Butler, E. A., & Randall, A. K. (2013). Emotional coregulation in close relationships. Emotion Review, 5, 202–210. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073912451630.
Cole, P. M., Armstrong, L. M., & Pemberton, C. K. (2010). The role of language in the development of emotion regulation. In S. D. Calkins & M. A. Bell (Eds.), Child development at the intersection of emotion and cognition (pp. 59–77). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/12059-004.
Elibol-Pekaslan, N., & Sahin Acar, B. (2018). Do mothers and adolescents use autobiographical memories in a functional way during reminiscing? Poster presented at the conference “Autobiographical Memory and the Self”, ConAmore Center, Aarhus University.
Fasulo, A. (2019). A different conversation: The autistic self and narrative psychology. This issue.
Feldman, C. F. (1991). I generi letterari come modelli mentali. In M. Ammaniti & D. N. Stern (Eds.), Rappresentazioni e narrazioni (pp. 113–131). Bari, IT: Laterza.
Feldman, C. F., Bruner, J., Renderer, B., & Spitzer, S. (1990). Narrative comprehension. In B. K. Britton & A. D. Pellegrini (Eds.), Narrative thought and narrative language (pp. 1–78). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Feldman, C., Bruner, J., Kalmar, D., & Renderer, B. (1993). Plot, plight, and dramatism: Interpretation at three ages. Human Development, 36, 327–342. https://doi.org/10.1159/000278220.
Fivush, R., Haden, C. A., & Reese, E. (2006). Elaborating on elaborations: Role of maternal reminiscing style in cognitive and socioemotional development. Child Development, 77, 1568–1588. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00960.x.
Fivush, R., McDermott Sales, J., & Bohanek, J. G. (2008). Meaning making in mothers’ and children's narratives of emotional events. Memory, 16, 579–594. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210802150681.
Ford, B. Q., & Mauss, I. B. (2015). Culture and emotion regulation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 3, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2014.12.004.
Gavazzi, I. G., & Calvino, E. (2004). Competenze comunicative e linguistiche: aspetti teorici e concezioni evolutive. Milan, IT: Franco Angeli.
Gottman, J. M., Katz, L. F., & Hooven, C. (1996). Parental meta-emotion philosophy and the emotional life of families: Theoretical models and preliminary data. Journal of Family Psychology, 10, 243–268. https://doi.org/10.1037//0893-3200.10.3.243.
Graneist, A., & Habermas, T. (2018). Narrating emotions: How cognitive verbs take over from emotion words in adolescence. In Manuscript submitted for publication.
Grazani, I., & Brockmeier, J. (2019). Language games and social cognition: Revisiting Bruner. This issue.
Habermas, T. (2007). How to tell a life: The development of the cultural concept of biography across the lifespan. Journal of Cognition and Development, 8, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248370709336991.
Habermas, T. (2019). Emotion and narrative: Perspectives in autobiographical storytelling. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Habermas, T., & Reese, E. (2015). Getting a life takes time: The development of the life story in adolescence and its precursors. Human Development, 58, 172–202. https://doi.org/10.1159/000437245.
Habermas, T., Negele, A., & Brenneisen Mayer, F. (2010). Honey, you’re jumping about“ - mothers’ scaffolding of their children’s and adolescents’ life narration. Cognitive Development, 25, 339–351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2010.08.00.
Holodynski, M., & Friedlmeier, W. (2005). Development of emotions and emotion regulation. Berlin. Heidelberg: Springer.
Iannaccone, A., Perret-Clermont, A.-N., & Convertini, J. (2019). Children as investigators of Brunerian “possible worlds”: The role of narrative scenarios in children’s argumentative thinking. This issue.
Klimes-Dougan, B., Brand, A. E., Zahn-Waxler, C., Usher, B., Hastings, P. D., Kendziora, K., & Garside, R. B. (2007). Parental emotion socialization in adolescence: Differences in sex, age and problem status. Social Development, 16, 326–342. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.2007.00387.x.
Köber, C., Schmiedek, F., & Habermas, T. (2015). Characterizing lifespan development of three aspects of coherence in life narratives: A cohort-sequential study. Developmental Psychology, 51, 260–275. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038668.
Lilgendahl, J. P., & McAdams, D. P. (2011). Constructing stories of self-growth: How individual differences in patterns of autobiographical reasoning relate to well-being in midlife. Journal of Personality, 79, 391–428. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00688.x.
McKeough, A., & Genereux, R. (2003). Transformation in narrative thought during adolescence: The structure and content of story compositions. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(3), 537–552. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.95.3.537.
McLean, K. C., & Mansfield, C. D. (2012). The co-construction of adolescent narrative identity: Narrative processing as a function of adolescent age, gender, and maternal scaffolding. Developmental Psychology, 48, 436–447. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025563.
McLean, K. C., Pasupathi, M., & Pals, J. L. (2007). Selves creating stories creating selves: A process model of self-development. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, 262–278. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868307301034.
Nicolopoulou, A., & Richner, A. S. (2007). From actors to agents to persons: The development of character representation in young children's narratives. Child Development, 78, 412–429. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01006.x.
Öner, S., & Gülgöz, S. (2018). Autobiographical remembering regulates emotions: A functional perspective. Memory, 26, 15–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2017.1316510.
Oppenheim, D., Koren-Karie, N., & Sagi-Schwartz, A. (2007). Emotion dialogues between mothers and children at 4.5 and 7.5 years: Relations with children's attachment at 1 year. Child Development, 78, 38–52.
Pascuzzi, D., & Smorti, A. (2017). Emotion regulation, autobiographical memories and life narratives. New Ideas in Psychology, 45, 28–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2016.12.001.
Pasupathi, M., Billitteri, J., Mansfield, C. D., Wainryb, C., Hanley, G. E., & Taheri, K. (2015). Regulating emotion and identity by narrating harm. Journal of Research in Personality, 58, 127–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2015.07.003.
Pennebaker, J. W. (2011). The secret life of pronouns. In The secret life of pronouns. New York: Bloomsbury Press.
Reeck, C., Ames, D. R., & Ochsner, K. N. (2016). The social regulation of emotion: An integrative, cross-disciplinary model. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20, 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2015.09.003.
Sher-Censor, E., Koren-Karie, N., Getzov, S., & Rotman, P. (2018). Mother–adolescent dialogues and adolescents' behavior problems in a multicultural sample: The mediating role of representations. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 28, 211–228. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12327.
de Silveira, C., & Habermas, T. (2011). Narrative means to manage responsibility in life narratives across adolescence. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 172, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2010.503254.
Smetana, J. G., Metzger, A., Gettman, D. C., & Campione-Barr, N. (2006). Disclosure and secrecy in adolescent-parent relationships. Child Development, 77, 201–217. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00865.x.
Smorti, A. (2004). Narrative strategies for interpreting stories with incongruent endings. Narrative Inquiry, 14, 141–167. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.14.1.07smo.
Smorti, A., & Fioretti, C. (2016). Why narrating changes memory: A contribution to an integrative model of memory and narrative processes. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 50, 296–319. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-015-9330-6.
Thorne, A., Cutting, L., & Skaw, D. (1998). Young adults' relationship memories and the life story: Examples or essential landmarks? Narrative Inquiry, 8, 237–268. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.8.2.02tho.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wainryb, C., Pasupathi, M., Bourne, S., & Oldroyd, K. (2018). Stories for all ages: Narrating anger reduces distress across childhood and adolescence. Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication, 54(March 2018), 1072–1085. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000495.
Wang, Q. (2001). “Did you have fun?”: American and Chinese mother–child conversations about shared emotional experiences. Cognitive Development, 16, 693–715. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0885-2014(01)00055-7.
Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., & Skinner, E. A. (2011). The development of coping across childhood and adolescence: An integrative review and critique of research. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 35, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025410384923.
Zittoun, T. (2006). Transitions: Symbolic resources in development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare to have no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
The study was approved by the central IRB of the German Psychological Society (DGPs), number TH 032014_rev, June 112,014.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Graneist, A., Habermas, T. Beyond the Text Given: Studying the Scaffolding of Narrative Emotion Regulation as a Contribution to Bruner and Feldman’s Cultural Cognitive Developmental Psychology. Integr. psych. behav. 53, 644–660 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-019-9474-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-019-9474-x