The Impact of Event Familiarity on the Complexity and Coherence of Children's Narratives of Positive Events

Abstract

The coherence of individuals' narratives of negative events has been shown to have significant positive effects on a variety of indicators of adaptive functioning (Klein & Boals, 2001; Pennebaker, Mayne, & Francis, 1997). Relatively little is known, however, about the processes through which individuals form coherent narratives of important personal experiences. This research examined the role of familiarity with the event on changes over time in the measures of narrative complexity, coherence and intrusive thoughts. In addition, the relationships among three previously used measures of coherence (a count of words in relevant categories, an overall rating, and a measure of causal connections between clauses) were examined, and the association between each measure and a criterion measure, Story Grammar, was explored. Two groups of 16 children participated in either a familiar event, a soccer tournament, or an unfamiliar event, soccer tryouts for a more competitive leaguer. All participants were interviewed within one week of the event and six weeks after the first interview. In contrast to expectations, familiarity with the event did not result in higher initial levels of coherence, and the coherence of the account of the less familiar event did not increase over time. The alternative measures of coherence were related to Story Grammar as expected, but were not correlated with each other.