Skip to main content

Narrative Social Psychology

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Social Psychology

Abstract

Over the past generation, the use of the term narrative has spread from literary studies through the social sciences and now into everyday discourse. What was initially a rather specialised term to describe a particular literary form has now a more broad meaning for an imaginative construction of a sequence of events. This chapter explores the emergence of this concept within psychology and how it can contribute to enhancing our understanding of everyday life. It considers the different types of narrative, the role of narrative in personal and collective identity and the potential of narrative approaches within critical social psychology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Allport, G. W. (1942). The use of personal documents in psychological science. New York: Social Science Research Council.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allport, G. W. (Ed.). (1965). Letters from Jenny. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brooks, P. (1994). Reading for the plot: Design and intention in narrative. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds. Possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, J. (1949). The hero with a thousand faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Costa, L., Vornka, J., Landry, D., Reid, J., McFarlane, B., Reville, D., & Church, K. (2014). ‘Recovering our stories’: A small act of resistance. Studies in Social Justice, 6, 85–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Fina, A., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2012). Analyzing narrative. Discourse and sociolinguistic perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doise, W. (1986). Levels of explanation in social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elliott, J. (2005). Using narrative in social research. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erikson, E. H. (1959). Identity in the life cycle. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster, R. F. (2014). Vivid faces. The revolutionary generation in Ireland 1890–1923. London: Allen Lane.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, M. (1993). Rewriting the self: History, memory, narrative. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frye, N. (1957). Anatomy of criticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gee, J. P. (1991). A linguistic approach to narrative. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 1, 15–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gergen, K. J., & Gergen, M. M. (1986). Narrative form and the construction of psychological science. In T. Sarbin (Ed.), Narrative psychology: The storied nature of human conduct. New York: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenfield, P. (1990). Jerome Bruner: The harvard years. Human Development, 33, 327–333.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenspan, H. (1998). On listening to Holocaust survivors: Recounting and life history. Westport, CT: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hammack, P. L. (2004). Narrative and the cultural psychology of identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12, 222–247.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hammack, P. L. (2011). Narrative and the politics of identity. The cultural psychology of Israeli and Palestinian youth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herzlich, C. (1974). Health and illness: A social psychological analysis. London: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kiberd, D. (2009). Ulysses and us. The art of everyday living. London: Faber & Faber.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinfeld, J. (2012). The frontier romance: Environment, culture, and Alaska identity. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinman, A. (1997). Social suffering. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kraft, R. N. (2002). Memory perceived. Recalling the Holocaust. Westport, CT: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Labov, W., & Waletsky, J. (1976/1997). Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7, 3–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langdridge, D. (2007). Phenomenological psychology: Theory, research and method. London: Pearson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langer, L. L. (1991). Holocaust testimonies: The ruins of memory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laszlo, J. (1986). Narrative organisation of social representations. Papers on Social Representations, 6(2), 155–172.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lykes, M. B. (2010). Silence(ing), memory(ies) and voice(s): Feminist participatory action research in the wake of gross violations of human rights. Visual Studies, 25, 238–254.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAdams, D. (1993). The stories we live by. Personal myths and the making of the self. New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKenzie-Mohr, S., & Lafrance, M. N. (Eds.). (2014). Women voicing resistance. Discursive and narrative explorations. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mishler, E. (1986). Research interviewing: Context and narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moghaddam, F. M. (2004). From ‘psychology in literature’ to ‘psychology is literature’. An exploration of boundaries and relationships. Theory & Psychology, 14, 505–525.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, M. (2000). Levels of narrative analysis in health psychology. Journal of Health Psychology, 5, 337–348.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, M. (2002). Connecting narrative and social representation theory in health research. Social Science Information, 41, 653–673.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, M., & Ziegler, F. (2014). The narrative psychology of community health workers. Journal of Health Psychology, 20, 338–349.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, P. (1980). Hermeneutics of testimony. In L. S. Mudge (Ed.), Essays on biblical interpretation. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, P. (1984). Time and narrative (Vol. 1). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, P. (1998). Critique and conviction. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarbin, T. (Ed.). (1986). Narrative psychology: The storied nature of human conduct. New York: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, J. S. (1997). Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and papers from prison and Paul Ricoeur’s ‘Hermeneutics of testimony’. In M. Joy (Ed.), Paul Ricoeur and narrative: Context and contestation. Calgary, AB: University of Calgary press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Selbin, E. (2010). Revolution, rebellion, resistance. The power of story. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinatti, G. (2008). The Polish Peasant revisited. Thomas and Znaniecki’s classic in the light of contemporary transnational migration theory. Sociologica, 2, 1–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skjelsbaek, I. (2015). The military perpetrator: A narrative analysis of sentencing judgments on sexual violence offenders at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3, 46–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanley, E. (2010). To the letter: Thomas and Znaniecki’s The Polish Peasant and writing a life, sociologically. Life Writing, 7, 137–151.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, E., & Znaniecki, W. I. (1918/1920). The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. Boston: R. G. Badger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tileaga, C., & Byford, J. (Eds.). (2014). Psychology and history. Interdisciplinary explorations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, C. (2002). Stories, identities, and political change. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. (2013). A guided science. History of psychology in the mirror of its making. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: W. W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson, I., & Kleinman, A. (2016). Passion for society: How we think about human suffering. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winter, D. G. (1993). Gordon Allport and ‘Letters from Jenny’. In K. H. Craik, R. Hogan, & R. N. Wolfe (Eds.), Fifty years of personality psychology (pp. 147–163). New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wong, W.-C. (2009). Retracing the footsteps of Wilhelm Wundt: Explorations in the disciplinary frontiers of psychology and in Völkerpsychologie. History of Psychology, 12, 229–265.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Murray, M. (2017). Narrative Social Psychology. In: Gough, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Social Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51018-1_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics