Universal Stories: How Narratives Satisfy Core Motives

By Glaucio Aranha

The journal Self and Identity published a theoretical article entitled “Universal stories: How narratives satisfy core motives”, by Costabile, Shedlosky-Shoemaker and Austin (2018), in which the authors argue that stories promote social and psychological well-being by satisfying core motives. They start from the role of narratives in human lives and develop their argument to establish how narratives relate to our core motives.

To this end, they relate narrativity to the five social motives identified by Susan Fiske in Social beings: Core motives in Social Psychology (2010) as the bases for satisfying human needs: belonging, understanding, controlling, self-enhancing and trusting.

“Universal stories” reopens discussion of narrativity as an inherent aspect of the human condition, that is, of the production and circulation of stories since time immemorial as an organizing principle of human experience that makes it possible to build representations of our surroundings. Such representations would lay the foundations for perceptual and interpretive procedures concerning existence. These procedures, in turn, would be socially consolidated as shaping matrices, for example in the formation of a people’s culture (BRUNER, 1997, 2002). In this sense, narrativity would play a cognitive role in organizing informational fragments (data) into an understanding or interpretation of the context in which we live (TURNER, 1996). Narratives and their forms of transmission (circulation) could thus be understood as relevant elements in the very constitution of our perception of the human condition.

Costabile and her colleagues (2018) argue that both autobiographical and entertainment narratives can satisfy the five core motives described by Susan Fiske. To show this, the authors structure their article in separate sections for each motive, presenting empirical evidence for the relationship between narratives (stories) and the related core motive.

In their conclusion, the authors stress the need for more interdisciplinary research on narratives that engages with more traditional psychological theories and research, seeking interfaces that can deepen the topic. They also believe that narrative approaches may be an important step for research on intergroup relations, helping to overcome resistance from more traditional quarters.

References

BERYTAND, D. Narratividade e discursividade: pontos de, referência e problemáticas. Significação: Revista De Cultura Audiovisual, 30(19), 9-50, 2003. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-7114.sig.2003.65567

BRUNER, Jerome. Atos de significação. Translated by Sandra Costa. Porto Alegre: Artes Médicas, 1997.

_______. Realidade mental, mundos possíveis. Porto Alegre: Artes Médicas, 2002.

Costabile, K. A., Shedlosky-Shoemaker, R., & Austin, A. B. Universal stories: How narratives satisfy core motives. Self and Identity, 17(4), 418-431, 2018. 

FISKE, S. T. . Social beings: Core motives in Social Psychology (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Wiley, 2010.

TURNER, M. The literary mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

About the author

He holds a PhD in Letters (Comparative Literature) from the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), an MA in Communication, Image and Information (New Communication and Information Technologies) from UFF, and a law degree from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF). He is a professor at the Centre for Educational Technology in Health (NUTES). He leads the research group *Narrativity, meaning-making and representations of reality*, in which he coordinates the research projects *Language and imaginary in educational videos: attentional and emotional effects of the discursive construction of verisimilitude* and *Fantastic narratives, scientific imaginary and meaning-making*. He co-leads, with Prof. Alfred Sholl-Franco (IBCCF/UFRJ), the research group *Neuroeduc – Centre for Studies in Neuroscience and Education* (OCC/UFRJ), where he co-coordinates the research project *Narrativity, semiosis and cognition*, focused on the use of narratives in teaching and science communication. He is an associate researcher of the programme *Ciências e Cognição – Centre for Science Communication and Neuroscience Teaching* at UFRJ (CeC-NuDCEN/IBCCF/UFRJ), where he studies cognitive semiotics and text linguistics. He worked at the School of Judicial Administration (DIEPE/ESAJ) of the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice (2001–2020). His areas of experience are literary and narrative theory, linguistics, semiotics, mass aesthetics and science communication. Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1047823602449101