Unfolding narrative meaning over time: The contributions of mother–daughter conversations of difficulty on daughter narrative sense-making and well-being

ABSTRACT

Recent narrative theorizing suggests that humans process their difficult experiences by not only creating stories—called individual narrative sense-making (NSM)—but also by telling those stories with others—called communicated narrative sense-making (CNSM). The present study investigated the relationship between individual and communicated NSM to understand the effects of interpersonal communication on intrapersonal meaning-making and well-being. In this longitudinal, laboratory-based study, 62 mother–daughter pairs wrote and discussed stories of daughters’ difficulty. Findings revealed that CNSM—particularly turn-taking, coherence, and daughters’ perspective-taking—predicted increased positivity in daughters’ stories over time, suggesting that CNSM contributes to “re-authoring” of individual stories. Limited effects emerged for CNSM and well-being. Findings expanded knowledge about the interconnections between intrapersonal and interpersonal communication, and well-being.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative theorizing
• mother–daughter relationships
• sense-making
• well-being

Acknowledgments

This paper was presented on the Top Four Panel of the Interpersonal Communication Division at the National Communication Association Convention, November 2014. The authors would like to thank Lindsey Klug and Alexis Lehman for your help rating the written data, and Jody Koenig Kellas, Colleen Colaner, and two anonymous reviewers for their counsel on the manuscript.

Notes

1. Three assistants rated the data for two of the ISM dimensions and two assistants rated the data for the other two dimensions. Since ratings were averaged to create composite scores (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006), this had no bearing on ISM variable creation and data analysis.

2. Because each rater rated each dyad (n = 62), two-way random ICCs were conducted. This ICC test assumes that both participants and raters were sampled (rather than using the entire population) and controls for random rater effects (Shrout & Fleiss, 1979). Since the mean score was desired (Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2005), ICC average measures and consistent agreement were assessed.