European Journal of Social Psychology

Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 35, 785–796 (2005)

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.277

Making sense of life stories: The role of narrative perspective in

perceiving hidden information about social identity

TIBOR POLYA1, JANOS LASZLO1*

AND JOSEPH P. FORGAS2
1
Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy
of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
2
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Abstract

Does the narrative perspective people adopt when describing important life events convey any hidden
information to audiences about their social identities? In this experiment, participants (who were
either professional psychotherapists, or laypersons) formed impressions about, and judged the
identities of narrators who described important identity-related life events (being Jewish, being
gay, being infertile) from one of three different narrative perspectives (retrospective, experiencing and
re-experiencing). Results showed that narrative perspective had a highly significant influence on
impression formation and identity judgments even when the same events were described. Narrators
using the retrospective perspective were generally judged to be better adjusted, more socially
desirable and less anxious and dynamic than were narrators describing the same events from the
experiencing or re-experiencing perspectives. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION: NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE AS INFORMATION

In everyday life people often tell each other about significant life events, and such verbal exchanges
represent an important means for presenting and constructing social identities. This study investigates
the intriguing possibility that subtle and often unconscious shifts in the narrator’s perspective when
recounting important identity-relevant life events may convey hidden information to an audience
regarding the actual characteristics of the narrator, what we call identity state. For example, negative
identity-relevant life events recounted from a retrospective narrative perspective (I was . . . I did . . . )
may subtly communicate a degree of detachment from, and closure on, the identity conveyed in the

*Correspondence to: Janos Laszlo, Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Victor Hugo Street 18-22,
Budapest, Hungary. E-mail: laszlo@mtapi.hu

Received 27 November 2003

Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 10 March 2005
786 Tibor Polya et al.

story and so may convey a sense of a stable, resolved identity state to an audience. Exactly the
same life story when told from an actively experiencing or re-experiencing narrative perspective
(I am . . . I do . . . ) conveys a very different latent message about the narrator’s identity state in
relation to the events depicted. By indicating an inappropriate level of intensity of involvement in the
negative life events, these narrative perspectives may signal the presence of unresolved identity
issues and may create an impression of tension, anxiety and lack of adjustment. In order to
explore these processes, in this experiment we asked participants to make identity judgments and
impression formation judgments about individuals on the basis of dramatic life stories related to
potentially problematic social identities (being Jewish, being gay, being an infertile woman).
Although the negative life events were always the same, narrative perspective was systematically
manipulated.

LIFE STORIES

The idea that life stories can convey significant information about a person’s identity was first
suggested by Erikson (1959), who thought that one could trace identity development ‘through the life
histories or significant life episodes of ordinary individuals’ (p. 110). A more systematic exploration of
the relationship between life story and identity was associated with the narrative psychological
approach (Bruner & Feldman, 1996; Laszlo, Ehmann, Peley, & Polya, 2002; McAdams, 1988, 1996,
2001; Pasupathi, 2001; Sarbin 1986). For example, McAdams’ (1988) life story model of identity
argues that adults create their identities mainly through the psychosocial construction of life stories.
According to Pasupathi (2001) recounting of life events in everyday social situations can be seen as a
potential mechanism by which people socially construct their identities. In a similar vein, linguistic
approaches focus on the discursive strategies used by a narrator in constructing an identity (Davies &
Harre 1990). ‘According to Schiffrin (2000), narrative contributes to the construction and display of
our sense of who we are—our own personal being as an integrated whole, with properties of stability
and continuity over time’ (p. 1).
There are reasonable grounds to assume that the way a narrator recounts a life story may indeed
convey hidden information about their identity states. There are a number of research traditions in
psychology that suggest that the way something is communicated is often more informative than is the
content of the message itself. For example, Argyle, Alkema, and Gilmour (1971) showed that
friendliness and hostility are far more likely to be communicated by how a message is conveyed than
by the actual verbal content of the message. In a similar way, the way a narrating person recounts a life
story may be as informative about the person as is the content of the story itself. For example,
according to McAdams’ (1988) life story model of identity, the narrative complexity of a life story
predicts the narrating person’s stage of ego development. More recent investigations by Woike,
Gerskovich, Piorkowski, and Polo (1999) also reported that persons with agentic personal motives use
more differentiation while persons with communal motives use more integration when structuring
their narrative reports. Others, such as Georgesen and Solano (1999), have demonstrated that the
actual motivational state of the narrator has a subtle influence on the causal structure of the narratives
produced. In other words, the way a life story is recounted may contain hidden, and potentially useful
linguistic information that can be revealing about the narrator’s identity state. However, no prior
studies have looked at the role of narrative perspective as a useful source of information to an
audience (Laszlo et al., 2002). In this experiment, we aim to show that there is a systematic
relationship between narrative perspective adopted in a life story and the perceived psychological
characteristics of the narrator as inferred by an audience.

Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 35, 785–796 (2005)
 Narrative perspective 787

SOCIAL IDENTITY AND LIFE EVENTS

Life stories that reveal critical information about a person’s social identity—such as his or her
membership in salient minority groups such as being Jewish, gay or infertile—can be particularly
informative to an audience. In his seminal work Tajfel (1978; Tajfel & Forgas, 1981) suggested that the
social self-concept is ‘that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his
membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached
to that membership’ (Tajfel, 1978, p. 63). It is our prediction here that subtle shifts in narrative
perspective can be highly informative to an audience, because they can signal the narrator’s
acceptance of, and emotional response to, the identity categories described in their life stories. This
idea is in line with other suggestions that social identity is not necessarily a stable, permanent construct
but is highly dependent on contextual influences, and can undergo dramatic changes depending on the
particular social situation (Deaux, 2000; Forgas & Williams, 2002; Tajfel & Forgas, 1981; Turner,
Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty 1994). In other words, a person’s identity state as conveyed in a life story
is a dynamic construction, its salience and intensity may fluctuate over time, and the particular
linguistic choices made by a narrator can be subtly revealing about the identity conveyed.

OPERATIONALIZATION OF NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE

What are the possible narrative perspectives that can be adopted by a person when describing life
events to an audience? We define narrative perspective as the relation of the narrating person to the
content of a life story. We describe three variations of narrative perspective (see Table 1). In the first
case, what we term retrospective perspective, the narrator’s position is located in the present of the
narration and the life story content is located in the past of the narrated events. The important feature of
the retrospective form is that the narrator’s position and content are located differently. In the cases of
the two other forms of narrative perspective the narrator’s position and the life story content have the
same locations. However, they differ significantly in the way how the narrator achieves the same
location. In a second case, what we term ‘experiencing’ perspective, the narrator moves his or her
position from the present of the narration to the past of the narrated events. As a consequence both the
narrator’s position and content are located in the past of the narrated events. In the third case, what we
term ‘re-experiencing’ perspective, the narrator moves the life story content from the past of the
narrated events to the present of the narration. Consequently, both the narrator’s position and content
are located in the present of the narration.
One advantage of this conceptualization is that the three perspective forms of interest can be
linguistically operationalized. This is the case because spoken language features several linguistic
markers for indicating the location of both the narrator’s position and the life story content such as verb
tense, deictic terms (these are terms whose full meaning depend on the extra-linguistic context in
which they are used), and reported speech (Jakobson, 1970; Lyons, 1981). The ‘retrospective’
perspective uses past tense, distal deictic terms (e.g. ‘there’ instead of ‘here’) and reported speech

Table 1. Three forms of narrative perspective

Narrative perspective form Location of narrator’s position Location of life story content

Retrospective Narration Narrated events

Experiencing Narrated events Narrated events
Re-experiencing Narration Narration

Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 35, 785–796 (2005)
788 Tibor Polya et al.

to recount life events (e.g. I went to the house . . . There was nobody there . . . He said he was alone . . .
etc.). The ‘experiencing’ perspective features present tense, proximal deictic terms (e.g. ‘here’ instead
of ‘there’), and direct speech to recount the same life events (e.g. I am going to the house . . . there is
nobody here . . . He says ‘I am alone’ . . . etc.). The ‘re-experiencing’ perspective also uses present
tense, proximal deictic terms, and direct speech to recount the same life events, and, in addition,
frequent uses of mental state terms (see underlined) indicates that the events are being re-experienced
by the narrating person (e.g. I remember vividly . . . I am going to the house . . . There is nobody
here . . . I can hear even now as he is saying ‘I am alone’ . . . etc.).
What do these different linguistic forms, and the different narrative perspectives they represent,
convey about the narrator to an audience when the narrator reports on a negative life event?
Specifically, we may formulate three predictions regarding the perception of the narrator’s actual
identity state. First, when the narrator takes a retrospective form his or her position is clearly
differentiated from the negative events. We assume that this differentiation reflects the real situation
and makes more effective the selection of the relevant life events and hence results in a more coherent
life story. Based on this assumption, we predict that readers of a negative life story should perceive the
retrospective narrator’s identity state as coherent and settled. Second, when the narrator takes an
experiencing or re-experiencing perspective, his or her position is merged with the negative events. We
assume that this non-differentiation makes more intense the emotions related to the life events and
results in an emotionally intense life story. In line with this idea, we predict that readers of a negative
life story should perceive the experiencing and re-experiencing narrator’s identity state as burdened
with unresolved identity issues. Whereas, both the experiencing and re-experiencing perspective
forms indicate an emotional involvement, we assume that the experiencing narrator’s identity state is
more organized, because, in this case the location of the narrative content remains unchanged.
Consequently, we predict that readers of a negative life story should perceive the experiencing
narrator’s identity state as less problematic than the re-experiencing narrator’s identity state.
Of course, different individuals may show different sensitivity to the subtle identity cues conveyed
by the different narrative perspectives. For example, those experienced in listening to life stories and
trained in identifying significant latent cues may be more influenced by how a story is told. To test
these predictions we recruited two groups of participants in this study: psychotherapists and
laypersons, who were asked to judge the narrator. Since psychotherapists have specialized training
and more practice in inferring psychological qualities from their clients’ life stories, we expect that
professionals should be more sensitive to the information conveyed by different narrative perspectives.

METHOD

Participants

Participants were 26 qualified psychotherapists (professional group, three males, 23 females, mean
age: 33.29 years, SD: 6.77) and 61 undergraduate students (non-professional group, 18 males, 44
females, mean age: 20.39 years, SD: 1.92) from a large university campus in Hungary. They
participated in the study in group sessions.

Materials

Three identity stories were constructed on the basis of a careful analysis of previously collected life
story interviews with Jews, gays, and infertile women (Ehmann & Eros, 2002; T. Pólya, unpublished

Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 35, 785–796 (2005)
 Narrative perspective 789

doctoral dissertation, 2003). Each life story described a critical episode in which the narrator’s identity
was at stake. The content of the three life stories was as follows:
—Being Jewish: This life story recounted the time when the narrator first discovered that he/she was
Jewish. The story relates a childhood episode when the narrator showed a Christmas present to a
friend, who expressed surprise that a Jewish family would celebrate Christmas (not unusual within
Hungary’s highly assimilated Jewish community). The narrator reacted with fear and dismay to the
realization of being a member of a recently persecuted minority.
—Being homosexual: this life story described the episode when after a family dinner, the narrator first
communicated to his family that he was homosexual. The parents reacted with desperation, and the
narrator experienced relief as a result of this episode.
—Being infertile: this life story recounts an experience when the female narrator is informed by a
doctor that attempts to induce an artificial pregnancy have failed. The narrator reacts with despair
and questions her feminine identity.

Procedure

Every participant was asked to read three life stories which recounted events relevant to the narrator’s
identity as (a) Jewish, (b) gay, and (c) infertile female. Further, each identity story was reported from
one of three possible narrative perspectives: retrospective, experiencing or re-experiencing. Narrative
perspective was manipulated using the discursive linguistic markers discussed above. Each variant of
each identity story had an equal number of words. The stories and narrative perspectives were
combined in a Latin squares design so that each participant read each identity story from one of three
different narrative perspective forms.

Judgments

After reading each life story participants were asked to answer eight questions about the narrator’s
identity on seven-point bipolar scales (identity judgments) and to form impressions of the person on
16 seven-point bipolar adjective scales (impression formation judgments). The identity questions
were always presented in the same order, but the order of adjectives was randomly varied. The
questions about the narrator’s identity state included: 1. To what extent is being Jewish/infertile/gay a
problem for the narrator? 2. To what extent does the narrator realize the underlying connection
between the narrated events and his/her identity? 3. Does this story come from a person who is
mentally ill/well balanced? 4. To what extent does the Jewish/infertile/gay identity determine the
narrator’s life? 5. How intense were the narrator’s emotional reactions to the event in the past,
and 6. How intense are they in the present? 7. To what extent does the narrator appear to accept that
he/she is Jewish/infertile/gay? 8. To what extent is it important for the narrator that he/she is Jewish/
infertile/gay?
The 16 impression formation adjectives were selected from the person perception literature in order
to cover the major impression formation dimensions such as social and task evaluation, self-
confidence and potency that were previously identified as important in social judgments. The
seven-point rating scales assessed a variety of the personal characteristics of the narrator, such as
being intelligent, judicious, vigorous, impulsive, anxious, tense, resigned, balanced, self-confident,
happy, sympathetic, empathetic, friendly, shy, well-spoken and communicative.

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790 Tibor Polya et al.

RESULTS

Factor Analysis

Given the number of dependent measures used (eight identity judgments and 16 impression formation
adjectives) there may well be some redundancy among these measures. If all 24 responses were
analysed independently, the likelihood of Type I errors influencing the results is considerable. In order
to control for this possibility, two separate principal components factor analyses were performed with
the objective of combining overlapping judgments, and creating a smaller number of non-redundant
dependent measures for identity and impression formation judgments respectively. Items with factor
scores less than 0.35 were excluded.

Identity Questions

The factor analysis of the eight identity questions resulted in a three-factor solution, reflecting Identity
acceptance, Identity importance and Mental adjustment.
The first factor had an Eigenvalue of 2.98 and accounted for 37.3% of the variance, and consisted of
four judgments reflecting the perceived acceptance of the identity by the narrator (emotional intensity
of the narrator in the past (
0.848) and in the present (
0.750), the extent to which the identity was
perceived as problematic (0.780), and was accepted (0.728) by him/her).
The second factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.58 and accounted for 19.8% of the variance, and indicated
the Identity importance to the narrator, and consisted of two questions: whether the identity was seen
as important to the narrator (0.825), and was seen as determining his/her life (0.795).
The third factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.14, accounted for 12.7% of the variance and reflected the
perceived Mental adjustment of the narrator. This factor consisted of two questions: whether the
narrator was seen as mentally ill (0.884) and his/her ability to perceive the relationship between his/her
identity and the narrated event (0.571).

Impression Formation Judgments

The factor analysis of the 16 impression formation adjectives resulted in a four-factor solution,
identified as Social evaluation, Anxiety, Dynamism, and Shyness.
The first factor was a Social evaluation factor with an Eigenvalue of 4.30 and accounted for 26.9%
of the variance, loading on the intelligent (0.819), sympathetic (0.806), communicative (0.726),
empathetic (0.674), friendly (0.632), and judicious (0.616) adjectives.
The second factor had an Eigenvalue of 2.60 and accounted for 16.2% of the variance, and reflected
the perceived Anxiety of the narrator, consisting of six adjectives: self-confident (
0.824), happy
(
0.798), tense (0.678), balanced (
0.648), anxious (0.600) and resigned (0.586).
The third factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.78, accounted for 11.15% of the variance and indicated the
perceived Dynamism of the narrator, with three adjectives loading on this factor: vigorous (0.859),
impulsive (0.846) and communicative (0.494).
The fourth factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.22, accounted for 7.6% of the variance and consisted
of two adjectives: shy (0.785), and judicious (0.358). We interpreted this factor as indicating
Shyness.

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The Effects of Narrative Perspective on Identity and Impression Formation Judgments

Based on the results of the factor analysis, the eight original identity judgments were combined into
three non-redundant judgmental dimensions and the 16 impression formation adjectives were
combined into four non-redundant impression formation dimensions, using the factor score coeffi-
cients as weights. Next, a 3  3  2 MANOVA was conducted to examine the overall effects of a
narrative perspective (retrospective, experiencing, and re-experiencing), narrative content (being
Jewish, homosexual and infertile) and therapeutic experience of the judges (psychotherapists and
laypersons) on the seven judgmental factors as dependent measures. There was a significant main
effect due to narrative perspective, F(14, 436) ¼ 3.76, p < 0.001). Furthermore, there was also a
significant main effect due to content, F(14, 436) ¼ 17.46, p < 0.001). There was no significant main
effect due to psychotherapy experience (F(7, 217) ¼ 1.31, p > 0.10). Among the two-way interactions
only narrative perspective and content interaction is significant (F(28, 880) ¼ 1.62, p < 0.05). Next, a
series of univariate analysis explored the nature of these effects (see Tables 2 and 3). On four factors
(Mental adjustment, Anxiety, Dynamism, and Shyness) both narrative perspective and content have an
effect. On Social evaluation factor only narrative perspective has an effect, while on Identity
acceptance and Identity importance factors are influenced only by life story content.
Our first prediction suggests that readers perceive the retrospective narrator’s identity state as more
coherent and settled than the experiencing and re-experiencing narrator’s identity state. We tested this
prediction by taking into consideration the Mental adjustment and Social evaluation factors.
Judgments of perceived Mental adjustment of the narrator were significantly influenced by
narrative perspective (F(2, 240) ¼ 7.26, p < 0.001). In line with the first prediction the contrast
analysis indicated that the retrospective narrator’s identity state (M ¼ 5.47, SD ¼ 1.29) is perceived
as more mentally adjusted than the experiencing (M ¼ 4.73, SD ¼ 1.51) and re-experiencing
(M ¼ 4.62, SD ¼ 1.45) narrators’ identity state. The content also has an effect on the perceived Mental
adjustment (F(2, 240) ¼ 5.42, p < 0.001). Follow-up t-tests of the cell means showed that the
homosexual narrator (M ¼ 5.38, SD ¼ 1.35) is perceived as more mentally adjusted than the female
(M ¼ 4.68, SD ¼ 1.55; tH—F (170) ¼ 3.14, p < 0.01) and the Jewish (M ¼ 4.76, SD ¼ 1.39; tH—J
(170) ¼ 2.94, p < 0.01) narrators. The respondents’ therapeutic experience had no effect on perceived
Mental adjustment, and there was no significant interaction between the independent variables.

Table 2. The effects of narrative perspective (retrospective, experiencing, re-experiencing) on the perceived
factors. The results of the univariate F-tests are shown in the right hand column; the means identified by different
superscripts within each row are significantly different from each other in terms of contrast analysis
Perceived factors Narrative perspective form ANOVA

Retrospective Experiencing Re-experiencing

M SD M SD M SD

Identity judgments
Identity acceptance 0.23 0.77 0.16 0.86 0.41 0.84 F(2, 243) ¼ 1.24
Identity importance 5.71 1.42 5.57 1.56 5.60 1.41 F(2, 243) < 1
Mental adjustment 5.47a 1.29 4.73b 1.51 4.62b 1.25 F(2, 240) ¼ 7.26**
Impression formation judgments
Social evaluation 5.01a 1.07 4.32b 1.24 4.51b 1.18 F(2, 229) ¼ 7.36**
Anxiety
0.13a 1.11 0.02b 1.19 0.34c 1.12 F(2, 235) ¼ 5.29**
Dynamism 4.09a 1.28 4.70b 1.32 4.16a 1.24 F(2, 241) ¼ 4.81**
Shyness 3.72a 1.34 3.34b 1.27 3.69a 1.18 F(2, 240) ¼ 3.09*
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

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792 Tibor Polya et al.

Table 3. The effects of narrative content (being Jewish, homosexual or infertile) on the perceived factors. The
results of the univariate F-tests are shown in the right hand column; the means identified by different superscripts
within each row are at least tendentially different from each other in terms of follow-up t-tests of cell means
Perceived factors Life story content ANOVA

Jewish Homosexual Female

narrator narrator narrator

M SD M SD M SD

Identity judgments
Identity acceptance
0.16a 0.72 0.16b 0.79
0.90c 0.56 F(2, 243) ¼ 39.15***
Identity importance 4.61a 1.57 5.77b 1.24 6.50c 0.78 F(2, 243) ¼ 39.87***
Mental adjustment 4.76a 1.39 5.38b 1.35 4.68a 1.55 F(2, 240) ¼ 5.42**
Impression formation judgments
Social evaluation 4.48 1.06 4.76 1.26 4.57 1.25 F(2, 229) < 1
Anxiety 0.06a 1.09
0.68b 0.96 0.88c 0.83 F(2, 235) ¼ 44.99***
Dynamism 4.04a 1.39 4.28a 1.22 4.61b 1.25 F(2, 241) ¼ 3.97*
Shyness 3.28a 1.21 4.02b 1.36 3.44a 1.14 F(2, 240) ¼ 5.57**
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

Judgments on the Social evaluation measure were also significantly influenced by narrative
perspective (F(2, 229) ¼ 7.36, p < 0.001). Also in line with our first prediction the contrast analysis
indicates that the retrospective narrator’s identity state (M ¼ 5.01, SD ¼ 1.07) is valued more positively
than the experiencing (M ¼ 4.32, SD ¼ 1.24) and re-experiencing (M ¼ 4.51, SD ¼ 1.18) narrators’
identity state. The content and therapeutic experience of the judges had no main or interaction effects
on this measure.
Our second and third predictions regard the extent of the unresolved identity issues. We expected that
the retrospective narrator’s identity state is less problematic, the experiencing narrator’s identity state is
more problematic, and the re-experiencing narrator’s identity state is the most problematic. We tested
this expectation by investigating the Anxiety, Dynamism, Shyness and Identity acceptance factors.
Narrative perspective had a significant influence on the perceived Anxiety of the narrator
(F(2, 235) ¼ 5.29, p < 0.01). The contrast analysis revealed that readers perceived the retrospective
narrator’s identity state as less anxious (M ¼
0.13, SD ¼ 1.11), followed by an experiencing narrator
(M ¼ 0.02, SD ¼ 1.19), and the re-experiencing narrators’ identity state as the most anxious
(M ¼ 0.34, SD ¼ 1.12). This pattern is in perfect line with the second and third predictions. Narrative
content also had an effect on the perceived Anxiety of the narrator (F(2, 235) ¼ 40.73, p < 0.001).
Follow-up t-tests established that readers perceived the homosexual narrator as less anxious
(M ¼
0.68, SD ¼ 0.96), followed by the Jewish narrator (M ¼ 0.06, SD ¼ 1.09; tH—J (167) ¼ 4.71,
p < 0.001), and the female narrator (M ¼ 0.88, SD ¼ 0.83; tJ—F(152) ¼ 5.43, p < 0.001) is perceived as
the most anxious.
Psychotherapeutic experience also had an effect on the perceived Anxiety (F(1, 235) ¼ 4.77,
p < 0.05). Psychotherapists (M ¼ 0.28, SD ¼ 1.02) perceive the identity identity-state of a narrator
more anxious than laypersons (M ¼ 0.01, SD ¼ 1.20; t(165) ¼ 1.99; p < 0.05). There was no any
interaction effect.
Judgments of the narrator’s Dynamism were also significantly influenced by narrative perspective
(F(2, 241) ¼ 4.81, p < 0.01). A contrast analysis showed that readers perceived the experiencing
narrator’s identity state as more dynamic (M ¼ 4.70, SD ¼ 1.32) than the re-experiencing narrator’s
identity state (M ¼ 4.16, SD ¼ 1.24), and this is line with our third prediction regarding the difference
between these two perspectives. However, contrary to our expectation, the retrospective narrator’s

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identity state (M ¼ 4.09, SD ¼ 1.28) was not perceived as more dynamic than the experiencing and re-
experiencing narrators’ identity states. Narrative content also had an effect on perceived Dynamism
(F(2, 241) ¼ 3.97, p < 0.05). Follow-up t-tests have revealed that the female narrator (M ¼ 4.61,
SD ¼ 1.25) is perceived as more dynamic than either the homosexual (M ¼ 4.28, SD ¼ 1.22; tF—H
(172) ¼ 1.78, p < 0.10) or Jewish (M ¼ 4.04, SD ¼ 1.39; tF—J(170) ¼ 2.83, p < 0.01) narrator. There
was also a significant interaction between narrative perspective and content (F(2, 241) ¼ 3.60,
p < 0.01). Therapeutic experience had no main or interaction effect on this judgment.
Finally, there was also a significant main effect of narrative perspective to influence the perceived
Shyness of the narrator (F(2, 240) ¼ 3.09, p < 0.05). A contrast analysis revealed that according to the
readers perception the re-experiencing narrator’s identity state is more shy (M ¼ 3.69, SD ¼ 1.18)
than the experiencing narrator’s identity state (M ¼ 3.34, SD ¼ 1.27). This result confirms again the
third prediction. However, also contrary to our expectations, the retrospective narrators’ identity state
(M ¼ 3.72, SD ¼ 1.34) is not perceived as less shy than the two other kinds of narrator. The perceived
Shyness of the narrator also was influenced by life story content (F(2, 240) ¼ 5.57, p < 0.01). The most
shy is the homosexual narrator (M ¼ 4.02, SD ¼ 1.36), followed by the female (M ¼ 3.44, SD ¼ 1.14;
tH—F(172) ¼ 3.05, p < 0.01) and Jewish (M ¼ 3.28, SD ¼ 1.21; tH—J(169) ¼ 3.74, p < 0.001) narra-
tors. There was also an interaction between narrative perspective and content (F(2, 240) ¼ 2.24,
p < 0.10). There was no main effect due to therapeutic experience, and no interaction effect.
On the factors of Identity acceptance and Identity importance there were no effects of narrative
perspective. However, life story content had effects on both measures (FAc(2, 243) ¼ 39.15, p > 0.001;
FIm(2, 243) ¼ 39.87, p > 0.001). As readers perceived, the homosexual narrator accepts to the most
extent his identity (M ¼ 0.16, SD ¼ 0.79), followed by a Jewish narrator (M ¼
0.16, SD ¼ 0.72; tH—J
(172) ¼ 2.78, p < 0.01), and a female narrator accepts the least her identity (M ¼
0.90, SD ¼ 0.56;
tJ—F(169) ¼ 7.64, p < 0.001). Regarding importance, identity is most important for the female narrator
(M ¼ 6.50, SD ¼ 0.78), followed by the homosexual narrator (M ¼ 5.77, SD ¼ 1.24; tF—H(172) ¼ 4.64,
p < 0.001), and for the Jewish narrator it is the least important (M ¼ 4.61, SD ¼ 1.57; tH—J
(164) ¼ 5.42, p < 0.001). There was no main effect due to therapeutic experience, and there was no
interaction effect on these two measures.

DISCUSSION

This study has investigated the effects of narrative perspective and narrative content on the perceived
characteristics of the narrating person. The results confirm our predictions in several ways. The
predicted coherence of the retrospective narrator’s identity state is underlined by its perceived Mental
adjustment and Social evaluation. The predicted unresolved identity states of the experiencing and re-
experiencing narrators’ are confirmed by their perceived Anxiety. Finally, the predicted difference
between these two perspective forms is also confirmed, since the re-experiencing narrator’s identity
state is perceived as more anxious, more shy and less dynamic than the experiencing.
However, in two respects results contradict our expectations showing that the retrospective
narrator’s identity state is considered as relatively less dynamic and more shy. One tentative
explanation could be that given the low emotional involvement of the retrospective narrator’s identity
state readers may perceive it as passive and reserved to some extent. Furthermore, contrary to our
expectations narrative perspective had no effect on the perceived Identity acceptance. One possible
explanation for this lack of narrative perspective effect can be that Jewish, homosexual and female
narrators explicitly deal with the theme of identity acceptance in their life stories, so the content may
have a plateau effect on the readers’ perception.

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794 Tibor Polya et al.

The data also indicate that the content of a life story has a considerably stronger effect on the
perceived quality of the narrator’s identity state than narrative perspective. However, it should be
mentioned that while the content of life stories was considerably different between Jewish, homo-
sexual and female narrators on the one hand, the difference in narrative perspective reflects only one
part of the narrative structure on the other hand. We may speculate that changing several features of the
narrative structure has a stronger effect on the readers’ perception.
These results provide clear evidence that the use of different narrative perspectives indeed
communicates significant, but latent information to an audience about the narrator and his/her
identity, even if the substantive content of the life stories remains the same. Language as a medium
of communication offers a multiplicity of ways of conveying social information beyond the immediate
semantic meaning of the text (Forgas, 1985). Indeed, our experiment adds to growing evidence
suggesting that many of the most important social communicative functions of language are not
inherent in the actual semantic information that is being conveyed, but are communicated using latent
channels, such as subtle shifts in perspective. Consistent with this view, previous research by Semin
and Fiedler (1988) also showed that the selective use of more or less abstract linguistic categories can
function as a subtle and latent communication device.
Why does narrative perspective have such a major influence on how the narrator is perceived? It
seems that audiences are highly attuned to narrative perspective of the retrospective, especially when
the communication concerns a potentially problematic and identity-relevant life event. When the
narrator describes a past event in the past tense using reported speech, this perspective is most likely to
convey an impression of a stable, settled and no longer conflictuous identity state. However, when the
narrator describes a past event as if it was happening now (experiencing the episode), or uses
grammatical forms suggesting being an ongoing participant in the past episode (re-experiencing
perspective), audiences infer a more problematic and troubled identity state, perceive the narrator as
being less well adjusted and more anxious, and form less favourable impressions.
It is particularly interesting that according to our results, such subtle shifts in narrative perspective
influence not only perceptions of the narrator’s identity, but also give rise to quite marked changes in
general impression formation judgments. Apparently, problematic past life events are best commu-
nicated from a more detached, retrospective perspective if the narrator wishes to avoid being
negatively evaluated and being perceived as anxious and insecure. When the same event is described
as if it was experienced or re-experienced, audiences seem more likely to infer an unresolved and
conflicted identity state, and seem to form less favourable impressions of the narrator.
There is reason to assume, although we do not have direct evidence for this in the present study, that
neither the narrator nor the audience are likely to be consciously aware of the communicative
functions that shifts in narrative perspective fulfil. Speakers are rarely able to explicitly monitor such
linguistic features of their messages, and there is good evidence that much everyday verbal
communication occurs in a relatively fast, spontaneous and almost mindless fashion (Forgas, 1985).
In a similar way, audiences are unlikely to be aware that their judgments may be influenced by such
subtle cues as narrative perspective employed by the communicator. Much verbal communication
seems to be executed using such automatic and subconscious processes (Bless & Forgas, 2000).
Greater attention to how such latent cues are spontaneously used in verbal communication seems to be
particularly important, considering renewed recent interest in experimental social psychology in the
role of various automatic mechanisms in the regulation of social behaviour (e.g. Dijksterhuis, Bargh,
& Midema, 2000).
We should also note that the personal background of the audience—in this case, their psychother-
apeutic experience—only had a limited effect on how narrative perspective was interpreted. Perhaps
not surprisingly, it was only when judging Anxiety that psychotherapists were somewhat more
sensitive to narrative perspective than laypersons. These results suggest that narrative perspective

Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 35, 785–796 (2005)
 Narrative perspective 795

represents an effective—if latent—source of social information that can be understood by everybody

without specialist training.
Theoretical frameworks suggest a close link between identity and life story (Bruner & Feldman,
1996; McAdams, 1988). Georgesen and Solano (1999) offer empirical evidence that temporary
situational factors and motivational states can influence the shape and structure of narrative reports.
Our findings that people are able to infer identity states on the basis of narrative perspective are
consistent with their theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence. However, our experiment
complements these theoretical frameworks by showing for the first time that naı̈ve audiences are
highly sensitive to, and form strong inferences on the basis of such, subtle changes in narrative
perspective. In a way, a dynamic identity-related life story not only helps to construct and display the
self and define who we are (Bruner & Feldman, 1996; Schiffrin, 1996, 2000), but in addition, it can
also be a source of leakage, in the sense of unintentionally revealing hidden information about
problematic and unresolved social identities.
Of course, there are some limitations that should be considered when interpreting these results. In
this study, we used short identity-related life stories about negative life events. However, we think that
narrative perspective has the same effects on perceived coherence and emotional intensity of a narrator
while he or she is recounting positive life events. Another limitation reflects the fact that the life stories
we used featured one consistent narrative perspective form. It is quite possible that everyday life
stories may combine all three forms of narrative perspective, yielding a complex sequential pattern.
We expect that complex patterns of shifts and changes in narrative perspective can convey even more
complex information about a narrating person’s identity state. For example, such dynamic changes in
narrative perspective may reveal much about subtle shifts in the psychological qualities of an identity
state as its salience and intensity fluctuates over time (e.g. Turner et al., 1994).
We would also like to make a methodological point here. Much research on verbal narratives at the
present time employs non-experimental methods, using descriptive and illustrative techniques instead.
We would like to suggest that controlled experimental methods offer a perfectly reasonable and more
reliable way of studying the communicative functions of various narrative strategies. Although it is
sometimes claimed that the study of narrative strategies is not easily amenable to controlled
experimental methods, we believe that there is much to be gained by applying experimental methods
to the study of narratives and discourse strategies.
In conclusion, we believe, with George Herbert Mead (1934), that language provides the primary
medium whereby social identities and social selves are constructed and displayed. It is by telling
stories about ourselves, and by observing the reactions of our audience that a shared and coherent
sense of identity is established. However, language does far more than just convey semantic
information. Indeed, some of the most important social cues are hidden in the narrative and discursive
choices communicators make in particular situations (Forgas, 1985). The present experiment showed
that audiences are highly attuned to the latent informational content of personal narratives, such as
narrative perspective adopted. Unfortunately, research on the pragmatics of language use remains a
relatively neglected field in experimental social psychology today. We hope that this study will
stimulate further interest in experimental research on the everyday use of language in social situations.

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