Stories and societies: World Beliefs Survey, part two

Posted on 19 December 2012 by Laura Akers, Ph.D.

Beliefs about the groups that we’re part of, like political and religious beliefs, inevitably involve stories. Many of these stories involve actions and consequences (things that happened), or relationships between groups, and many of them tell us what we ought to be doing. When they’re in simple form, such that we’re not even necessarily aware of them until someone points them out, these storylike beliefs about groups are called “metanarratives,” and that’s what I studied in my dissertation research.

Last time I wrote about patterns in these beliefs, common themes that statistically “clustered together” for the people who took my survey. I had planned this time to tell you about how certain kinds of metanarrative beliefs were more likely to inspire action among their believers, but now I’m thinking it would make more sense to talk first about the different ways these beliefs involve story elements. This will lay a better foundation for my next post, on beliefs and action.

Story Elements

What makes a story? In the very most basic terms, a story needs three things: a situation, a problem within that situational context, and a possible or realized outcome for that problem. Three little talking pigs living near each other (situation) are plagued by a talking wolf with mighty lungs (problem), and despite a few setbacks, they build adequate housing and the wolf is thwarted (outcome). Most stories aren’t very engaging without a greater level of detail than that, but metanarratives are a special case, because they are about ourselves. They can be very simple and still very powerful.

Many metanarratives are about how things came to be the way they are, like the Fall from Eden story, or the founding of a nation. Others are about a group’s purpose or destiny, like Woodrow Wilson’s 1917 speech telling us that America’s mission is to make the world safe for democracy. Of course, some can fit both of those categories, and others don’t fit either, like those that are more along the lines of “These are the things that always happen to us.”

So, we can say that metanarratives might fit the basic story structure (with a situation, a problem, and an outcome), and they might involve a goal for the group (“make the world safe for democracy” or “save us from global climate catastrophe”). My advisor and two other students helped me classify my list of metanarratives to see how well they met these criteria. Unfortunately, we didn’t agree at all on the first criteria, but we did well on recognizing goal presence.

Genre: Which Direction Are We Headed?

In literature, there are several classic genres, such as comedy, tragedy, and romance. We can think of metanarratives as having genres as well, based on an evaluation of how things are going over time. For example, in a Progress metanarrative, things have been getting better, and we expect this trend to continue into the future.

Check out Figure 1. This figure presents most of the main genres for metanarratives. The second one, Prior Fall, tells us that things were much better in the past, but they’ve gone downhill. The Fall from Eden story clearly fits this type, as do the many stories of a past golden age, whether we’re referring to the classical world, the time of the Prophet, primordial times when our ancestors were more proud and valiant, or past centuries or millennia when we lived in greater harmony with nature.

Figure 1:

diss.fig1

The Looming Catastrophe genre tells us that unless we take action, things are going to fall apart. Examples include global climate change, an influx of needy immigrants, or a religious apocalypse. This genre applies to metanarratives where action can set matters right. I didn’t include metanarratives where nothing can be done (Tragedy), because I was interested in the relationship between genres and motivation, and if nothing can be done, what’s there to motivate us? I think now that this was an oversight. Derrick Jensen, for example, has written about people who think global warming is inevitable, and it would have been worthwhile to study this type of belief too.

In the Recovery or Restoration genre, things were wonderful in the past and not so great now, but it’s possible to get back to the way things were in the good old days. This genre essentially combines the Prior Fall and Progress metanarratives, although separately they may not imply the other part at all (Prior Falls may not all be resolvable, and Progress often arises out of disorder and ignorance, not a glorious past). The nationalist movements of the late 1800s and early 1900s often used this genre, revitalizing folklore to inspire people to identify with their ancestors, and suggesting that independence would lead to much greater happiness for the group. Our research on militant extremists (terrorists) showed that this storyline has been very popular in their worldviews as well.

In a Stability metanarrative, things don’t change, and this can lead to a sense of security and “rightness.” A Triumphalist metanarrative combines Progress in the past with Stability in the present and future (for example, “We brought civilization to the native people of our continent,” or “We won the Cold War, and now we’re the Lone Superpower”). Finally, in a Romantic Saga (like the “Perils of Pauline” in silent films), things get better, then worse, then better, then worse, without any long-term resolution. None of these three types would be expected to engender much of a sense of suspense, because if there’s a “problem,” we don’t expect that the “outcome” would resolve things, or else it already did and we’re just basking in the glory.

When selecting metanarratives for the survey, I took care to include metanarratives that might appeal to liberals and conservatives for each genre. In general, my coding team agreed with me about classifying most of the metanarratives, but we didn’t agree on all of them.

Selective Focus and Exceptional Circumstances

Stories always focus on one set of problems and characters, and sometimes one perspective, to the exclusion of others. They leave out extraneous details, and they try to convince us that the story we’re hearing is worth our attention. Metanarratives can do this too, using ideas about exceptional circumstances to try to convince us that one belief, rather than another, is especially important.

For example, some metanarratives tell us that the distant past, or some version of the distant future, could be described as an ideal state. Metanarratives can tell us that we’ve been chosen for a special mission. They can refer to unique or only opportunities and get us to think in extreme terms (“This is our last chance to save the world”). They can bring in sacred or divine elements, or they can try to evoke the same kind of feelings without religion, with “secular sacred” concepts like purity, righteousness, and absolutes, or conversely, evil.

My expectation was that when people believe in metanarratives with these exceptional elements, then they’ll be especially motivated to act accordingly. It was interesting to find, though, that people were much less likely to believe in metanarratives that had these elements. I haven’t separated out the ones that referenced religion versus those that didn’t, so we don’t know how to interpret this skepticism. Maybe people tend to be put off by exceptional claims in general, or maybe this finding just reflects the fraction of the survey respondents who rejected religious beliefs in general.

Whew! With this background, then, next time we’ll be better prepared to talk about the relationship between beliefs and action.

Which story elements and metanarrative genres are the most motivating? Tune in next time to find out!

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What Americans believe: World Beliefs Survey, part one

Posted on 8 December 2012 by Laura Akers, Ph.D.

It’s high time I fulfilled my commitment to the people who completed my online World Beliefs survey and let people know what I learned in my dissertation research. (Thanks, again, to all of my friends, friends of friends, and helpful members of online communities who helped me out by taking my survey!)

The Big Picture

In my dissertation, I studied metanarratives – beliefs about the “big picture” for a group (especially the citizenry of a country, or humanity at large) that have story elements (like references to time and change or the lack of it). Examples could include, “Everything’s going to fall apart if we don’t hurry up and do something about…” Global warming. Illegal immigrants. The national debt. Or, “We used to live in nearly idyllic conditions, until…” The Industrial Revolution. The patriarchy came along. Adam bit that apple. Previously, social scientists have studied metanarratives by looking at how one or more of them evolved in specific conditions, but nobody has done a comparative study of this type of beliefs before.

Data!

In my study, I asked people to indicate how much they agreed with each of a list of 73 metanarrative belief statements. I collected data from two groups of people: undergraduate students at our university and people who were willing to complete the survey on the web. I focused mostly on the responses from lifelong U.S. residents. Then I used the data to find patterns in the metanarrative beliefs, and also to see whether the storylike features of some of the beliefs affected people’s willingness to act on those beliefs. In this post, I’ll talk about the first of those: patterns in the beliefs.

Themes: Who Believes What?

First I used “exploratory factor analysis” with the data to find broad themes among the survey questions. For the students, the analyses yielded six such themes:
• Traditional Religion
• Secular American Nationalism
• International Cooperation
• Eco-Romanticism
• Anti-Government Cynicism
• Rational Progress

“Traditional Religion” was favored, not surprisingly, by Christians and Republicans. The interesting bit here was that people lumped pretty much every overtly religious metanarrative together. Whether the origins were actually Christian, or instead Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or ancient Egyptian, they all seemed similar to the people completing the surveys. What I found most interesting was that 44% of the students said they strongly believed that “All of reality is moving toward unity with the cosmic Absolute,” which is actually a tenet of Hinduism, and 35% believed in the seed of the divine within everyone that can reunite us with our divine origin after death, an ancient Egyptian belief that also shows up in Jewish Kabbalistic thinking. Only one of the students was Hindu, and only one was Jewish (no ancient Egyptians), but maybe these beliefs look like generic Western mystical beliefs to most people. In my opinion, it also shows that people weren’t necessarily indicating what their beliefs actually were when they started the survey, but rather, if something sounded good, then they’d go along with it.

“Secular American Nationalism,” aka patriotism, was big among Republicans, of course, and especially favored by immigrants to the U.S. On the other hand, Democrats were more interested in “International Cooperation,” which was supported by agnostics but generally rejected by atheists. (Why, I wonder?)

The existence of an “Eco-Romanticism” factor means that respondents who cared strongly about environmental issues also tended to believe that life has become too complicated and that people had stronger community ties in the past – beliefs that have no explicit environmental component (and that can also be shared by reactionaries and fundamentalists). Eco-romantics tended to be older and were more likely to be female and to have well-educated mothers.

“Anti-Government Cynicism,” naturally, reflects the beliefs of the numerous Libertarians who completed the survey (which was great; I’m glad the results I got aren’t just reflecting the two-party mainstream).

“Rational Progress” lumped together all the beliefs in favor of science, technology, and improving social justice, even though in practice, it seems that people strongly concerned about social issues aren’t necessarily likely to believe that technology has all the answers.

So that was for the students. For the web sample, the analyses showed four factors, which roughly corresponded to combinations of the student factors, but which were sometimes more strident. The first factor wasn’t just “Traditional Religion” but rather, ended up closer to “Militant Religious Entitlement,” with an emphasis on extremism, chosen people, and fundamentalism. Christians and Republicans tended to accept the whole bundle of these beliefs (to some degree), while atheists, agnostics, and Greens/radical left generally rejected them all.

In the web sample, “International Cooperation” and “Eco-Romanticism” went hand in hand, rather than independently, and were combined into the same factor, which was favored by agnostics, non-Christian religious people, and especially Greens/radical left. There was again a secular patriotism factor, endorsed mostly by Republicans, and then the fourth factor colored “Anti-Government Cynicism” with a big dollop of Capitalism, to create a factor that was absolutely adored by the Libertarians and rejected soundly by the Democrats.

Common Ground?

Even though the results I just reported make Americans look very partisan, if we look at the results for individual metanarratives, there’s actually quite a lot of common ground. Most people said they valued international cooperation, multiculturalism, a strong work ethic, standing up to minority oppression, reducing the influence of global corporations, and the value of science. Most people rejected militant extremism, the idea of a superior race, the “woman’s place is in the home” argument, and domination over nature.

In fact, most people shared the same common core of beliefs, and their religious and political affiliations tended to just mean that they also accepted – or rejected – additional bundles of beliefs. Christians, of course, also have a lot of religious beliefs, which atheists and to some degree agnostics then reject. Republicans add on a bunch of beliefs about the need for national defense and the special role of America in the world scene. Libertarians reject beliefs about the role of government. And those identifying as Greens and/or members of the radical left reject long lists of beliefs that the others hold, while adding on some of their own.

Democrats had no special identifying beliefs. It’s possible, of course, that I just didn’t think of any to put in the survey, but overall the results suggest that Democrats (a) are currently near the political center of the United States (along with Libertarians, more or less) and (b) may not be taking as much advantage of narratives in political discourse as they could.

Of course, my research goes into a lot more detail, but this seems like enough for now.

Questions, anyone?

Next time: Which kinds of beliefs are most likely to inspire action? And what does this mean for solving big problems like global warming?

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Is every story a journey?

Posted on 25 November 2012 by Laura Akers, Ph.D.

On a refreshingly cloudy afternoon last July, I faced the last big hurdle in earning my Ph.D. in psychology: “defending” my dissertation. People in other departments, at other universities, tell me this can be a grueling event, but my department has a reputation for being supportive and friendly, which made the occasion more of an interesting, fairly low-key, group conversation about my work.

By and large, my committee liked my dissertation, which was about metanarratives. In a nutshell, metanarratives are beliefs about the world that have storylike properties, and I was interested in learning which types of metanarrative beliefs were most likely to result in action. I’ll write more about that another time – I learned some interesting things!

One of my committee members, however, did raise some concerns, questioning some of the foundational work early in my dissertation. Since I was writing about metanarratives and “storylike properties,” naturally I had made an effort to explain just what a “story” is. This committee member, the eminent philosopher Mark Johnson, seemed a bit frustrated with my explanation, feeling I hadn’t gone far enough in the direction he had detailed in one of his own books, Moral Imagination, and also explored by the legal scholar Steven Winter in his book, A Clearing in the Forest.

In those books (which I had read and considered while writing my dissertation), the authors assert that the primary metaphor that all good narratives fit is a Journey. All stories involve goals, Johnson asserts, and since goals are metaphorically equivalent to destinations, and since achieving goals is metaphorically equivalent to making a journey (complete with making decisions = choosing paths, having setbacks = encountering obstacles, etc.), then stories are metaphorical journeys.

I’ve thought about it some more, since July, and I don’t think I necessarily agree. Although it may be possible to squeeze any given story (or even any activity) into the mold of a metaphorical journey, is a journey always the most apt and meaningful metaphor for every story?

Stories – excepting those that qualify more as literary experiments – are accounts of events, and in particular of events that fit a certain type of schema, or model: A problem occurs, which creates dramatic tension or suspense, and matters are eventually resolved when the characters in the story reach a new, more stable set of circumstances or state of mind. That is, things become unsettled or disrupted, then other things happen and actions are taken, and finally the disruption is mended, for better or worse. Or even more simply: Stasis ➔ Displacement ➔ New Stasis.

Of course, a journey is literally a displacement, and a great many stories do fit very well into the journey metaphor. Stories about quests usually feature journeys directly, with the main character leaving home to meet some goal. At other times, characters may be said to make a journey in a metaphysical sense, encountering new information and new people, as time passes and events unfold towards the story’s resolution.

But is a journey really the primal experience that most clearly represents the idea of “story” or “narrative” for all people? For much of humanity’s past, people didn’t so much undertake journeys per se, but rather, their groups would slowly migrate from place to place, looking for food and good living conditions. Later, when people became more settled, it was not uncommon for people – especially women – to stay in or near one village for their entire lives. Solitary journeys, in particular, would not have been routine and familiar events.

Also, stories and journeys have different combinations of predetermination and randomness. Most journeys, both literal and figurative ones, involve setting out deliberately for a particular destination, usually with an expectation of getting to specific points along the way, but the actual unfolding of events isn’t known in advance, nor are all events along the way necessarily relevant to reaching the goal. A story in which the characters already had a clear idea of the specific points they’d reach towards the final resolution of the problem, on the other hand, wouldn’t be interesting, and one that detailed the characters’ irrelevant experiences to the same extent as the relevant ones wouldn’t be considered very good. Simply because it is a story, we know that every event described within it must be contributing to the overall picture in some fashion, or it would have been left out. The experience of taking a journey is not so crafted.

Why not try out a different root metaphor for stories? Why can’t a story be, say, a pregnancy (from the reader’s perspective), or a gestation (from the perspective of the outcome)? Pregnancies are every bit as primal as journeys, and maybe this metaphor has some advantages that journeys do not. For instance, once you begin reading a story, you can trust that there will be an outcome, a resolution one way or another, and the process has in fact already been fully set out, although you have yet to experience it. This is true of pregnancies as well – if a pregnancy goes its full course, there will be a child; if a story is read to the end, there will be a resolution – but a journey might end up somewhere entirely different than expected.

Of course, metaphorically, pregnancies can often be described as journeys, and journeys that are highly focused and essentially predetermined could be described as pregnancies. Both metaphors illuminate different aspects of stories.  The Hobbit, for example, is more of a journey, with its hero setting out unwillingly into the unknown; Jane Austen’s Persuasion is rather more of a pregnancy, as its heroine experiences an evolution in her life while scarcely venturing or changing at all. Saying that Anne Elliot goes on a journey is pretty contrived.

Or, here’s another metaphor. A story – a nicely evocative one, with vivid descriptions – is a meal. The first pages are an appetizer, piquing our hunger for more, and as we proceed chapter by chapter, or course by course, we (vicariously) experience different sensory delights until at the end we find ourselves sated and content. The meal metaphor has roles for both the author (who is much like a chef) and the reader (of course, the diner), and the experience of consuming a meal is even more fundamental to human life than making a journey.

So what do you think? If we want to understand stories in terms of some other basic part of human experience, which categories of experience are the most illuminating?

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“Salutations,” said the voice.

Posted on 10 November 2012 by Laura Akers, Ph.D.

Welcome to my new blog!  I’m planning to use this space to work on ideas for my writing projects, and I hope that some of you will take the time to share your thoughts with me in return.  Thanks for visiting!

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