Telling stories: The structure of adults' narratives

Abstract

Adults' narratives were analysed to study life-span changes in their structure. The narratives were collected from a group of adults in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. Four separate analyses were performed on the narratives' (1) hierarchical structure, (2) syntactic structure, (3) propositional content, and (4) cohesion. Age-group differences were obtained for the measures of hierarchical structure, syntactic structure, and cohesion. Further analyses revealed that the structural complexity of the narratives influenced their syntactic structure and cohesion. Interactions between the effects of age group and structural complexity suggest that elderly adults minimise the syntactic complexity of their narratives, reducing their cohesion, when producing structurally complex narratives. Finally, ratings of the quality of the narratives were strongly correlated with their structural complexity, suggesting that telling a “good” story involves constructing complex plots.