It is encouraging when the conclusions reached by others on a topic of mutual interest are similar to our own. This is the case with Conviction Narrative Theory (CNT) and our own theory of narrative cognition, the Theory of Narrative Thought, or TNT (e.g., Beach, Reference Beach2009, Reference Beach2010, Reference Beach2018, Reference Beach2019; Beach, Bissell, & Wise, Reference Beach, Bissell and Wise2016; Beach & Wise, Reference Beach and Wise2022).
Although CNT is couched as solving a particular problem in decision-making, it can be interpreted as a general theory of narrative cognition, which is what TNT is. This results in two theories, CNT and TNT, with many similarities and some important differences. It seems to us that reconciliation of those differences could produce a single theory of narrative cognition that improves on both of them.
The reader is familiar with CNT, but perhaps not TNT. Briefly, TNT proposes that cognition is ultimately about what will happen in the future and how to avoid or take advantage of it. It posits that the brain structures experience such that events in the past caused present events, which will cause events in the expected future. This (implied) expected future is evaluated for potential threats – dangers as well as potential loss of good things or loss of opportunities to attain them. Well-being, sometimes even survival, requires identification and mitigation of expected threats before the future arrives and the threats become a reality. Mitigation requires action and the question is which action will produce a less threatening future than that which is expected? TNT offers a simple, emotion-based, decision model, called the discrepancy test, for both threat appraisal and action selection.
Temporal/causal structuring of experience results in a narrative (e.g., Atkinson, Reference Atkinson1978; Carroll, Reference Carroll, van Peer and Chatman2001). Your own structured experience is called your prime narrative (PN), and it constitutes your reality. The PN's content is too great for practical use, but context guides abridgment of pertinent parts of it, called derived narratives, for communicating with oneself (thinking) and with other people. What is thought and/or communicated is part of your experience and is therefore incorporated back into your PN. So too, when the future turns out to be different from what was expected, the discrepancies are incorporated back into your PN. Both of these update your PN and increase its consistency. The more consistent it or any derived narratives are, the more certain you feel they and what they imply about the future is true and a solid basis for action.
When a derived narrative is shared with other people, it becomes public. Then, others may make it more complex or abstract (beyond one person's private experience) adding to, honing it, and applying it more broadly. Part of the genius of humanity is the collective, cultural elaboration of derived narratives into science, government, religion, etc., all of which exist, in some form, to mitigate threat.
Turning to CNT, its elements are described in the target article's Table 1, which we will use to compare CNT and TNT. The first section, Context, describes the decision problem CNT is intended to address; a problem, incidentally, that not everyone regards as a problem (e.g., Phillips, Reference Phillips1970). Be that as it may, the theory's potential goes beyond this limited problem because it can be read as a more general theory of cognition.
Moving to the second section, Representation: Narrative is defined as incorporating causal, temporal, analogical, and valence information that serves to explain data, imagine and evaluate possible futures, and motivate action. With the exception of analogy, this definition is compatible with TNT's. Analogy bears more attention in TNT. There is nothing like the PN in CNT. Imagined Futures is compatible with TNT up to the proviso that they are a response to a contemplated choice because neither CNT nor TNT need be restricted to decision-making. Narrative Fragments and Shared Narratives correspond to TNT's derived narratives as they stand.
The third section of the table, Processes, is more difficult to evaluate because of CNT's focus upon that narrow decision problem. Explanation, in the active sense intended by CNT, is not part of TNT and certainly its dependence on heuristics is not either. In TNT, explanation, understanding, comprehension, etc., are all manifestations of the internal consistency of the PN, or a narrative derived from it. Simulation generates an imagined future. In TNT, the future simply is the causal implications of what led up to now. Alternative futures can be imagined, but simulation may not be the right term for how this happens (see Beach & Wise, Reference Beach and Wise2022). Affective Evaluation is more clearly detailed in TNT's Discrepancy Test (ibid.), but the ideas are essentially the same. Communication is the same in both theories. There is (at least) one place where CNT far outpaces TNT. CNT's description of causal rules that, together with time, define narratives is more thorough and solid that what we have advanced in TNT.
There are other similarities and differences, some of which simply result from the two theories' different levels of analysis. Those listed above are only the most apparent. Neither theory is better or worse than the other. Overall, they are so much alike that they beg for consolidation. It will be interesting to see if that happens.
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It is encouraging when the conclusions reached by others on a topic of mutual interest are similar to our own. This is the case with Conviction Narrative Theory (CNT) and our own theory of narrative cognition, the Theory of Narrative Thought, or TNT (e.g., Beach, Reference Beach2009, Reference Beach2010, Reference Beach2018, Reference Beach2019; Beach, Bissell, & Wise, Reference Beach, Bissell and Wise2016; Beach & Wise, Reference Beach and Wise2022).
Although CNT is couched as solving a particular problem in decision-making, it can be interpreted as a general theory of narrative cognition, which is what TNT is. This results in two theories, CNT and TNT, with many similarities and some important differences. It seems to us that reconciliation of those differences could produce a single theory of narrative cognition that improves on both of them.
The reader is familiar with CNT, but perhaps not TNT. Briefly, TNT proposes that cognition is ultimately about what will happen in the future and how to avoid or take advantage of it. It posits that the brain structures experience such that events in the past caused present events, which will cause events in the expected future. This (implied) expected future is evaluated for potential threats – dangers as well as potential loss of good things or loss of opportunities to attain them. Well-being, sometimes even survival, requires identification and mitigation of expected threats before the future arrives and the threats become a reality. Mitigation requires action and the question is which action will produce a less threatening future than that which is expected? TNT offers a simple, emotion-based, decision model, called the discrepancy test, for both threat appraisal and action selection.
Temporal/causal structuring of experience results in a narrative (e.g., Atkinson, Reference Atkinson1978; Carroll, Reference Carroll, van Peer and Chatman2001). Your own structured experience is called your prime narrative (PN), and it constitutes your reality. The PN's content is too great for practical use, but context guides abridgment of pertinent parts of it, called derived narratives, for communicating with oneself (thinking) and with other people. What is thought and/or communicated is part of your experience and is therefore incorporated back into your PN. So too, when the future turns out to be different from what was expected, the discrepancies are incorporated back into your PN. Both of these update your PN and increase its consistency. The more consistent it or any derived narratives are, the more certain you feel they and what they imply about the future is true and a solid basis for action.
When a derived narrative is shared with other people, it becomes public. Then, others may make it more complex or abstract (beyond one person's private experience) adding to, honing it, and applying it more broadly. Part of the genius of humanity is the collective, cultural elaboration of derived narratives into science, government, religion, etc., all of which exist, in some form, to mitigate threat.
Turning to CNT, its elements are described in the target article's Table 1, which we will use to compare CNT and TNT. The first section, Context, describes the decision problem CNT is intended to address; a problem, incidentally, that not everyone regards as a problem (e.g., Phillips, Reference Phillips1970). Be that as it may, the theory's potential goes beyond this limited problem because it can be read as a more general theory of cognition.
Moving to the second section, Representation: Narrative is defined as incorporating causal, temporal, analogical, and valence information that serves to explain data, imagine and evaluate possible futures, and motivate action. With the exception of analogy, this definition is compatible with TNT's. Analogy bears more attention in TNT. There is nothing like the PN in CNT. Imagined Futures is compatible with TNT up to the proviso that they are a response to a contemplated choice because neither CNT nor TNT need be restricted to decision-making. Narrative Fragments and Shared Narratives correspond to TNT's derived narratives as they stand.
The third section of the table, Processes, is more difficult to evaluate because of CNT's focus upon that narrow decision problem. Explanation, in the active sense intended by CNT, is not part of TNT and certainly its dependence on heuristics is not either. In TNT, explanation, understanding, comprehension, etc., are all manifestations of the internal consistency of the PN, or a narrative derived from it. Simulation generates an imagined future. In TNT, the future simply is the causal implications of what led up to now. Alternative futures can be imagined, but simulation may not be the right term for how this happens (see Beach & Wise, Reference Beach and Wise2022). Affective Evaluation is more clearly detailed in TNT's Discrepancy Test (ibid.), but the ideas are essentially the same. Communication is the same in both theories. There is (at least) one place where CNT far outpaces TNT. CNT's description of causal rules that, together with time, define narratives is more thorough and solid that what we have advanced in TNT.
There are other similarities and differences, some of which simply result from the two theories' different levels of analysis. Those listed above are only the most apparent. Neither theory is better or worse than the other. Overall, they are so much alike that they beg for consolidation. It will be interesting to see if that happens.
Acknowledgement
None.
Financial support
This work received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interest
None.