What shapes narrative thought? Effects of story type and culture

The primary aims of the study were to investigate the narrative strategies used by Italian and Canadian youth on progressive (improving interactions) and regressive (degenerating interactions) stories and to investigate potential differences in story interpretation across the two countries. Two hundred and six participants, matched for age, gender and SES, were selected from fifth and seventh grade classrooms in Calgary, Canada, and Florence, Italy. Participants were presented with six stories of social interaction between peers, in which the protagonist performed an act that differed markedly from his/her habitual behavior towards a classmate, and asked to describe events that led to the discrepant act and to interpret the social attitude of the protagonist. The results showed that participants used different narrative strategies on the two story types. Moreover, country of residence shaped the children's narrative interpretations.