The Relationship Between Narration and Character Growth After Interpersonal Failures and Transgressions

The authors discuss the promise of innovative mixed-methods research designs for examining whether the type of narrative that individuals construct after committing an act of interpersonal failure leads to the development of empathy and humility over time. They define acts of interpersonal failure as the mistakes and wrongdoings individuals commit during their romantic relationships and focus on interpersonal failure, because a certain degree of conflict is expected in most relationships and can offer individuals an opportunity to reflect on the type of partner they want to be in the future. The authors discuss this question cross-culturally through the lens of quantitative and qualitative research designs, an approach that will permit the examination of whether the cultural narrative influences how people narrate stories of adversity, challenge, and failure across nations. The authors further discuss culturally sensitive coding schemes that can be applicable to future research that use a prospective longitudinal quantitative repeated-narration design to investigate whether intra-individual variation in the narrative construction of interpersonal failure over time leads to increases in humility, empathy, and greater engagement in pro-relationship behaviors. Thus, this research project examines whether narration is a mechanism for learning from interpersonal failures to develop and flourish within relationships.