Narrative metaphor: Integrating insights in cognitive science into a toolset for intentionally shaping vocational pursuits

This article was published in Vol. 23, Issue 1 of The International Journal of Christianity and Education and has been cross-published here in alignment with the journal’s guidelines. The original article can be found here.

Abstract

Divining meaning in the world around us and integrating that into the stories we tell about who we are and what motivates us is essential to both our cognitive processing and overall well-being. At the same time, our conscious processes are dependent on inputs from our social and physical environment for the raw materials needed to develop abstract thought through metaphor. The overlap between these two concepts is the narrative metaphor, and its power to shape the development of both our self-concept and intuition demands pedagogical attention. This article lays out the roots of a theory of the narrative metaphor, and provides examples of possible integrations in the classroom.

Keywords formation, metaphor, narrative identity, pedagogy, psychology

Introduction

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” writes essayist Joan Didion (1979). For all the cynicism of what follows in that essay, the initial observation rings true at a deep level that is broadly supported by current insights in various areas of psychology. Our ability to divine meaning in the world around us and integrate that into the stories we tell about who we are and why we do what we do is essential to both our cognitive processing and our overall well-being. At the same time, our conscious processes are dependent on inputs from our social and physical environment for the raw materials needed to develop abstract thought through metaphor. Sitting in the overlap between these two concepts is what I call the narrative metaphor—a construct invested with a particular power to both shape the direction of the development of our self-concept and influence the ways we intuitively respond to new situations in a way that demands pedagogical attention. After developing the theoretical framework behind this construct, I provide a variety of examples of practical ways to integrate the narrative metaphor into a pedagogy aimed at intentionally shaping students’ dispositions toward their vocational pursuits.

The default mode of human cognition is a narrative mode

Stories have an incredible pedagogical power. Whether we consider the Brothers Grimm, Aesop, or even Jesus’s parables, story has been a tried and true method for teaching important lessons to children and adults alike. Before we believe our children are ready for lecture and theory, we expect them to be able to assimilate important concepts delivered through narrative. Based on our practice, then, we should expect to find that some of our most basic modes of thought function in a manner that is uniquely attuned to story. Looking at developments in various fields of psychology, there is strong evidence that this is true—so strong, in fact, that Adler maintains that “the default mode of human cognition is a narrative mode” (Beck, 2015). So, what is this evidence? Among other areas, we can see narrative features in the fundamental causal orientation of our conceptual understanding, methods for helping us organize complex information, the importance of narrative identity in our concepts of who we are, and the stress created when our perception of narrative integrity is challenged.

The first evidence that we are attuned to story comes from cognitive psychology and related linguistics. According to Pinker (2007: 6–8), our conscious minds have an inherent flexibility that allows us to conceive of a concept in multiple ways. These perceptions are built around basic characteristics that we apply to the underlying concept, building our understanding of that concept in terms of basic ideas like “‘event,’ ‘cause,’ ‘change,’ and ‘intend’” (Pinker, 2007: 26). Each of these basic ideas has a storied dimension to it, and the framing of the stories we tell can have significant consequences. Pinker (2007: 7) demonstrates this by referencing the famous World Trade Center insurance litigation, where the size of the World Trade Center developer’s insurance claim turned on whether the planes striking each separate tower on 9/11 constituted one or more “occurrences” covered by the insurance policy: Senior International Business Insurance Co. v. World Trade Center Properties, LLC (US District Court for the Southern District of New York, 2002). Similar examples could be drawn for the importance of framing any of the other basic ideas that Pinker references, but the concept we can draw out for our purposes is first that we think in dimensions that lend themselves to narrative and second that there is often more than one narrative framing of a situation available to us.

We can also see an attunement to story in the ways that we organize information. Students often complain about the daunting nature of memorization. Memorizing a bunch of facts can seem hard, and it is not always clear what concrete difference all that memorization can make. However, when students start to see how these facts connect to one another and into some larger story, the task becomes less painful. In terms of cognitive psychology, these students are experiencing the effects of moving from episodic to schematized memory (Herbert and Burt, 2004). However, this process does not even need to be tied to the real world. As Joshua Foer recounts in his best-selling story of how he made it to the finals of the USA Memory Championships, recall can be drastically improved by utilization of a memory palace (Foer, 2011: 89–105). Foer describes this as relying on our natural capacity for spatial and visual memory (Foer, 2011: 90–91), but it is not just the spatial or even the visual details that allow this memory device to work. As Foer recounts walking through his first memory palace exercise, he hung pieces of an arbitrary list on mental hooks of vivid associations located at specific places in the house. Memory recall then involved simply remembering that there was a lively conversation taking place between anthropomorphized white wines in the dining room or a ghost putting on socks in the den as Foer mentally walked through his childhood house (Foer, 2011: 101–103). This is not just visual or spatial recall; Foer remembered easily because these disconnected items on the list now had vivid characterizations associated with them. That is, memory recall worked better because it made use of the natural affinity for narrative elements that already existed in Foer’s brain. This shows that not only do we think in narrative ways, but also thinking is easier when we lean in to our affinities for it.

It is not just our thinking systems that have an affinity for narrative, however, as narrative makes up a key component of the structure of our self-concept. McAdams (1995)postulates that our personality is made up of three levels, the first containing “traits” (the “Big Five” theory that dominates personality theory), the second containing “personal concerns,” such as goals, values, and coping strategies, and the third containing “identity,” which McAdams defines in explicitly narrative terms. In fact, McAdams (1995: 384) maintains that “[u]ntil we can talk with some authority both to [someone] and about [that person] in the narrative language of Level III, we cannot say that we know [that person] well at all.” Subsequent research and modifications to McAdams’ theory have broadly supported the value of this approach (Adler et al., 2016). Haidt (2006: 146–147) takes it further, arguing that narrative identity is not just a feature of our personality, but our ability to integrate our experience into that narrative in a coherent manner is critical for our emotional well-being and resiliency. As he says, “blessed are the sense makers” (Haidt, 2006: 145). In other words, not only is thinking in narrative terms easier for us, it is also healthy for us to engage in because it helps in the creation and maintenance of a key facet of our personality. Stated plainly: narrative is not just how we think—it is part of who we are.

Before we move on from the evidence of the importance of narrative, one more theoretical connection can help to set up for the “so what” question later. If narrative identity is an essential component of our personality, and if the components of our thoughts have an affinity for essentially narrative frameworks, then we do well to remember our mental flexibility too. If we adopt certain schemas, and those schemas have some interaction with our self-concept, then we should expect that those schemas would ossify to some degree, and information or realizations which challenge these pieces of our understanding could be viewed as a threat to ourselves that we must respond to.

Indeed, this is well in line with and supported by cognitive dissonance theory. Experience shows that people will go to incredible lengths to maintain the coherence of their self-concept, rejecting seemingly obvious challenges like the failure of an end-times prophecy to come to fruition or growing signs that a financial scheme is falling apart (Tavris and Aronson, 2015: 13–17). In other words, our affinity for narrative is also a mechanism of cognitive bias, and the integral nature of narrative only supports the virtual inevitability of developing such biases. This conclusion presents a natural pedagogical argument for the importance of paying attention to the narrative dimension in approaching teaching and learning, an argument I will pull through below.

Metaphor plays an essential role in meaning formation and action

Stories are not alone in their formative impact on our cognition, however. Though we read the world around us in storied terms and attempt to formulate our own narrative identity, we do not begin our engagement with the world from some internal, cognitive place. That is, we do not think our way into the world; instead, the world presses in on us, and meaning is largely a function of our attempts to adapt and make sense of our bodily experience. Our actions and experiences play a crucial formative role in our cognition by providing the raw material for the comprehension and categorization of more complex, abstract ideas. Ultimately, imagery, especially metaphor, is the language that our minds and bodies speak together, and our pedagogy should take account of this fact as well.

The description of sensation as raw material becomes apt if we take account of psychological insights into two “selves” that make up our thinking. Kahneman (2011: 21) has described our thinking as being divided between two systems: System 1 is our intuitive, emotional core, and it “operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control,” whereas System 2 “allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it” and is “often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.” Kahneman does place a hierarchy between the systems in that System 2 has what is essentially veto power over System 1, but Kahneman (2011: 21–26) describes System 1 as the “hero of the book” in that it is “effortlessly originating impressions and feelings that are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2.” As System 1 is more closely connected to our sensory inputs from the world around us, it is continuously generating “impressions, intuitions, intentions, and feelings” which suggest a course of action, and the vast majority of the time System 2 does not intervene. In short, System 2 represents conscious, effortful thought, whereas System 1 houses our intuition, emotion, and other semi- or sub-conscious processes. This has been helpfully framed by Thaler and Sunstein (2009: 19) as our reflective and intuitive systems.

We can see what difference this makes if we look at another framing of this concept. Haidt (2006: 5–6, 13–17) moves the same concept as Kahneman from something that we might imagine takes place in our heads and maps it onto the traditional body/mind distinction. While still referring to automatic and controlled processes, Haidt also talks about our “gut brain” (2006: 5–6), giving a more embodied sense to how these processes work and calling to mind many of the considerations given to a head/gut distinction by Smith (2016: 58, for example). In this model, our intuitive system is in regular contact with the world around us, providing inputs and implementing actions but subject to the meaning creation and occasional direction that comes from the reflective system that, to a degree, lives in the past and remains separated from the “real world” for that reason.

If this is the model, then the natural question is what language these systems speak to one another. How does the body speak with the mind, and, importantly, how does our conscious system speak back to the automatic one? Both Pinker (2007: 235–278) and Lakoff and Johnson (2003) suggest that this language is metaphor.

For Lakoff and Johnson (2003: 244–45), our experience of interaction with the world around us provides a raw material of inferences and associations that create the building blocks for constructing new conceptual understanding. For example, we might think of love in terms of proximity as in “we’re close” or “I feel like she’s drifting away from me.” Metaphors are useful in this context, not because the two things are actually similar but because creating a conceptual correlation between these two things creates a useful association that can then later give rise to perceived similarities. To use a different analogy, our perception provides a wealth of Lego bricks that our conscious mind can then play with to construct abstract thought and invest it with significance.

This explains how the body might speak with the mind, but the reverse is equally important. Citing Jackendoff, Pinker (2007: 131) points out that the “conscious portion of thought seems to fall at an intermediate level in the hierarchy from raw sensation to abstract knowledge.” This is a critical insight, because it means that our conscious minds—though capable of generating the connections that foster comprehension of abstract concepts—are not the sole (or perhaps even primary) repository of that understanding. Thinking from the perspective of what drives actions, this insight supports the idea that both our conscious and intuitive minds could draw from a shared set of definitions and understandings when it comes to implementation.

Taken as a whole, metaphor fits into our framework here as the name for what System 2 is doing with sensory inputs from System 1. Namely, it mixes and matches them to fashion something that is more than even just the sum of its parts, storing those categories and understandings back in System 1 in a language that is common (and therefore accessible) to both systems. From this, the pedagogical import of metaphor may be obvious. Beyond exegeting metaphorical frameworks that undergird our conceptual understanding, specifically naming the metaphors that we use and striving to intentionally adopt some while discarding others could be a key part of moving from theory to practice in a durable fashion.

Narrative metaphors therefore play central roles in both thought and action

If my previous two sections have pointed to the evidence that our thinking is profoundly shaped by both narrative and metaphor, it follows logically that we should pay special attention to concepts that live in the zone of intersection between the two. Though I am not so bold as to suggest that I am arguing for anything essentially new, I have not come across intentional study of this overlap, particularly from the perspective of its utility for pedagogy. Before exploring pedagogical applications of this concept, then, I will first try to define what I call the narrative metaphor, and look to some related concepts to illustrate what differences we might expect to see by paying special attention to them.

In defining the narrative metaphor, it is important to first defend why these occupy a distinct space in relation to the previous discussion about the independent importance of narrative and metaphor, and this defense relies on the very independence of those concepts. While we may be inclined to think in a narrative mode, this transcends the use of metaphors and looks to the actual stories that we weave. At the same time, Lakoff and Johnson (2003) propose that metaphor is the language of thought itself. Put differently, stories make extensive use of metaphor and imagery, but they contain more—the language of our thought certainly involves our inclination to narrative modes, but we do not just think in stories.

If we accept this distinction, it should make the overlap all the more important. Haidt maintains that an individual’s ability to interpret events that happen to them in a way that harmonizes McAdams’ three levels of personality will promote optimal well-being (Haidt, 2006: 147–150). In other words, weaving experience into one’s narrative identity is a key life skill for the pursuit of happiness. Metaphors live at the intersection of meaning and experience, but they are not all created narratively equal. Thinking of love in terms of proximity certainly helps in making sense of the concept, but it does not necessarily tell me about who I am. Meanwhile, something as simple as the biblical “I am the vine, and you are the branches” (John 15:5a, ESV) opens up vistas of personal application that has filled up entire books (e.g. Marshall and Payne, 2009). Certain metaphors have a quality that speaks more directly to the formation of our narrative identity, and it is these metaphors that are especially worth addressing via intentional pedagogy.

Metaphors deserving the label “narrative metaphor” are those which possess three essential characteristics that help them uniquely address the formation of our self-concept: personality, agency, and accessibility. For a metaphor to be narrative, it should first possess certain characteristics that resonate with human personality. Strong narrative metaphors will be references to roles or parts that people themselves play, whereas weaker narrative metaphors will have limited anthropomorphic attributes, often with the force of the metaphor limited to that connection. For instance, an American football coach telling his team that they are “brand ambassadors” for their school conjures up a number of associations and connections with the formal diplomatic office. When that coach turns to his offensive line and tells them that they are the “rock” of his offense, it is meaningful primarily in the sense that he means they are foundational or difficult to move. There is still significant meaning in both metaphors, but the degree of personality is important because the former metaphor allows for natural improvisation and expansion upon the role, whereas the second is more limited.

One of the reasons why metaphors with high personality can be more easily woven into one’s narrative identity is because they are more likely to also possess high agency. Narrative metaphors imply action, and their narrative character implies a course of action that can be sensed in the web of emotional and intuitive connections that make up the felt inference that is essential to metaphor (Lakoff, 2014). Returning to the example above, an ambassador is vested with a set of responsibilities and powers that make sense when translated broadly to ordinary life. A player could easily imagine how to be an ambassador both on and off the field. Though the rock metaphor appeals to certain traits, they are largely static, meaning that a player will be less likely to translate the coach’s encouragement to be tenaciously immovable on the field into a recommendation that the player be stubborn on a day to day basis. Weaker narrative metaphors might imply action, but they are less likely to imply agency in that action, and they are therefore less likely to speak to a person’s self-concept, something that is largely tied up in the perceptive experience of agency.

Finally, strong narrative metaphors must not only possess a quality of personality and agency, they must be accessible within the experience and imagination of the person adopting them. If we are considering metaphors that can speak intuitively to a person’s self-concept, they need to have a degree of recognizability and cultural cachet with the individual which recommends them for adoption and integration. This means that the strength of a narrative metaphor is also driven strongly by the cultural context in which it is utilized, especially how prominently it figures into the social imaginary of that context. Drawing from Taylor’s (2004: 23–30) definition of that concept, a social imaginary is a common understanding of both how things are and how they should go. It is drawn from a set of common cultural practices and stories, but it also reinforces the legitimacy of those things. Strong narrative metaphors will be strong precisely because they tap into the deep stories that a cultural group tells themselves about who they are, and because they legitimate certain courses of action that resonate with an individual’s narrative identity.

Integrating an awareness of and attention to the narrative metaphor can therefore shape a more intentional pedagogy

With this definition and these concepts in mind, we can finally turn to examples of how the narrative metaphor might be used to shape pedagogy. Drawing from its roots in narrative, we should expect narrative metaphors to be useful in providing intentional direction for students as they seek to define themselves in a specific vocational space. That is, because narrative metaphors fit well with narrative identity, they can be addressed specifically as a means to help students explore and evaluate how they envision themselves inhabiting their planned careers. At the same time, the metaphorical roots of the narrative metaphor mean that it speaks to the language of both our reflective and intuitive systems, and intentional integration may help to embed certain responses into a student’s intuitive disposition. Further, as narrative also has value as an organizing concept which carries with it potential cognitive biases, the narrative metaphor can be a tool for critically evaluating the state of a discipline, actors within it, or public policy flowing from it. Finally, because of its metaphorical traits, the narrative metaphor has a unique connection to action and practice, and it may be fruitful for students to conduct the metaphorical equivalent of the “liturgical audit” that Smith (2016: 53–55) urges regarding habit. To unpack this, I will close by providing examples of how each of these might be applied in a classroom setting.

Intentional direction: What kind of teacher are you?

The first sort of exercise is one where students are encouraged to look to the future and intentionally name and adopt a narrative metaphor that they imagine will guide them in some future endeavor, such as their career. To take the career example, students usually want to pursue a career because they desire to imitate someone in their life or cultural experience. They are typically attracted to that career because they associate it with a mode of being that is often modelled by these exemplars. This is also often closely linked to the student’s self-concept (or to some aspirational version of it), and putting names to the styles or interactions that the student finds compelling can help them own their future in an important way.

An example of such an exercise comes from John Van Dyk, former Professor of Education at Dordt College. In his book, The Craft of Christian Teaching, Van Dyk (2000: 71–82) describes discovering one’s teaching style by encouraging future teachers to “choose their metaphor.” Van Dyk mentions some example metaphors, such as “drill instructor,” “expert,” and “mother,” and I imagine that this triggers memories for most of us as we intuitively sort some of our former instructors into those categories. Having seeded the idea, Van Dyk (2000: 78–81) encourages his readers to consider “craftsperson” and “guide” as metaphors more attuned to Christian norms. From what I understand from colleagues who took courses from Van Dyk, he then assigned a paper to his students telling them to develop and describe their own metaphor for teaching. One of my particularly spirited colleagues said that he realized that he was a “puppy” in the classroom, and he said that embracing that metaphor helped to define his classroom presence as an eventual educator. It helped him to see his strengths (energy, excitement, friendliness) while measuring his weaknesses (distraction, potential disorganization) in a way that allowed him improve as a teacher.

Critical evaluation: What are the styles of policing?

The second sort of exercise is one where students look to the present cultural situation and try to map out and understand dominant narrative metaphors within organizational structures or the social imaginary of certain subcultures or communities. In this case, the use of the narrative metaphor is a tool for critical analysis in that it can help to put a name to styles, dispositions, or assumptions that might seem difficult to nail down through other modes of analysis. In doing this, analysis of narrative metaphors can help to uncover alternate sources of potential cognitive biases, which, unquestioned, might bloom into lopsided or even damaging policy expression.

An example of an exercise using this approach is one I regularly use with my Introduction to Criminal Justice class. Outside of certain disciplines, students often find historical analysis to be dry and uninteresting because it feels abstract or distant from their current world. As we study the history of policing, I want students to understand at a more personal level why certain practices developed and what policy give and take came with various approaches to policing. I do this by mapping aspects of James Wilson’s (1978)classic Varieties of Police Behavior onto different eras in police history (a common analysis). Pushing past this initial frame, we flesh out the characters that embody Wilson’s watchman, legalistic, and service styles by looking for characters in movies and television that embody these approaches. As these styles evolve for students into metaphorical roles of a watchman, enforcer, and protector, I present students with a hypothetical police force in a town much like our college town. The students are charged with managing limited police resources to prioritize and problem solve for a number of serious (and less serious) issues that are facing the community. The students are divided up into three groups, and they take on different narrative metaphors to embody the three styles we have studied, then we compare the plans that the students have developed and discuss what meaningful similarities and differences there are between their approaches. Lastly, we move forward to the post-9/11 era and talk about what dominant styles we see in policing today. Students can trace areas where legacies of the earlier styles persist, and we look at Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop (2013) to talk about militarization through both policies and public relations. Part of this discussion echoes Balko’s rhetorical question about who departments will attract with recruiting videos featuring a SWAT team breaching a house and the array of repurposed military vehicles that the department maintains (Balko, 2013: 326). What sort of social imaginary is fostered or furthered by those sorts of ads and what style of policing does it promote? Students are asked to consider these questions and integrate them into a larger reflection as one of the essays on the test for that unit.

Metaphorical audit: What narrative metaphors guide your discipleship?

The last sort of exercise is a blend of the other two. It asks students to reflect on narrative metaphors that are important for both themselves and the culture around them in order to take stock of where the student sits currently with respect to important questions. From this critical reflection, students can use narrative metaphors in a more directed, prospective way looking forward to future practice. This approach attempts to leverage the benefits of both of the exercises above in the hopes of effecting durable change for students who take this third exercise seriously.

I utilize an exercise of this type in the capstone course of the core curriculum at Dordt College. I lead a team of my colleagues in this class as we seek to get 125–150 college seniors each semester to think deeply about issues of discipleship and cultural engagement. Toward the end of a unit in a course focusing on defining discipleship, a colleague and I discuss living in the eschatological tension referred to in Christian circles as the “already” and “not yet” of the kingdom of God. To frame this discussion, we draw from my observations of a discussion between two theological traditions where I noticed that one group commonly referred to Christians as “pilgrims” or “exiles,” whereas the other focused on imagery like being “kingdom builders” (Roth, 2015). I try to flesh out the “pilgrim” metaphor for students, my colleague fleshes out the “kingdom builder” metaphor, and we invite students into a debate and discussion around the relative meaning and implications of resonating more strongly with one or the other. Ultimately, we talk about other narrative metaphors that exist within the Christian social imaginary, and on an exam paper we ask students to compare one of those metaphors (or one of their own devising) to the “pilgrim” and “kingdom builder” metaphors, explaining what it adds to the already/not yet discussion and how it shapes and influences the students’ lives. We regularly see students pick up these narrative metaphors again in later parts of the class to ask about how disciples who imagine their roles in these different ways might react to different life questions and social challenges. Though I have yet to have a student return with the sort of life-shaping story that my colleague had regarding the first example I recounted, I am confident based on these other interactions that the perspective is providing another useful tool for students to both evaluate and integrate the concept of discipleship in the modern context.

Conclusion

The anthropological models that we employ can have a profound impact on our pedagogy. An excessive focus on intellection can result in an increasingly abstract form of knowledge that is wholly divorced from any practical application. At the same time, focusing too intensively on the practical and the habitual can leave important biases unexamined and lack the sort of critical depth that is so important, particularly in the college context. As we seek to try to develop pedagogy that effectively navigates the waters between the two, we should take account of developing models of how action and abstraction fit together at a cognitive level. This article has endeavored to do just that by exploring the implications of developing models of the importance of both narrative and metaphor within our cognitive system. Based on these models, I recommend that we take intentional pedagogical notice of the concept of narrative metaphors as a construct driven by the combined formative power of both constituent parts. Drawing on my assertion that narrative metaphors can be particularly important in intentionally directing future action, evaluating current systems at a macro and micro level, and conducting personal “metaphorical audits,” I have provided examples of classroom exercises that target each of these applications. As narrative metaphor theory is further tested and refined, its pedagogical applications should also be tweaked and enhanced, and future avenues of research include mapping narrative metaphors in certain disciplines and developing longitudinal data that can provide empirical insight into what is currently mostly anecdotal support for the pedagogical value of this perspective.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References