Relations Between Cultural Life Scripts, Individual Life Stories, and Psychological Distress

Abstract

Cultural life scripts are shared knowledge about personal events expected to be experienced by individuals within a society and used as a framework for life story narration. Differences in cultural life scripts for individuals with depression and trauma, and their relations to anxiety, stress, and well-being, have not been investigated. Malaysian participants ( N =  120) described and rated seven significant events most likely to be experienced by a prototypical infant from their culture, and seven significant events they had experienced or expected to experience in their own life. Participants then answered questionnaires about depression and trauma symptoms and about anxiety, stress, and well-being. The subclinical depression group listed less typical cultural life scripts events, whereas the subclinical post-traumatic stress disorder group listed less positive individual life story events. The findings indicate that, although individuals with depression and trauma possess knowledge of the cultural life scripts, there may be small differences in the cognitive processing of cultural life scripts and individual life story events.