The LISTEN Lab is a collaborative and vibrant group of students and scholars who are
Learning about Identity through StoryTelling and Engaging with Narratives
The following are projects in which we are actively engaged in data collection and analysis, representing opportunities for student involvement.
Stories from the HIV/AIDS Crisis
My good colleague, Nic Weststrate, and have launched a new program of research to gather stories from survivors of the HIV/AIDS crisis. We view these as both personal stories cultural resources that hold lessons and wisdom to help us understand psychosocial development of survivors, as well as holding the potential to have impact on younger generations who encounter them.
Intergenerational Transmission of Personal and Cultural History and the Development of Cultural Continuity
My good colleague, Nic Weststrate, and I are developing a culturally situated intergenerational model of psychosocial development within the LGBTQ+ community that has intergenerational storytelling at its heart. We propose that elders who share stories of their personal experiences and historical knowledge to youth will be meeting the psychosocial function of generativity, and for the youth hearing the stories, such storytelling exchanges serve to develop a sense of identity as a part of a group that exists through time.
McLean, K. C., Moriarity, N., Starling, K., & Weststrate, N. M. (2024). Letters from queer elders: Transmitting intergenerational wisdom in the LGBTQ+ communities. Journal of Homosexuality.
Conversations about Systemic and Structural Inequality
With my colleague at WWU, Antonya Gonzalez, we have examined whether and how much parents talk about racial and wealth inequality with their children, their attributions for such inequality doing so, and differences and similarities in conversations across these domains. We are also interested in the intergenerational transmission of attributions about inequality, including how parents describe their own parent’s work situation, whether parents have any memories of talking with their own parents about inequality, and if applicable, what attributions they make for their own inheritance.
College Interrupted: College, Interrupted: Individual differences in freshmen college student mental health, identity, and retention in college as a function of COVID-19 disruptions to education across four institutions.
With my colleagues at the University of Missouri – Jordan Booker, the University of Utah – Monisha Pasupathi and Cecilia Wainryb, the University of Kansas – Andrea Follmer Greenhoot, and Emory Unverisity – Robyn Fivush, we are examining the impact of COVID-19 on 2019-2020 freshmen mental health, identity development and persistence in education. In addition, we assess whether individual differences in the way students experience and make sense of the impact of COVID-19 on their lives are associated with better mental health and identity development, and greater persistence in education.
Recent and Completed Projects
Salmon People Project
With colleagues at the Children of the Setting Sun Production, I assisted with the research arm of the larger Salmon People Project. The research component of this project was gathering stories from Salmon People (multiple tribes in the Pacific Northwest and California) about the role of salmon in their ancestral histories, families, and identities. We examined the stories elders told to youth and the meaning of those stories for the youth. We hope that the powerful stories told by Salmon People in response to the question – who are we without salmon – will help others to understand the ecological threat to Mother Earth and the vital need to take action.
The Dark Side of American Redemption in Storying Trauma
With my colleagues at WWU, Brianna Delker and Alex Czopp and our many students, we examined the ways in which the American cultural press and desire for traumatic events to be redeemed poses real challenges to those with different kinds of stories to tell. We have focused on better understanding why victim/survivor stories of interpersonal violence are likely to be unheard or unvalidated in the larger culture, and what cultural shifts can be made to provide space for them to be heard and validated.