The Psychology of Narrative Thought

About the Book

This book is about how we think and how what we think shapes our attempts to manage the ongoing course of our lives. Our primary mode of thought is in the form of stories, called narratives, which help us make sense of what is going on around us and provide context for it by linking it to what has happened in the past. Moreover, narratives allow us to use the past and present to make educated guesses, called forecasts, about what will happen in the future. When the forecasted future is undesirable, we intervene to ensure that the actual future, when it arrives, is more to our liking. Narrative thought has its limits, particularly when logical rigor is required. The implications of these limits are discussed, as are the ways in which people have attempted to overcome them.

About the Author

Lee Roy Beach is McClelland Professor Emeritus, Eller College of Business, University of Arizona, and, formerly, Professor of Psychology, University of Washington. He holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology, specializing in cognition and decision making. Before retiring he was a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the American Psychological Society and a member of the Society for Organizational Behavior and of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making. He was on the editorial boards of Organization Behavior and Human Decision Making, The Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, and The Journal of Forecasting and has published over 120 scholarly articles and 7 books on thinking and personal and organizational decision making.