The contributions of personal interpretations and socially constructed scripts to cognitive changes following major life events

An empirical study was performed to test two explanations of changes in beliefs following from major life events. On the one hand, Cognitive-experiential Self-theory would predict that, in the aftermath of major life events, individuals go through a personal process of adjusting their basic beliefs about self and world on the basis of what they have experienced. On the other hand, script theory and social constructionist thought would predict that the well socialized individual has prior knowledge of the changes in cognition that should accompany any major life event. According to these approaches, when the event occurs, the individual undergoes the very changes he or she already knew one should undergo. Reports of actual and hypothetical experiences of seven major life events by 272 undergraduates indicated that for six of the seven events those who had and had not experienced the event had virtually identical understandings of the effects of the event. For the seventh event, sexual abuse, a coherent pattern of differences between the reports of those who had and had not experienced the event was found. The results were interpreted as largely supporting the script and social constructionist position. The contribution of personal experience to socially held scripts was also discussed