Speaker: David Ian Hanauer @DHanauer
Affiliation: Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh
Title: The Contribution of Cognitive Engagement in Eliciting Self-Understanding in Autoethnographic Poetry Writing
Abstract (long version below): This experiment (n=60) explored whether differences in the degree of cognitive engagement influences the degree of insight and emotional clarity that is elicited in a two stage (free-flowing text generation and image selection and revision stages) auto-ethnographic poetry writing task (Hanauer, 2010, 2022). Results show that the higher the quality of the image and the longer the length of time working on the revision task elicited significantly higher levels of emotional clarity but not increased levels of cognitive insight. The results provide evidence that cognitive engagement has an influence on increasing self-understanding but only in relation to emotional clarity.
Long abstract
The process of poetry writing is defined by two sequential writing processes: a free-flowing, associative process of text generation and a reflective, engaged process of poetic-text revision (Hanauer, 2010, 2021, 2022; Lui et al., 2015; Peskin & Ellenbogen, 2019). Prior research on the writing processes of poetry that lead to enhanced insight and emotional clarity, has suggested that it is only the free-flowing process of text generation that leads to increased self-understanding (Hanauer, 2022). The second writing process of image selection and poetry revision were not seen to add to the levels of insight and emotional clarity that were elicited. This finding is contrary to prior models of writing (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Flower & Hayes, 1980). The core principle behind these models is that cognitive engagement influences insight and emotional clarity through processes of reorganization, selection and reflection.
The current, small-scale experiment (n=60) was designed to explore whether differences in the degree of cognitive engagement influences the degree of insight and emotional clarity that is elicited in a two stage (free-flowing text generation and image selection and revision stages) autoethnographic poetry writing task (Hanauer, 2010, 2022). Two measures of cognitive engagement were employed in the current study: quality of image production and revision time. Image quality was defined in relation to three levels of quality using the following criteria: specificity of the image presented, depth of sensory information and relationship to elicited description of chosen experience. Quality was checked by two experienced readers working independently with 89% agreement. The outcome measures that were used consisted of 7-point scales of insight and emotional clarity. 60 participants from Amazon Turk took part in this study. Descriptive analyses of the outcome variables revealed that they were not normally distributed accordingly a non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis H test approach was employed for the analysis. Results show that the higher the quality of the image and the longer the length of time working on the revision task elicited significantly higher levels of emotional clarity but not increased levels of cognitive insight. The results suggest that cognitive engagement does has an influence on increasing self-understanding but only in relation to emotional clarity.
Reference
Bereiter, C., and Scardamalia, M. (1987). The Psychology of Written Composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Flower, L. S., and Hayes, J. R. (1980). The cognition of discovery: defining a rhetorical problem. College Composit. Commun. 31, 21–32
Hanauer, D. (2010). Poetry as Research: Exploring Second Language Poetry Writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hanauer, D. (2021). Poetic writing research: the history, methods, and outcomes of poetic (auto) ethnography. In D. Kuiken and A. Jacobs (Eds. Handbook of Empirical Literary Studies pp.412-448. Berlin; Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
Hanauer, D. (2022). The writing processes underpinning wellbeing: Insight and emotional clarity in poetic autoethnography and freewriting. Frontiers in Communication.
Liu, S., Erkkinen, M. G., Healey, M. L., Xu, Y., Swett, K. E., Chow, H. M., et al. (2015). Brain activity and connectivity during poetry composition: toward a multidimensional model of the creative process. Hum. Brain Mapp. 36, 3351–3372.