ABSTRACTThis study explores the potential of television genres to cultivate different types of moral reasoning. In a prolonged exposure experiment, participants were exposed to video material from 1 of 3 genres over the course of 4 weeks. Using the Neo-Kohlbergian approach, the study measured effects of genre exposure on the strength of personal interest reasoning, maintaining norms reasoning, and postconventional reasoning, taking into account individuals’ predisposition to become engaged in narratives. Although exposure to crime drama had no influence, medical drama (...) raised maintaining norms reasoning and lowered postconventional reasoning. Exposure to comedy raised postconventional reasoning. Narrative engageability emerged as a strong predictor, showing that the propensity to become engaged in narratives is positively related to postconventional reasoning and negatively related to maintaining norms reasoning. (shrink)

Illness narrative has often been found to play a positive role in both patients’ and providers’ efforts to find meaning in the illness experience. However, illness narrative can sometimes become counterproductive, even pathological, particularly in cases of medical mystery—cases wherein biopsychosocial factors blur the distinction between bodily dysfunction and somatizing behavior. In this article, the author draws attention to two examples of medical mystery, the clinical presentation of medically unexplained symptoms, and the popular reality television program Mystery Diagnosis, to demonstrate (...) the potentially harmful effects of illness narrative. The medical mystery’s complex narrative structure reflects and tends to reinforce providers’ and patients’ mistaken assumptions, anxieties, and conflicts in ways which obstruct, rather than facilitate, healing. (shrink)