THE MEDIATING ROLE OF NARRATIVE IN INTERGROUP PROCESSES - TALKING ABOUT AIDS

This article shows how the use of narrative mediates intergroup proces ses in spoken discourse. Sixty male and 72 female young Australian het erosexual adults participated in I-person conversations (same-sex or m ixed-sex) about HIV/AIDS and safe sex. Two hundred and thirty-two extr acts from the transcripts that met the criteria for narratives were co ded for in-group and out-group, agent and object (if any) named, exten t of group homogeneity, and positivity/negativity. Major results of an alyses of variance showed more positivity to in-groups than out-groups , children with AIDS and people with medically acquired HIV. There was little difference in homogeneity among groups. On the other hand qual itative analysis of several extracts indicated that negative affective reactions to the out-group and perceived out-group homogeneity were c ollaboratively negotiated, using narrative to assist in defining the o ut-group, the tone adopted by the participants to the out-group, and h ow participants positioned themselves relative to the issue discussed.