Researchers point out that applying the 'Hero's Journey' structure common to compelling stories to your own life can enrich you
If you want to feel like your life is meaningful, how you perceive things is important. Researchers in the United States and Canada have announced the results of a study that shows that viewing your life in terms of
Seeing your life story as a Hero's Journey increases meaning in life.| APA PsycNet
https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000341
Scientists Reveal a Simple Hack to Make Your Life Feel More Meaningful : ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/becoming-a-real-hero-can-make-your-life-more-meaningful
The Hero's Journey was coined by mythologist Joseph Campbell in 1949 and is a narrative structure common to many folk tales and myths around the world in which the protagonist throws himself into some extraordinary situation, overcomes the greatest challenge, and returns to the ordinary with accomplishments. Campbell points out that the myths of different religions have the same 'monomyth' (the original form of myth), even though the plots are different. He explains that 'heroic myths tell of the 'growth of the soul' that humanity universally desires, so they inevitably become repetitive.'
While the Hero's Journey is often thought of as a theory for creating fictional scenarios, behavioral scientist Benjamin Rogers and his colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill investigated whether it's possible to think of the Hero's Journey as a blueprint for your life, and what meaningful impact it could have if you could.
Campbell's theory divides the Hero's Journey into 17 stages, starting with the 'call to adventure,' followed by trials and encounters as rites of passage, and finally to the return journey. Rogers and his team first simplified the classic 17-stage steps to apply them to modern life, dividing them into seven stages: 'protagonist,' 'change of circumstances,' 'quest,' 'partner,' 'challenge,' 'personal change,' and 'resulting legacy.' The inside of the image below shows the Hero's Journey divided into seven stages in modern life.
Next, the researchers focused on the continuity of an individual's life as a story, and created and tested the 21-item 'Hero's Journey Scale (HJS)' to measure the extent to which the Hero's Journey matches people's life stories. For example, in the 'change in situation' category of the seven stages, rather than simply asking 'Have you experienced a major change in your situation?', they devised ways to measure how well individuals deal with change, such as by assessing 'how often you encounter new things.'
Based on the seven stages of the Hero's Journey and the HJS test, the research team collected and analyzed personal stories through over 1,200 online and face-to-face interviews. As a result, it was found that people whose lives contained more of the seven stages of the Hero's Journey had a higher level of meaning in life, a higher level of positive thinking that 'I am living a good life,' and a lower level of depression. The paper concludes that 'people who tell their stories using the Hero's Journey reported more novel experiences, ambitious goals, and supportive friends than other participants, and appear to have a better ability to perceive the ambiguity of life as meaningful to them.'
Based on the initial results, the study further conducted a 'narrative reconstruction intervention' interview in which participants were asked to answer questions such as 'What kind of changes in the environment or new experiences led you to become who you are today?' with a written opening phrase such as 'What led you to become who you are today...' to encourage them to talk about their lives in terms of the Hero's Journey. The researchers found that participants' perceptions of their lives as meaningful increased.
However, researchers point out that interventions that apply the Hero's Journey may increase both positive and negative behaviors. Thinking along the Hero's Journey may also lead to a more optimistic outlook, narcissistic behavior, and the likelihood of devoting oneself to false causes. In fact, a blogger who described an annoying case of LinkedIn, one of the world's largest business-focused SNS, pointed out the narcissistic tendency of the Hero's Journey, saying, 'In order to attract the attention of business people, users tend to exaggerate even the smallest successes. In such cases, they tend to use the 'Hero's Journey' to boastfully post scenarios in which 'it didn't work out at first, but after many difficulties they overcame the struggle.''
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The researchers suggest that the results of their study suggest that viewing life as a hero's journey has an impact on feelings, but that further research is needed into what the change is and how it affects actual behavior. In addition, since this survey was conducted in the United States, where the popularity of the hero's journey story is particularly high, it is important to note that the results may differ in other regions.
'Exploring how different narrative dynamics correspond to personal narratives is an open area for future research,' Rogers said of the study. 'Ideally, our narrative restoration intervention approach could serve as a template that future researchers can use when exploring the role of different narratives in people's lives.'
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