Francesco Fanti Rovetta

What does it mean for autobiographical narratives to be harmful? The answer often depends on the perspective adopted. At the personal level of analysis, the emphasis is on the individual and their private narrative practices, and narratives are typically characterized in relation to psychological well-being. At the relational level, the focus is on cooperation with co-authors and the environment in shaping autobiographical narratives, and narrative harm is usually framed as a threat to the individual’s narrative autonomy. Finally, at the structural level, autobiographical narration is viewed as an enculturated practice, shaped by shared templates or life scripts. Narrative harm, in this context, can be conceptualized as a misalignment between the values and normative frameworks embedded in master narratives and the individual’s own values. Although conceptually distinct, different kinds of narrative harm can interact. In trade-off situations, one kind of harm is accompanied by benefits in another domain. In cases of compounded narrative harm, different types of harm co-occur and overlap. Distinguishing these three kinds of narrative harm is crucial for illustrating how narrative practices can go wrong and their complex interactions.

Technologies for dealing with grief are evolving rapidly. Along with other digital afterlife products, virtual reality can help maintain a connection with the deceased. It is widely recognized that, in most cases, the continuing bond with the deceased contributes to healthy grieving. However, if the continuing bond reinforces the denial of death, it can turn into a maladaptive coping strategy. In this paper, we propose a nuanced view of virtual reality for coping with grief, emphasizing potential clinical benefits as well as the risks of unregulated use. Although grief has always been technologically mediated, virtual reality has specific characteristics that set it apart from other technologies. It enables an interaction with the simulation of the deceased that is highly realistic, seemingly reciprocal, and even, to some degree, embodied. On the one hand, these characteristics can be leveraged in clinical contexts as an enhanced form of exposure therapy, for example. On the other hand, virtual reality can reinforce the disbelief of death due to the illusions of presence it creates. While denial of the loss is common in early grieving, when it persists, it is a symptom of prolonged grief disorder. To avoid this outcome, we suggest that the use of virtual reality should be limited to clinical contexts under the supervision of medical experts.

I propose an analysis of deception as the activity of intentionally misleading other agents’ hypothetical inferences. Understanding deception in this way has the advantages of clarifying the epistemological and cognitive dynamics involved in deception. Indeed, if deception can be framed as the intentional manipulation of others’ hypothetical inferences so that they will accept the false or disadvantageous hypotheses, then a better understanding of the epistemological and cognitive dynamics involved in deception will emerge by clarifying how abduction works. Tracing it back to Peirce’s analysis, I will focus on recent perspectives on abduction, which stress the inherent strategic character of abductive cognition and offer a realistic description of the reasoners’ capabilities and their scant resources, both internal (computational power) and external (time and information available). To support and substantiate my thesis, I will examine psychological analyses of military deception. I will conclude by remarking the advantages of the thesis here presented to better understand the epistemological dynamics of deception and by highlighting the questions it leaves open for further investigations.

Debates in 4E and scaffolded cognition have been centered on cases in which human cognitive or affective capacities are enhanced through technology. Recently some authors have noted that this may not always be the case: the technologies and environment around us can negatively impact cognitive and affective abilities. In the first part, I elaborate on this change of perspective in the debate. In the second part, I discuss a case of technology scaffolding maladaptive psychological processes. More in detail, I will focus on the role of smartphones in scaffolding ruminative processes. To illustrate this claim, I introduce four core features of rumination and discuss how they may be supported by problematic smartphone use in light of existing evidence.

Psychologists and philosophers agree that personal narratives are a central component of one’s identity. The concept of narrative self has been proposed to capture this aspect of selfhood. In recent times, it has been a matter of debate how the narrative self relates to the embodied and experiential dimension of the self. In this debate, the role attributed to inner speech is that of constructing and maintaining personal narratives. Indeed, evidence suggests that inner speech episodes are involved in self-reflection and autobiographical reasoning. That is, previous works have focused mostly, if not solely, on the role of inner speech for narrative self-understanding. However, inner speech is also involved in enacting personal narratives. In such cases, the content of the inner speech episodes is not in the service of the construction of narratives, rather it implies the identification with the character of the personal narratives. I introduce two instances of the use of inner speech for narrative self-enactment: positive self-talk and stereotype threat. I conclude by considering the implications of the examples introduced for the debate regarding the relation between the narrative and the embodied dimensions of selfhood.