Unleashing the Inner Voices: Exploring Dialogical Self Beyond Dominant Narratives in Unscripted Role-Playing

• Published in: Journal of constructivist psychology Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 427 - 450
• Main Authors: Mohammed, Mustafa, Braito, Michael, Knobelsdorf, Maria, Hlavacs, Helmut
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia Routledge 01-10-2024; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Attitudes; dialogical self; Inner speech; mixed method; psychodrama; Role playing; role-play
• ISSN: 1072-0537; 1521-0650
• DOI: 10.1080/10720537.2023.2276274

According to the Dialogical Self Theory, there is a multiplicity of I-positions within the self in a dialogical relationship. Psychodrama refers to these positions as inner parts within the self. We propose an integration of both to create an intervention centered on unscripted intrapersonal role-playing of the I-positions for the purpose of meaning-making. We want less dominant or silenced I-positions to be heard and included in the dialogue. We illustrate this approach with a group of 24 adult participants who engaged in a reflective dialogue process to potentially change their attitudes and perspectives toward an exemplary topic of technological advancement. A mixed-method approach is applied to investigate the potential benefits of this intervention. In pre-and post-intervention, a questionnaire is used to gather self-reported attitudes with Likert-scale and open-ended questions to assess explicit attitudes and perspectives related to our exemplary case. We used a statistical test and thematic analysis to compare the results before and after the intervention. The qualitative results show a shift in perspectives. However, the quantitative results do not show statistical significance regarding attitude change. Furthermore, integrating quantitative and qualitative results shows a convergence of the findings in one group of participants while divergence in the other. Despite these results, the proposed interventional approach promises various potential applications.