Meg Hoffer-Collins & Lauri Hyers
Apocalypse, Restoration, and Emergence: Spontaneous Use of Archetypical Narrative Devices in Solicited Diaries of College Seniors Writing During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Contact at: lhyers@wcupa.edu
The Covid-19 pandemic led to grave human loss, economic disorder, and disruption of everyday life for many people around the world. For some young adults in the USA, this was their first personal experience of a global crisis of this magnitude, threatening their sense of security for the future. As a source of comfort in crisis, people have long turned to archetypal motifs and stories of disaster and triumph to gain a sense of meaning, order, predictability, and even hope for the future. We explored the spontaneous use of such narratives by university seniors writing in diaries about the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic during a senior capstone course, just as they were finishing their degrees and moving on to the next phase of their lives. Two coders, a longtime diary researcher in the higher educational context and a licensed psychological college counselor, conducted a thematic analysis (Braun and Clark, 2006) on a selection of entries from 58 diaries written for a multi-cohort diary study spanning more than two years. We coded for reference to three myths proposed by Alex Evans, Casper ter Kuile, and Ivor Williams of the Collective Psychology Project (2017): apocalypse myths, restoration myths, and emergence myths. We explored changes in relative reliance on each of these myths throughout the Covid-19 saga, selecting examples from the diaries. We discuss how such stories may help to increase collaboration and reduce polarization as we face other impending global threats such climate change, resource insecurity, and the specter of escalating wars.
Click here to download: