Narratives that make meaning of performance in terms of

A broad perspective on the performers’ meaning-making narratives about performance may allow researchers to go beyond the identification of the performers’ healthy or unhealthy cognition. Such a perspective may show researchers the extent to which the focus of the performers’ narrative enables them to see the opportunities that a

performance opens up.

I argue that the kinds of stories performers tell themselves determine the opportunities that they may see in performance. For instance, if a narrative makes sense of

performance exclusively in terms of evaluation, the performer will only view

performance as an opportunity for achievement, but not for connectedness. Therefore, performers’ narratives might determine the kinds of goals they might pursue, because such goals should be in coherence with their narratives. Moreover, as narratives appear to focus the performers’ attention and filter the aspects of reality that become accessible to them, these narratives might determine not only the kinds of opportunities that performers might view in performance, but even whether they would view performance as a source of opportunities at all, or as threatening events. Narratives might either emphasise the threatening aspects of performance or the different opportunities that it opens up (see section 2.7) and by so doing, they play a role in the way in which individuals categorise events as being either threats or opportunities. I argue that this categorisation has a huge impact on performers’ emotions, because once an event is categorised in such a way, it will automatically elicit the correspondent emotional responses (Bargh, 1997; Damasio, 2003; Elliot, 2006). This means that, at the most basic level, emotions might be determined by the category in which events are assigned:

either to the category of opportunities (eliciting expansive emotions such as joy), or to the category of threats (eliciting anxiety).

Narratives that lead to anxiety in performance seem to centre on threats to the ego, and may include ‘worry about not being able to perform perfectly, fears of making a

mistake, fear of being negatively evaluated by others, over-estimations of the likelihood and consequences of a negative evaluation of the music performance, and negative self- evaluation in relation to one’s own high standards for performance quality’ (Kenny, 2011; Kenny & Osborne, 2006; Osborne & Franklin, 2002; Osborne, Greene & Immel, 2014). On the other hand, I suggest that the joy-provoking narratives identified in this study emphasise different kinds of opportunities that performance might open up. I argue that the ‘people-oriented’, ‘source-oriented’ and ‘magical-moment oriented’ narratives centre the performers’ attention on the self-transcendent opportunities of performance. Striving for these self-transcendent goals may be intrinsically rewarding, as this meets the performers’ needs for relatedness and belonging. On the other hand, the ‘self-oriented’ narrative may satisfy the performers’ need for competence.

I will now provide some examples of narratives that, while expressing different ways of making meaning of performance, may guide the performers’ attention towards

opportunities as opposed to narratives that may emphasise threats.

Positive people-oriented narratives may include these kinds of reasoning: ‘People have the need for artistic and connection experiences. Through performance, I have the opportunity to respond to these needs. I can contribute and feel a sense of connection that allows me to experience an extended way of being ‘I’’.

On the other hand, narratives that include the audience, but focus on threats, may be quite different:

‘The audience is critical and hostile. People are on the watch for errors and imperfections. ‘They’ come to inspect what ‘I’ do wrong.’

The ‘source-oriented’ narrative may focus the performers’ attention on an extraordinary source that lies outside of themselves, and on which the performer may rely. Performers may tell themselves something like the following:

‘I am not the one who ‘makes’ the music but am only a mediator within the musical experience. I work hard to become a good channel through which the music can flow and express itself. Music is

something bigger than I am. Performance is an opportunity to connect with the source of music and to feel inspired.’

This narrative may be radically different from narratives that make sense of

performance in a way that deprives performers from such connection with a non-self source, such as:

‘I perform all by myself and the outcome of the experience depends entirely on me’,

or from narratives that focus the performers’ attention on something that does not originate from the self but that is negative:

‘I don’t have the ‘talent’ to be a performer and people can easily see it.’

A positive ‘self-oriented’ narrative may direct the performers’ attention to something else:

‘I have worked hard and I trust in my preparation. I appreciate my strengths and what I am able to do. Performance is an opportunity to share all that I am and what I have acquired with those who come to listen to me.’

On the other hand, narratives that are self-oriented and negative, may highlight the threats of performance in another way:

‘I have worked hard but I am still not good enough. Performance can expose my weaknesses and inadequacies, and I can be evaluated as unworthy (by the audience or by myself) of being a performer (or just not being good enough as a human being).’

Focusing on the opportunities that a performance might open up is likely to promote performance-related joy. However, I argue that performers might focus on such

opportunities only if the narratives through which they make meaning of their

performance allow them to see that such opportunities exist, and only if their narratives confer value on such opportunities. I suggest that performers who view performance as sources of opportunities are moved by an approach-motivation to perform that is likely to increase their joy of performing (Elliot, 2006; Kahneman, 1999), in contrast to those performers who view performance as a source of threats, who may be moved by avoidance-motivation, and who, as a result, may experience anxiety or simply a lack of joy in performance (not viewing performance as a source of opportunities, performers may lack meaningful reasons to perform, and may not find any motive that would fuel their approach-motivation to perform).

In addition, I argue that when the performers’ narratives have a focus wide enough to embrace self, others and the bigger world (i.e. any source of inspiration), more

performance-related opportunities may become visible to them, which may increase the likelihood of them finding personal meaning among these opportunities. Helping performers to keep in mind the big picture (and to view the self in relation to such a big picture) might elicit positive emotions in performance. In turn, such positive emotion might facilitate the keeping of such a broad perspective in mind, or even broaden their perspective, enabling them to find further meaning and joy in performance

(Fredrickson, 2001). On the other hand, narratives that narrowly focus on self (even when positive) might reduce the range of meanings that performers would be able to confer on performance, and reduce the likelihood of them viewing performance as a personally meaningful activity. If the self-oriented narrative happens to be negative, it would focus on threats and would likely elicit anxiety, which in turn might accentuate the narrowing of the performer’s focus of attention and further reduce the meaning they find in the activity (Fredrickson, 2001; Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005).

In summary, it seems that narratives that emphasise the opportunities that a performance opens up to meet the performers’ psychological needs may help them to enjoy

performance. Perhaps best performance experiences result from narratives that are broad enough to simultaneously meet the performers’ need for autonomy, competence and relatedness, as suggested by theories previously discussed (i.e. SDT) and associated empirical research. In fact, a case study about three professional performers who loved to perform (carried out using in-depth interviews) showed that the narratives through

which these performers made sense of performance were all embracing, integrative, meaningful and inspiring (Guevara, 2007). These performers appeared to

simultaneously strive for achievement, connectedness and transcendence. They were convinced that they had somehow received a mission to accomplish, that they were responsible for working hard on the talent they had received, and that they owed themselves to their audience. Their narratives seem to express what some research in the work field name a ‘calling’ orientation (Dik and Duffy, 2009).