How listeners shape what tellers tell: Patterns of interaction in lifestory interviews and their impact on reminiscence by elderly interviewees

How older adults reminisce about their lives to others depends in part on who is listening, and on the relationship that they and their listeners establish. To support this hypothesis, findings are presented from a narrative analysis of 12 lifestory interviews done by 3 interviewers (4 interviews each: 2 with males; 2 with females) with people 80 and older living in a largely rural area of Eastern Canada. The interviewers have distinctive listening styles and come from significantly different backgrounds. One is a man, and former minister, from the immediate region; another, a woman from a large European city; the third, a younger woman from an urban centre in Western Canada. The paper takes advantage of the opportunity inherent in having 3 interviewers rather than only 1 and compares patterns that characterized the various interviewer–interviewee interactions and the impact of such patterns on how interviewees talked about their lives. Speculations are offered concerning how different listeners might have elicited reminiscences on different themes or of different types from the same tellers.