Narrative Rewriting and Reward Feedback

Narrative Rewriting and Reward Feedback is a hypothesis model developed by András Kevereschán to describe how an initially conscious or partly conscious distortion of context may gradually become a narrative experienced as subjectively true. The model places particular emphasis on narrative recirculation and the Illusory Truth Effect. It proposes that an altered narrative may be repeatedly replayed because it reduces aversive states such as cognitive dissonance or self-image threat, while also providing reinforcing outcomes such as justification, moral superiority, social validation, or restored coherence. Repetition may then increase familiarity and processing fluency, progressively strengthening the narrative’s subjective truth value. The model organizes this process around interacting motivational, affective, justificatory, epistemic, social, and reward-related poles. Its central proposed mechanisms include Narrative Pruning, the Deservingness Judgment, the Justification–Truth Bridge, the Narrative Dominance Reward Loop, Social Validation Feedback, the Illusory Truth Effect, and Retrospective Justification of the Original Act. A central hypothesis is that subjective justification may acquire epistemic weight: “what I feel / say / do is justified” → “if it is justified, it is just” → “if it is just, I am right” → “the supporting narrative is true.” As the narrative circulates, this bridge may be activated repeatedly, while repetition itself may further increase the narrative’s perceived truth. The model also incorporates schema-therapy and developmental-psychology hypotheses concerning vulnerability, affect, and self-image protection. DARVO is used only as an external descriptive comparison in one illustrative example. The model is intended as a conceptual and research-generating framework, not as a diagnostic instrument or a validated unified neurobiological mechanism.