Many anthropologists and linguists have studied storytelling， the accounts of personalexperiences that people tell in conversation， because stories reveal a great deal about apersons wofldview. In one study， the researcher analyzed twenty-one stories told inconversation by fourteen young men. In all of the stories， the men talked about themselves，mostly in a way that made them look good. For example， two men told about times whentheir extraordinary performance had won a game for their team.
The mens stories tended to be about competition or contest. Most of the stories had aprotagonist， a main character or hero， as well as an antagonist， a character or force opposingthe main character. When the storyteller was not the protagonist in his own story， theprotagonist was always another man. None of the stories had a woman as the protagonist，although women occasionally appeared as minor characters.
Many of the stories were about contests with other men. There were physical contests，such as fights and sports. There were also social contests， in which the protagonist usedverbal or intellectual skill to defend his honor. Some of the stories told of contests withnature， such as hunting， fishing， and mountain climbing. The men talked mostly about eventsin which they had acted alone. In only four of the stories did the protagonist receive help oradvice from another person. The vast majority of men who acted alone achieved a positiveoutcome.
The researcher concluded that these young men view life as a contest， a struggle againstnature and other men. In their world， power comes from an individual acting alone againstothers in a test of skill and performance.
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