A broad array of research findings suggest that older adults, as compared with younger adults, have a more positive sense of self and possibly a clearer and more consistent sense of self. Further, older adults report lower motivation to construct or maintain a sense of self. In the present study, we examined whether such differences in self-views were reflected in features of older and younger adults' narratives and narrating practices around recent, self-relevant events. Narratives about self-discrepant and self-confirming events were elicited from a sample of younger (18-37 years of age; n = 115) and older (58-90 years of age; n = 62) adults and were compared for indicators of engagement in self-construction, meanings, and emotionality. Older adults' narratives contained significantly fewer self-focused pronouns, less present tense, and less emotional language, and they were significantly less likely to articulate and resolve challenges to their self-concepts. These findings, as well as others, are consistent with the idea that older adults are less engaged in self-construction in narrating everyday events, perhaps especially for self-discrepant events.

In this article, the authors present a view of remembering as a major process through which adult development takes place. They begin by reviewing functional and conversational approaches to remembering. They then introduce their model briefly and apply it to two contexts of central developmental interest: developmental tasks specific to later life and transitions that may apply across adulthood. Although existing empirical evidence is limited, it is also consistent in supporting a role for remembering as an important developmental process. The authors close with a review of how this model could inform future research attempting to understand social and communicative aspects of adult development more broadly.

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