Master narratives are culturally constituted stories that guide individual and collective behavior. Here, we examined Clinton and Trump supporters’ master narratives of election night 2016 and deviations from these narratives in relation to political ideology. In Study 1, Clinton and Trump voters ( N = 177) wrote stories about election night and completed measures of liberalism and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Stories were interpreted using an inductive approach, leading to the identification of six narrative dimensions. Three linguistic categories were also considered. Study 2 ( N = 341) consisted of a direct replication in which our inductively derived coding system was applied to participants’ responses deductively. Across studies, the narratives constructed by Clinton and Trump supporters differed on five of the six inductive/deductive dimensions and one of the three linguistic dimensions assessed. In addition, many of these dimensions, which included “redemption” and “hope for America’s future,” were associated with liberalism and RWA.

The current project brings together over 1,400 observations drawn from seven studies to examine relations between adult romantic attachment styles and pronoun use. In each study, participants provided autobiographical narratives from the romantic domain and completed measures assessing their attachment styles. Pronoun use in the resulting narrative material was quantified using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Across studies, anxious and avoidant attachment styles were found to relate positively with I-talk and negatively with we-talk, respectively. Furthermore, after accounting for a range of demographic (e.g., age) and psychological (e.g., neuroticism) covariates, the negative relation between avoidant attachment and we-talk remained significant. Thus, the pronouns individuals use when describing their romantic experiences provide indication of their attachment styles. As such, this project carries implications for the detection and diagnosis of romantic domain functioning.

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Life scripts dictate the culturally appropriate order, content, and timing of autobiographical events. In the current study, we examined the ethnic-racial life scripts of American emerging adults from three ethnic-racial backgrounds. One hundred ninety-five Asian, 165 Latinx, and 45 White undergraduates produced and rated seven life events they believed to be prototypical of their ethnic-racial group and self-reported desired and perceived script normality, ethnic-racial identity (ERI), and psychological health. The resulting life scripts differed in meaningful ways between the three ethnic-racial groups. Relations between script normality, ERI, and psychological health were similarly varied between groups. These findings provide a descriptive basis for understanding the normative expectations associated with certain ethnic-racial enclaves and how life scripts may vary across these and other such groups. Moreover, the manner in which these scripts are perceived may carry divergent implications for adjustment, across ethnic-racial groups.