Integration and differentiation of self through reminiscing and narrative

Abstract

Humans construct coherence and meaning in their lives through reminiscing with and about others. The four articles in this Social Development Quartet focus on how reminiscing about emotionally and morally challenging personal experiences is a critical mechanism for integration and differentiation across development, both within the individual and within sociocultural interactions. Examining linguistic forms, emotional disclosure, expressions of perspective, and personal growth, these studies demonstrate that the ways in which we reminisce about our personal past with others matter for developmental outcome. Both the ways in which individuals differentiate between self and other, and between different types of events, and the ways in which individuals integrate perspectives across different types of events is related to emotional well‐being.

Silence, Solitude and Social Cognition in Adolescence: Implications for Research and Education

“…As educators, we can encourage children to develop a mental-state vocabulary of the self and others (Bruner, 1996). Such initiatives support researchers and educators who advocate the importance of narrative, emotion and metacognition in education (Fivush, 2019;Hughes, 2011).…”

“…Similar to academic experiences, within the school context, social situations also include experiences of silence, and such experiences may either ameliorate or exacerbate the young person's sense of social competence and confidence (Kaniusonyte et al, 2019;Spence & Rapee, 2016). According to a psychocultural approach to personal experiences of silence (Bronfenbrenner, 1986;Fivush, 2019), in order to decide if one talks or remains silent, one first identifies which resources (experiential, cognitive, affective, linguistic, etc.) are most useful to one's self in a social world (Bronfenbrenner, 1986).…”

History-Informed Family Business Research: An Editorial on the Promise of History and Memory Work

“…Family reminiscing, for example, is a critical element of how children develop a sense of identity and security through “a constantly evolving dialectic between our self and others in the telling and retelling of who we are through what we remember” (Fivush, 2008, p. 56). Reminiscing is a formal practice of family therapy used to overcome grief over the loss of a family member (Rosenblatt & Elde, 1990) or a family trauma (Lawson et al, 2000) and to regain family well-being (Fivush, 2019).…”