Narrative identity’s nomological network: Expanding and organizing assessment of the storied self

Abstract

The life story, or narrative identity, is a psychosocial construction that brings together and integrates the self and experience within a broad story-based framework. Personality psychologists typically capture aspects of this inner story by prompting participants for descriptions of life chapters and/or specific and self-definitional autobiographical key scenes (e.g., high points, low points, turning points). Features of participants’ responses are then quantified for their thematic and/or structural content. There exists a number of additional and complementary assessment techniques that could buttress study of, and theory pertaining to, narrative identity. Here, I work to identify these assessments, which include self-reports, informant reports, and behavioral observations, and organize them within narrative identity’s nomological network. This work concludes with a number of suggestions for the ways in which traditional assessments may be better attuned to capture narrative identity’s integrative nature.

On stories, conceptual space, and physical place: Considering the function and features of stories throughout the narrative ecology

“…The narrative identity approach now has in its possession a more-or-less standard tech nique to both assess aspects of this identity and quantify the thematic and structural features therein (for reviews, see Adler et al, 2017;Dunlop, 2021b). The Life Story Inter view (McAdams, 2008) has been particularly germane for the former, offering prompts that allow for the assessment of broad life chapters as well as more specific key scenes, including high points, low points, and turning points.…”

Expression and Detection of Triarchic Psychopathy Traits in the Self-Defining Memories of U.S. Undergraduates

“…Autobiographical narratives are a unique data source in research (Dunlop, 2021) and clinical inference (McKay et al, in press;Singer et al, 2013). Diverse narrative variables interrelate (McLean et al, 2020) and may predict well-being incrementally over other constructs (Adler et al, 2016).…”

Expression and detection of triarchic psychopathy traits in the self-defining memories of U.S. undergraduates

“…Singer et al (2013) discussed a model of narrative identity that highlights the role of personal memories as fundamental building blocks in the compilation of individuals' life stories. Accordingly, autobiographical memory narratives are increasingly recognized as a unique data source in research and clinical inference about personality (Dunlop, 2021;McKay et al, in press;Singer et al, 2013). Diverse narrative variablesincluding ones derived from memoriesinterrelate (McLean et al, 2020), and they may predict well-being incrementally over other constructs (Adler et al, 2016).…”