Relations Between Narrative Coherence, Identity, and Psychological Well‐Being in Emerging Adulthood

Abstract

Objective The hypothesis that the ability to construct a coherent account of personal experience is reflective, or predictive, of psychological adjustment cuts across numerous domains of psychological science. It has been argued that coherent accounts of identity are especially adaptive. We tested these hypotheses by examining relations between narrative coherence of personally significant autobiographical memories and three psychological well-being components (Purpose and Meaning; Positive Self View; Positive Relationships). We also examined the potential moderation of the relations between coherence and well-being by assessing the identity content of each narrative. Method We collected two autobiographical narratives of personally significant events from 103 undergraduate students and coded them for coherence and identity content. Two additional narratives about generic/recurring events were also collected and coded for coherence. Results We confirmed the prediction that constructing coherent autobiographical narratives is related to psychological well-being. Further, we found that this relation was moderated by the narratives’ relevance to identity and that this moderation held after controlling for narrative ability more generally (i.e. coherence of generic/recurring events). Conclusion These data lend strong support to the coherent narrative identity hypothesis and the prediction that unique events are a critical feature of identity construction in emerging adulthood.

Getting a Life Takes Time: The Development of the Life Story in Adolescence, Its Precursors and Consequences

“…McLean and Pratt [2006] devised a rating scale for meaning making; Chen et al [2012] adapted the rating scale for developmental consequentiality in entire life narratives (see above) for use with single event narratives; and Waters and Fivush [2014] proposed a selffunctions scale, including any identity-related information, turning point or eyeopening quality of an event without explanation, and finally with an explanation (similar to A1). The advantage of rating scales is that they provide a global judgment with better psychometric properties than relative frequencies of specific autobiographical arguments can offer.…”

Regulating emotion and identity by narrating harm

“…Other studies have focused on single events in each category or on events already deemed identity central in some way, so that participants probably reported on the most memorable and important event, increasing the likelihood of direct relationships between narration and well-being. Previous research suggests that narrative features have stronger relationships to well-being when an experience is clearly identity central (Baerger & McAdams, 1999; Waters & Fivush, 2014). Looking at heterogeneous events may reduce the magnitude of relationships between narrative features and indices of adaptive functioning because less identity central events, regardless of how they are narrated, do not bear on well-being (Baerger & McAdams, 1999; Waters & Fivush, 2014).…”

“…Previous research suggests that narrative features have stronger relationships to well-being when an experience is clearly identity central (Baerger & McAdams, 1999; Waters & Fivush, 2014). Looking at heterogeneous events may reduce the magnitude of relationships between narrative features and indices of adaptive functioning because less identity central events, regardless of how they are narrated, do not bear on well-being (Baerger & McAdams, 1999; Waters & Fivush, 2014). Indeed, a look at correlations in our own data for only the more identity-related events suggests that this might be the case within our sample as well – when we restricted our examination to only events with stronger identity centrality, the magnitude of correlations increased (doing so, however, also necessarily compromised our power slightly.…”

“…Thus, we created a composite well-being score by standardizing and aggregating scores across the four well-being measures (see Waters & Fivush, 2014 for a similar approach).…”

“…Such narration likely serves to regulate emotions associated with the events (Nils & Rimé, 2012; Pasupathi, 2003; Pasupathi, Wainryb, Mansfield, & Bourne, under review; Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Walker, 2004), as well as to regulate the identity or self-implications those events may hold (Mansfield, Pasupathi, & McLean, under review; McLean & Pasupathi, 2011; McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007; McLean & Pratt, 2006; Pasupathi, Mansour, & Brubaker, 2007; Waters & Fivush, 2014; Weeks & Pasupathi, 2011). In the present study, we examined links between the way people narrate experiences of interpersonal harm and their emotions about the experience, and perceptions of the experience as identity central.…”