Retelling lives: Narrative style and stability of highly emotional events over time.

Abstract

Narrative forms are a tool for organizing lived experience, reflecting both the structure of the experience in the world, and the individual's reactions to that experience; Labov (1972) termed these as referential and evaluative dimensions. We investigated how four individuals narratively structure their stories across these formal narrative components in their high-and low-point narratives in relation to stability of life story event selection. Two participants showed a consistent, referentially elaborated and/or evaluatively dramatic narrative style, and also narrated the same culturally canonically scripted events over time. In contrast, two participants displayed less referentially elaborate, evaluative narrative styles which were specifically less consistent in the low-point narratives, and each narrated different high and low points over time. We posit that individual and cultural differences in the stability of the content of life stories might be related to the consistency of narrative style used for the life story. We discuss the possible roles of conventionality of life courses, canonicity of life stories, individualistic versus communal outlook, and rehearsal of a stock of life story anecdotes.

The empirical structure of narrative identity: The initial Big Three.

“…Capturing stability in various ways, such as stagnation or healthy consistency, may open up new ways of understanding narrative identity and well-being (Dunlop, 2018;Fivush, Habermas, & The Structure of Narrative Identity 50 Reese, 2018;McLean Köber, & Haraldsson, 2018;Pasupathi & Wainryb, 2018;Singer, 2018).…”

The actor, agent, and author across the life span: interrelations between personality traits, life goals, and life narratives in an age-heterogeneous sample

“…emotional tone) aspects of narratives across 3 years (McAdams et al., 2006). There are, however, also studies indicating that not all individuals are consistent in their overall narrative style over time (Fivush, Habermas, & Reese, 2019), suggesting that stability of narration might be an interindividual difference (see McLean, Pasupathi, Greenhoot, & Fivush, 2017, for research on intraindividual variability in narratives). Future studies that address continuity and change in the narrative level in conjunction with continuity and change in the trait and goal levels are encouraged.…”

The last chapters of life: A proposed research agenda for studying narrative identity in older adulthood

“…While researchers have begun to examine various facets of stability and change in narratives over time in younger and middle adulthood (Adler, 2019;Dunlop, 2019;Fivush, Habermas, & Reese, 2019;Josselson, 2009;McAdams, 2019;McLean, Köber, & Haraldsson, 2019;Pasupathi & Wainryb, 2019), few projects have undertaken cross-sectional studies of narrative identity across distinct adult life stages or focused on late life in particular. Highlights of the few studies that have are described in some detail in the sections that follow, lending substance to the suggestion that investigating narrative identity in late life could lead to a richly expanded view of this aspect of personality development.…”