Themes of trust, identity, intimacy, and generativity in important autobiographical memories: Associations with life periods and life satisfaction

Abstract

IntroductionGuided by Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, the present study investigated whether themes of trust, identity, intimacy, and generativity are represented in older adults' most important autobiographical memories. Furthermore, we tested whether these themes are associated with certain life periods and whether having important memories (i.e., life story) that reflect developmental themes and are evaluated as positive is associated with life satisfaction.MethodsOne hundred and twelve (59.8% female) older adults (61–92 years, M = 70.96, SD = 6.81) reported up to 15 important autobiographical memories. Participants rated each memory according to the themes of trust/mistrust, identity/confusion, intimacy/isolation, and generativity/stagnation.ResultsUsing multilevel multinomial logistic regression, we found childhood memories to be associated with trust, memories from participants' youth with identity and intimacy, and adulthood memories with intimacy and generativity. Moreover, participants who rated their autobiographical memories (i.e., life story) as high in reflecting themes and, at the same time, perceived their memories as more positive showed higher levels of life satisfaction.ConclusionImportant autobiographical memories reflect how an individual became the person of today. They refer to age‐related themes of psychosocial development and are associated with a person's life satisfaction if they are also considered as emotionally more positive.

What do we know about rural teaching identity? An exploratory study based on the generative-narrative approach

“…The second is the individual's interest in being actively involved in social life throughout the life cycle (Villar et al, 2013). Therefore, generativity in adulthood is an important concept (Nusser et al, 2022), as it encourages functional coping with losses and stressful life events, prolonging satisfactory states that contribute to physical and psychological well-being, the pursuit of the common good and social change, adjustment to aging and retirement (Khechuashvili, 2019;Grossman, Gruenewald, 2020;McAdams, 2001;Serrat et al, 2018;Weiss, Kunzmann, 2020). It is an adaptive mechanism and is important because it is a means of strengthening the self and achieving integrity in adulthood (Zacarés & Serra, 2011).…”