Narrative Identity Flashcards
Trait approaches to personality
Eysenck’s PEN model, Gray’s RST model, Costa and Mcrae’s (1992) Five factor model
Narrative identity is the third and broadest level of personality outlined by
McAdams (1996)
Narrative identity
Level of personality that captures how an individual defines themselves through the social construction of a coherent and purposeful life story
McAdam’s Critique of Trait Theories
That traits are not how adults explain their individuality, nor are they grounded in cultural, sociological, or historical context
McAdam’s theory is based on these assumptions
Selfhood is not given, but made, the self develops over time, and that people seek temporal coherence in their self
McAdams Integrative Theory of Personality draws on evidence from
Trait theories and social-cognitive theories in personality
McAdam’s Integrative Theory of Personality
Level 1 (Actor)- Traits
Level 2 (Agent)- Personal concerns or characteristic adaptations
Level 3 (Author)- Narrative identity
Level 1: Traits
- OCEAN model
- dispositional signatures of personality
-stable across lifespan and situations
Level 2: Personal Concerns
Individual differences that are contextualized within a specific time or place or role that draw upon many areas of psychology, such as motives, values, goals, etc.
Theory of basic values categories (Schwartz 2012); evidence is drawn from for level 2
Openness to change, self enhancement, conservation, self transcendence
Openness to change traits (Schwartz 2012)
Stimulation, self direction
self enhancement traits (Schwartz 2012)
Achievement, power
Conservation traits (Schwartz 2012)
Security, conformity, tradition
Self transcendence traits (Schwartz 2012)
Universalism, benevolence
___ and ___ fall along the horizontal line thag categorizes the theory of basic values (Schwartz 2012)
Hedonism and benevolence
Personal concerns do not make up the whole picture because
They don’t present a unified identity of the person across time, place, and role. They also don’t provide us with a sense of what the life experiences mean to the person
Level 3: Narrative identity (McAdams and McLean 2013)
An evolving and integrative account of one’s life story that is constructed from autobiographical memory that provides temporal coherence and meaning that is the answer to “who am I?”
McAdam’s (1996) proposed distinct levels of personality that are entirely _____
Independent
Developmental trajectory of personality
People are born with traits, which shape their goals, environments, and their life stories
McAdam’s theory of personality had little ____
Empirical work examining interrelationships between three levels of personality
Buhler et al (2021) measured
agency and communion of level 2 life goals and level 3 narratives and personality traits across 2 years
Buhler et al (2021) used
2-wave longitudinal design to measure traits and goals at wave 1 and wave 2 and a life story interview to assess narrative identity- one in between study waves
Buhler et al (2021) findings were consistent
With interrelationships between levels but interrelationships we’re bidirectional
Buhler et al (2021) results showed consistent findings
With trait agreeableness
Higher trait agreeableness at W1 associated with
Lower endorsement of agency goals at W2
Higher trait agreeableness at W1 associated with
Greater endorsement of communion narratives
Goals at W1 were not
Associated with narratives
Greater endorsement of communion goals at W1 was associated
With trait agreeableness at W2
Greater expression of communion themes in life narratives
Associated with lower endorsement of agency goals and higher trait agreeableness at W2
Life story interview (LSI)
Method used to collect data on narrative identity, it positions the participant as a storyteller
Process of LSI
- in depth qualitative interview 2-3 hrs
- person divides their life story into distinct chapters
- person describes key scenes, characters and plots, and significance of the events in each chapter
The life story interview is a ___ method
Labor intensive
Researchers sometimes collect _____ _______ of key life scenes using similar instructions to the interviews
Written narratives
Narratives don’t assess the truth of events, rather
It’s the individual differences in the interpretation of events that’s important
There is often not a constraint in the retrospective time frame for narrative recall, but
Rather a focus on subjectively meaningful scenes
To capture individual differences in narrative style,
Researchers will average a construct across all life scenes
This construct is viewed as a relatively de contextualized approach
Averaging across different life domains (Dunlop, 2015)
Researchers can code for common dimensions and examine how narrative dimensions relate to
Variables of interest
Variables of interest in examining life story interviews
- agency
- communion
- redemption
- contamination
- mean making
Narrative identity researchers code qualitative data for
Statistical analyses
Agreement and consistency in the interpretation includes
- defined coding schemes
- training with example narratives
- multiple coders, often blind to study hypotheses
- inter rater reliability stats to examine the consistency and agreement across coders
Structure of narrative identity (McLean et al 2020)
Autobiographical reasoning, structure, and affective and motivational
A contextualized approach
Involves averaging constructs across specific life domains (e.g. love or work)
The processes involved in identity formation
May vary in different life domains (Dunlop, 2015)
This approach only collects narratives from relevant life domains for
The context under study (e.g. academic and romantic narratives for college adjustment; Lilgendahl & McLean 2020)
Narrative identity is not just a bunch of _____ _____
Random stories
For narrative identity to be a level of personality
Then it should predict important life outcomes
Researchers of narrative identity have often focused on
Health and well-being outcomes
