what is the correct order of narrative identity development over the life course, according to

by Anabelle Pfeffer Sr. 10 min read

The development of personality across the human life course may be observed from three different standpoints: the person as actor (behaving), agent (striving), and author (narrating).

Full Answer

What is narrative identity?

Narrative identity is the focus of interdisciplinary research, with deep roots in psychology .

What is the difference between characteristic adaptations and narrative identity?

Characteristic adaptations encompass a person's motivations, developmental concerns, and life strategies and are used to describe the individual within their contextualized time, place, and social roles. Narrative identity, the `third level in McAdams' framework encompasses the internalized, evolving story of the self.

What is the role of memory in narrative identity?

The formation and organization of memories is the central mechanism through which narrative identity is constructed. The life story allows individuals to organize recollective memories and more abstract knowledge of their past into a coherent biographical view.

What is a narrative?

Narrative comes from the Latin verb narrare, “to tell”; a narrative is a “story” that describes a sequence of nonfictional or fictional events.

What intervention has been developed to change levels of narcissism?

What intervention has been developed to (temporarily) change levels of narcissism? Individuals were told to practice empathy and taking perspective.

What paradox is most central to the study of personality development?

According to the text, what paradox is central to the study of personality development? People change throughout their lives yet fundamental personality traits maintain rank-order stability in relation to others in their age group.

Which of the below best describes the future of behavioral genetics according to the text?

Which of the below best describes the future of behavioral genetics according to the text? The further understanding of gene-environment correlations and interactions.

Which of the following serves as evidence for the claim that personality remain stable throughout the lifespan?

Which of the following serves as evidence for the claim that personality remains stable throughout the life span? Childhood personality ratings are predictive of adult life outcomes.

What is differential or rank order consistency of personality quizlet?

What is rank-order consistency of personality? >Rank-order personality consistency means that as people age, they maintain the ways in which they are different from other people of the same age.

What is the personality paradox?

Consistency paradox is the observation that a human being's personality tends to remain the same over time, while their behavior can change in different situations.

What determines the development of personality?

Heredity, physical environment, culture and particular experiences are thus the four factors that explain personality—its formation, development and maintenance.

What are 3 factors that affect epigenetics?

Several lifestyle factors have been identified that might modify epigenetic patterns, such as diet, obesity, physical activity, tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, environmental pollutants, psychological stress, and working on night shifts.

What are family studies in behavioral genetic research?

Family studies are fundamental tools in the discipline of behavioral genetics (Turner, Cardon, & Hewitt, 1995) and can provide information of great interest in Behavioral Medicine. They permit assessments of degrees of familial resemblance, or aggregation, of physical, psychological, and behavioral characteristics.

What are the 4 types of personality?

The four temperament theory is a proto-psychological theory which suggests that there are four fundamental personality types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic.

What are the big five personality traits in organizational behavior?

The big-five personality traits—extraverted personality, agreeable personality, conscientious personality, emotionally-stable personality, and open to experience personality—have direct, positive effects on organizational citizenship behavior.

Is personality stable across the life course?

Although lifelong personality stability has not previously been assessed, existing evidence of personality stability from childhood to middle-late adulthood, and from early middle adulthood to older age suggests that personality shows some stability across the entire life course.

What do people tend to respond to?

people tend to respond to, seek out, and create environments that are compatible with, and may magnify, their personality traits

Do people tend to maintain the ways in which they are different from other people the same age?

people tend to maintain the ways in which they are different from other people the same age

How does narrative identity develop in childhood?

Development of narrative identity in childhood is largely influenced by opportunities for narrative expression through conversations with caregivers and friends. Young children whose parents share more detailed personal narratives from their own lives tend to have more detailed and coherent personal narratives themselves by the end ...

How does the formation of memories affect the development of narrative identity?

The formation and organization of memories is the central mechanism through which narrative identity is constructed. The life story allows individuals to organize recollective memories and more abstract knowledge of their past into a coherent biographical view. Different types of memories have been identified and classified, and have unique influences on how individuals develop their narrative self. Just as autobiographical memories influence personal narratives, these narratives also influence memories - For instance, narrative expression is critical for the development of a sense of agency in autobiographical memories.

Why are narrative stories important?

Narrative stories tend to increase in coherence and meaning-making over the course adolescence. When a child, especially a boy, makes stronger semantic connections in early adolescence, he has a worse sense of well-being, but as he moves to late adolescence his well-being increases. the large jump in cognitive learning during adolescence allows this change to take place. Since this is a very important time for children to expand their social groups and conversational constructs, more semantic narratives can be created and allow the meaning making construct to develop.

What is the central developmental task during adolescence?

This aligns with Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, which posits that the central developmental task during adolescence is to establish an individual identity.

Why is storytelling important?

Beyond the content of people's stories, the storytelling process is essential to understanding narrative identity. The purpose of stories, the role of the listener, and storytelling patterns all influence the way stories are told, and thus narrative identity.

What is the epistemological approach to narrative?

Epistemology. Narrative can be approached through one of two epistemological paradigms: hermeneutic (also called "narrative"), or paradigmatic. The hermeneutic approach seeks to capture the specific, personal, and highly contextualized elements of an individual's story. The paradigmatic approach, on the other hand, tries to classify narratives, ...

Why is coherence important in a narrative?

Some amount of coherence is always necessary in a narrative, otherwise it will be incomprehensible, while too much coherence may make the narrative hard to believe, as though it too-neatly ties together the complexity of life. The general extent to which coherence is present or absent in a narrative has been found to be related to a variety of important outcomes such as overall psychological well-being and the nuance and complexity of meaning-making processes (ego development).

What is narrative identity?

For Paul Ricoeur, narrative identity is “the sort of identity to which a human being has access thanks to the mediation of the narrative function” ( Ricoeur, 1991, p. 73).

What are the two dominant approaches to the study of narratives, identity, and the life story?

This chapter elucidates the two dominant approaches to the study of narratives, identity, and the life story, which we label structural and process approaches. Structural approaches have focused on the relationship of the life story to other domains of personality, the specific features that constitute narrative identity, as well as the associations between narrative identity and other outcomes, such as psychological well-being. Process approaches have focused on the ways in which the situated process of narrating one's experience (including contextual factors such as features of listeners) impacts memory, emotion, and self-conception. We argue that structural approaches have not sufficiently elucidated the ways in which narrative identity develops, while process approaches provide little guidance about the structures purported to arise from narrative processes. We elaborate the key issues and major contributions of each approach, as well as their shortcomings, and then offer possible pathways forward toward integrating structure and process in the study of narrative, identity, and the life story.

Why is identity important in college?

Therefore, a subjective sense of security in one's own overarching status-based identity is an important resource that may help students to remain motivated to pursue academic goals and to cope with academic challenges, especially during the experience of socioeconomic mobility in college. In contrast, feelings of uncertainty about SES should decrease students' motivation to engage in certain academic behaviors necessary to cope with challenges. Finally, students from lower SES backgrounds are likely to experience more status uncertainty during college than students from higher SES backgrounds, with corresponding negative implications for their academic experiences and outcomes.

What is status based identity?

The concept of status-based identity attempts to capture the dynamic and subjective understanding that people have of the multiple aspects of their lives that contribute to their position on the socioeconomic hierarchy. In particular, status-based identity includes three broad components: first, narrative identity, or the way that people construct the stories of their lives and make sense of the experiences that led them to their current circumstances (see McAdams & McLean, 2013 ); second, social identity, or how people think about the groups that they belong to in society and the status that they afford (see Hogg, 2006 ); and third, future identity, or how people imagine that their life will unfold in the years to come (see Oyserman & Destin, 2010 ). Because status-based identity is dynamic and composed of many factors, people vary in the extent to which they have a clear and stable understanding of where they fall on the socioeconomic hierarchy or whether they experience an aversive sense of status uncertainty.

How does McAdams' multilayered model work?

McAdams’ multilayered model assumes that child behavior is largely driven by basic tendencies (i.e., personality traits; McAdams & Olson, 2010 ). In late childhood, motivations and goals come to the fore and behavior becomes more goal-directed. From late adolescence onward, individuals’ behavior becomes aligned with the way they perceive themselves, as their (narrative) identity starts to play an important role in their behavior. At first, these self-views are largely build upon the way individuals typically behaved up to that point. Hence, traits as well as goals and motivations are likely better predictors of identity at that point. Once identities become solidified, they also start to affect traits. For example, if individuals view themselves as reliable and friendly, they adapt their behavior to fit this self-view. Typically, this should happen from young adulthood onward.

What is the Five Factor Theory?

Relatedly, Five-Factor Theory (FFT; McCrae & Costa, 2008) and the core versus surface trait model ( Asendorpf & van Aken, 2003) emphasize a distinction between basic tendencies (i.e., personality traits) and characteristic adaptations such as identity processes. Both models would predict that effects from Big Five traits to characteristic adaptations such as identity processes would be larger than in the inverse direction.

What is the process of disclosure?

Disclosure: This is an evolving process that encompasses both leaps of disclosure and continuous dialogues with others, during which the identity narrative is repeatedly reshaped and enriched with new meanings. Supportive relationships with other persons of same-gender orientation, feelings of acceptance by heterosexual significant others, including the family, and the level of tolerance and safety within one's social-cultural context influence the strategy and goals of disclosure (p. 131).

What were individuals told to practice?

individuals were told to practice perspective taking and empathy

Did Molly have a perfect childhood?

Molly had a self-proclaimed "perfect childhood." According to the text, what might Molly face later in life?

Is there a correlation between age and self-reported desire to change?

there is little to no correlation between participants' age and their self-reported desire to change

How many middle-aged people believe their personalities have changed?

About 40 percent of middle-aged people believe that their personalities have changed some in the past six years.

What is the correlation between personality traits?

Positive correlations between personality trait scores range from 0 to 1.0, with 1.0 being a perfect correlation. If personality traits are consistent in individuals, the correlation between those traits over time should reflect that consistency. Hopwood et al. (2013) were interested in finding out if personality traits are stable over the course of 10 years.

Can researchers gather information about the same people as they age?

Researchers are able to gather information about the same people as they age.

image

Overview

The theory of narrative identity postulates that individuals form an identity by integrating their life experiences into an internalized, evolving story of the self that provides the individual with a sense of unity and purpose in life. This life narrative integrates one's reconstructed past, perceived present, and imagined future. Furthermore, this narrative is a story – it has characters, episodes, imagery, a setting, plots, and themes and often follows the traditional model of a story, having a …

Context

Development of narrative identity in childhood is largely influenced by opportunities for narrative expression through conversations with caregivers and friends. Young children whose parents share more detailed personal narratives from their own lives tend to have more detailed and coherent personal narratives themselves by the end of the preschool age period. In addition, young children whose parents or caregivers engage in more elaborative reminiscing techniques, …

Components of identity narratives

Life narratives are often examined and evaluated by the presence and extent to which they contain various structural and thematic components.
Coherence is one of the primary structural elements of narratives. As individuals develop from children to adults, four types of coherence emerge in their abilities to tell stories:
• Temporal coherence: the telling of a story in a clear, chronological way, i.e. event B follows eve…

Research in narrative constructs

The constructs mentioned above can vary in a narrative depending on the characteristics of the narrator and the circumstances of the story. Research on construct variance is conducted by having participants tell a story that is scored for some number of the eight narrative constructs.
The characteristics of a narrative can vary depending on age: during the adolescent years, narrative sophistication increases with age. For example, in one psychological study, adolescent…

Autobiographical memory

The formation and organization of memories is the central mechanism through which narrative identity is constructed. The life story allows individuals to organize recollective memories and more abstract knowledge of their past into a coherent biographical view. Different types of memories have been identified and classified, and have unique influences on how individuals develop their narrative self. Just as autobiographical memories influence personal narratives, th…

Storytelling process

Beyond the content of people's stories, the storytelling process is essential to understanding narrative identity. The purpose of stories, the role of the listener, and storytelling patterns all influence the way stories are told, and thus narrative identity.
Richard Bauman states that different forms of conversational genres (personal experience narrative, tall tale, practical joke), interrelatedly, add texture and flavor to one's life. The formats …

Applications of narrative methods

The concept of narrative identity, and its associated research techniques have been applied in a wide variety of fields. Below are just a few examples:
Narrative identity has been studied as it impacts the lives of lesbian and gay individuals. Specifically, the concept of master narratives (story scripts common within a cultural context) has been investigated in this domain. Studies have found that gay identity is often shaped by maste…

See also

• Memory
• Personality psychology