Narrative Identity McAdams, Dan P.; McLean, Kate C.
Current directions in psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society,
06/2013, Letnik:
22, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Narrative identity is a person's internalized and evolving life story, integrating the reconstructed past and imagined future to provide life with some degree of unity and purpose. In recent studies ...on narrative identity, researchers have paid a great deal of attention to (a) psychological adaptation and (b) development. Research into the relation between life stories and adaptation shows that narrators who find redemptive meanings in suffering and adversity, and who construct life stories that feature themes of personal agency and exploration, tend to enjoy higher levels of mental health, well-being, and maturity. Researchers have tracked the development of narrative identity from its origins in conversations between parents and their young children to the articulation of sophisticated meaning-making strategies in the personal stories told in adolescence and the emerging adulthood years. Future researchers need to (a) disentangle causal relations between features of life stories and positive psychological adaptation and (b) explore further the role of broad cultural contexts in the development of narrative identity.
In this paper we propose a model for examining personal identity development that moves attention from a relatively exclusive examination of the individual to an examination of the intersection ...between self and society. We propose that a master narrative model of identity development allows researchers to: (a) align the study of culture and individual on the same metric of narrative, (b) investigate the processes of negotiating personal and cultural narratives, the latter of which are embedded within the structures of society, and (c) investigate the internalization of those structures in personal identities. In laying out this model we define a narrative approach to identity development, five principles for defining master narratives (ubiquity, utility, invisibility, rigidity, and their compulsory nature), three types of master narratives (life course, structural, and episodic), and case examples of each type. This model brings attention to the interaction between self and society, as well as to the constraints on individual agency to construct a personal identity. We conclude by raising questions that emerge out of this framework that we hope will inspire future work on the relationship between self and society in the study of identity development.
Objective:
The emphasis placed on individual-level analysis throughout psychological science in general, and diversity science in particular, has left the role of structural factors undertheorized. ...Moreover, the field suffers from a lack of research methods that fully investigate structural-individual relations. This article outlines one structural-psychological approach, the master narrative framework, and details various methods for taking social structures into account while still maintaining the focus on the individual.
Conclusion:
These methods, including event narratives, in-depth interviews, life-script analysis, focus groups, experiments, and conversation analysis, allow for an understanding of both the nature and substance of the structures and how individuals interact with them.
Public Significance Statement
Psychology is a discipline that focuses on individual-level behaviors and mental processes. However, those behaviors and mental processes occur within a socially stratified society, in which some groups have more access to power than others. This article focuses on research methods that can help bridge the divide between individuals and the social structures in which they live.
Narrative identity is a distinct level of personality that is related to psychological adjustment across the life course and is at its height of development during the emerging adult years. The ...present study was designed to capture a contextualized understanding of how narrative identity processes relate to adjustment during college. Using a 4-wave longitudinal design (n = 437 participants; n = 1544 narratives) and multilevel growth curve modeling, we examined how self-event connections coded from academic and romantic high point and low point narratives reported at the end of the first year were related to trajectories of life satisfaction and mental health assessed 4 times from the summer before college to the following fall (sophomore year). We found that positive self-event connections, especially those in romantic high points, were associated with an increase in life satisfaction. In contrast, negative self-event connections in both academic and romantic low points were predicted by higher levels of depression and anxiety and lower levels of life satisfaction prior to the start of college. Methodological and theoretical contributions are discussed in terms of the importance of contextualizing narrative identity in developmental time and context, particularly for gaining a more nuanced perspective on how identity relates to adjustment during a developmental transition.
Historically, identity researchers have placed greater emphasis on processes of identity development (how people develop their identities) and less on the content of identity (what the identity is). ...The relative neglect of identity content may reflect the lack of a comprehensive framework to guide research. In this article, we provide such a comprehensive framework for the study of the content of identity, including 4 levels of analysis. At the broadest level, we situate individual identity within historical, cultural, and political contexts, elaborating on identity development within the context of shifting cultural norms, values, and attitudes. Histories of prejudice and discrimination are relevant in shaping intersections among historically marginalized identities. Second, we examine social roles as unique and central contexts for identity development, such that relationship labels become integrated into a larger identity constellation. Third, domains of individual or personal identity content intersect to yield a sense of self in which various aspects are subjectively experienced as an integrated whole. We explore the negotiation of culturally marginalized and dominant identity labels, as well as idiosyncratic aspects of identities based on unique characteristics or group memberships. Finally, we argue that the content of identity is enacted at the level of everyday interactions, the "micro-level" of identity. The concepts of identity conflict, coherence, and compartmentalization are presented as strategies used to navigate identity content across these 4 levels. This framework serves as an organizing tool for the current literature, as well as for designing future studies on the identity development.
Although survivors of sexual violence have shared their stories with the public on social media and mass media platforms in growing numbers, less is known about how general audiences perceive such ...trauma stories. These perceptions can have profound consequences for survivor mental health. In the present experimental, vignette-based studies, we anticipated that cultural stigma surrounding sexual violence and cultural preference for positive (redemptive) endings to adversity in the United States (U.S.) would shape perceptions. Four samples of U.S. adults (N = 1872) rated first-person narratives of 6 more stigmatizing (i.e., sexual violence) or less stigmatizing (e.g., natural disaster) traumatic events. Confirming pre-registered hypotheses, sexual violence trauma (versus other types of trauma) stories were perceived as more difficult to tell, and their storytellers less likeable, even when they had redemptive endings. Disconfirming other pre-registered hypotheses, redemptive (versus negative) story endings did not boost the perceived likelihood or obligation to share a sexual violence trauma story. Rather, redemptive (versus negative) story endings only boosted the perceived likelihood, obligation, and ease of telling other, less stigmatizing types of trauma stories. Findings suggest that sexual violence survivors do not benefit, to the same degree as other survivors, from telling their stories with the culturally valued narrative template of redemption. Clinical and societal implications of the less receptive climate for sexual violence stories are discussed.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Constructing a narrative identity involves developing an understanding of oneself as integrated through time and across contexts, a task critical to psychosocial development and functioning. However, ...research has primarily focused on the individual in isolation or in highly localized contexts. This is problematic because narrative identity is profoundly shaped by structures of power; thus, we cannot understand how individuals understand themselves through time, across contexts, and as a member of a particular community without attention to the structure of society. We propose a structural-psychological framework for the study of autobiographical memory, narrative, and context that examines how structures of power are maintained, and potentially changed, through the narration of autobiographical events, as guided by cognitive scripts, or master narratives.
Abstract Identity integration is one of the foundational theoretical concepts in Erikson's (1968) theory of lifespan development. However, the topic is understudied relative to its theoretical and ...practical importance. The extant research is limited in quantity and scope, and there is considerable heterogeneity in how identity integration is conceptualized and measured. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to 1) provide a conceptual discussion of different forms of identity integration 2) highlight the different methodological approaches represented in the literature, and 3) detail the implications of integration for psychological functioning. In particular, we provide a conceptual and methodological discussion of four forms of integration: two that are widely recognized, contextual integration and temporal integration , and two that have received less attention, ego integration and person-society integration . We see this paper as filling a need in the literature for those interested in how complex identity processes are related to psychological functioning.
For decades, psychological research has heavily favored quantitative over qualitative methods. One reason for this imbalance is the perception that quantitative methods follow from a post-positivist ...paradigm, which guides mainstream psychology, whereas qualitative methods follow from a constructivist paradigm. However, methods and paradigms are independent, and embracing qualitative methods within mainstream psychology is one way of addressing the generalizability crisis.
Objective
In this psychobiographical study, we examined the life and times of social change agent Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay public officials in the United States. Milk is remembered as ...a gay hero who fought for the rights of marginalized people, often by invoking the importance of hope. Milk was assassinated less than 1 year after his election.
Method
We adopt a structural psychobiographical approach, foregrounding social, cultural, political, and historical forces that intersect with personal factors to explain Milk's ascension to the status of social change agent.
Results
This psychobiography tells the story of a man not destined to become a social change agent but who became one anyway because of shifting tides in the political climate of San Francisco in the 1970s, because of a series of catalytic events that started him down this path, because of a history of persecution as a gay Jew, and because of his enduring need for a stage upon which he could express his generative concern.
Conclusions
Our analysis raises questions about the story that “belongs” to the agent of social change, and the story that “belongs” to the rest of us, as we remember him.
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