•Narrative identity was moderately stable over 1 year.•Narrative identity was less stable that personality traits over 1 year.•Chapters were more stable components of narrative identity than ...memories.•No age differences in narrative identity stability over 1 year.
We examined 1-year stability of life story chapters and memories. In addition, we examined age differences in stability. At baseline and 1 year later, 70 emerging, 60 middle-aged, and 59 older participants described up to 10 chapters and 10 memories (in counterbalanced order). Participants self-rated chapters/memories on emotional tone, self-change connections, and self-stability connections. Chapters/memories were content coded for stability between time 1 and 2 and for emotional tone. Chapters were significantly more stable than memories. However, there were no significant differences between chapters and memories regarding stability of associated emotional tone, self-change connections, and self-stability connections. We found few age differences in stability. The results suggest that chapters may play a central role in the stability of narrative identity.
A life story’s ability to evoke the emotion experienced by a protagonist is crucial to its success. Authors of interactive life stories sometimes strategically alter the interactive feedback loop to ...help convey this subjective experience. Using Mitchell’s conception of defamiliarizing poetic gameplay, this study identifies poetic gameplay devices, which creatively alter the feedback loop for emotional narrative impact. The article suggests extending the term “poetic gameplay” beyond interactive devices whose primary goal is critical appreciation of aesthetic form, to techniques directed at deepening a player’s narrative involvement, via alterations to interactivity designed to evoke emotions that mirror a protagonist’s experience. Close readings of 19 interactive life stories identified 13 devices, which fall into two categories: alterations to manipulation rules (involving local agency) and alterations to goal rules (involving higher level agency). The findings reveal some of the expressive possibilities of interactivity in digital narrative.
O objetivo deste artigo é discutir sobre escravidão, resistência e justiça no Brasil colonial a partir da trajetória da escravizada Maria de Jesus e de sua família, tendo como fio condutor as ...relações escravistas em propriedades pertencentes a uma congregação religiosa: a Ordem de São Bento. Maria se utilizou da justiça e de seus complexos caminhos para alcançar os seus objetivos de liberdade, deixando os seus antigos senhores perplexos com a “ousadia”. Os monges, vinculados no século XVIII à congregação portuguesa, foram capazes de construir um engenhoso e eficiente sistema paternalista altamente institucionalizado. Romper com esta poderosa instituição rendeu a Maria “qualificações” típicas de uma sociedade de Antigo Regime, tendo o seu nome associado à trapaça, ao ardil, à tramoia.
•The influence of assessment contexts on autobiographical scenes was examined.•Interviewer presence (vs. absence) and format of responses were manipulated.•Narratives were quantified in terms ...linguistic and conceptual categories.•The majority of categories differed across experimental conditions.•Linguistic and conceptual content is highly malleable across assessment contexts.
We examined the influence features of assessment contexts exhibited on the content of the key autobiographical scenes often considered by personality psychologists. Participants (N=402) narrated life high points, low points, and turning points within a 2(interviewer; present, absent)×2(response format; written, spoken) study design. Narratives were quantified for 15 linguistic (e.g., negative emotion words) and six conceptual (e.g., affective tone) variables. We noted that 93% of linguistic variables and 83% of conceptual variables differed as a function of assessment context in the form of main effects for, and/or interactions between, study variables. The narrative materials commonly assessed by personality psychologists are highly sensitive to features of the contexts in which they are assessed.
Objective
To better understand how persons diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) make sense of the origin and development of their current everyday struggles.
Methods
Persons with AVPD ...(N = 15) were interviewed twice using semi‐structured qualitative interviews, which were analyzed through interpretative‐phenomenological analysis. Persons with the first‐hand experience of AVPD were included in the research.
Results
The superordinate theme, “a story of becoming forlorn,” encompassed three main themes: “it goes all the way back to when I was little,” “there was a distance between others and me,” and “transitions made it worse.”
Conclusions
Though the results are not necessarily specific to AVPD, the findings clarify how people with AVPD can make sense of their current struggles by constructing developmental life stories in the interplay between themselves as persons and the growing demands of their social world. Furthermore, childhood relational vulnerabilities may challenge the ongoing development of social cognition and skills.
Individuals interpret events in positive and negative ways, creating positive and negative meaning in their life stories. We hypothesized that higher trait anxiety measured 10years earlier would ...predict more negative meaning-making in life stories and that negative meaning-making would be related to more concurrent depressive symptoms. Participants were 272 women who had undergone fertility treatment and completed measures of trait anxiety 10years earlier. In the present study, they described five life story events and rated these on emotional tone and meaning-making. A path analysis showed that higher trait anxiety predicted more negative meaning-making 10years later and that negative meaning-making predicted more concurrent depressive symptoms after adjusting for baseline depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, and education. The results suggest that life stories are important to well-being.
•Meaning-making may be both positive and negative.•High trait anxiety predict negative meaning-making in life stories 10years later.•Meaning-making predicted depressive symptoms after control for trait anxiety.
A New Big Five McAdams, Dan P; Pals, Jennifer L
The American psychologist,
04/2006, Volume:
61, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Despite impressive advances in recent years with respect to theory and research, personality psychology has yet to articulate clearly a comprehensive framework for understanding the whole person. In ...an effort to achieve that aim, the current article draws on the most promising empirical and theoretical trends in personality psychology today to articulate 5 big principles for an integrative science of the whole person. Personality is conceived as (a) an individual's unique variation on the general evolutionary design for human nature, expressed as a developing pattern of (b) dispositional traits, (c) characteristic adaptations, and (d) self-defining life narratives, complexly and differentially situated (e) in culture and social context. The 5 principles suggest a framework for integrating the Big Five model of personality traits with those self-defining features of psychological individuality constructed in response to situated social tasks and the human need to make meaning in culture.
Studying written life stories of patients with personality disorders (PDs) may enhance knowledge of how they understand themselves, others and the world around them. Comparing the construction of ...their life stories before psychotherapy to their reconstruction after psychotherapy may provide insight in therapeutic changes in the understandings of their lives.
As few studies addressed this topic, the current study explored changes in agency (i.e., perceived ability to affect change in life), and communion (i.e,, perceived connectedness to other persons) in written life stories of 34 patients with various PDs, before and after intensive psychotherapy treatment.
Life stories showed a positive increase in agency from pre- to posttreatment, in particular regarding internal agency, societal success, and occupational success. No significant changes were observed for communion as a whole. However, the perceived number and quality of close relationships revealed a significant positive increase.
The increased agency in the reconstruction of patients' life story after psychotherapy suggests that patients improved their perceived ability to affect change in their own lives. This can be seen as an important step in the treatment of PDs towards further recovery.
Cadre de la recherche : Cet article, basé sur des analyses de mon mémoire de maîtrise en sociologie, porte sur les expériences de (re)mises en couple vécues plus tard dans le parcours de vie. Cela en ...s’intéressant aux couples formés dans la soixantaine et plus particulièrement aux modes de conjugalités adoptés. Objectifs : Ces expériences conjugales sont explorées afin d’approfondir notre compréhension de la conjugalité en tenant compte de leur temporalité. Un intérêt particulier a été porté aux trajectoires de ces couples ainsi qu’à la dimension de mise en commun et la cohabitation en lien avec les différents arrangements du quotidien. Méthodologie : Les analyses sont issues de dix entretiens individuels de types récit de vie et compréhensif menés auprès de personnes dont le couple s’est formé lorsqu’elles étaient âgées entre 60 et 68 ans. Résultats : Former un nouveau couple dans la soixantaine apparait à ces partenaires comme une période favorable pour la vie conjugale, libérée notamment de certaines pressions associées à l’âge adulte. Les bagages du passé peuvent agir comme des ressources tant émotionnelles, relationnelles que matérielles pour ces relations de couple. Ces dernières sont marquées par le partage et impliquent nécessairement une gestion du quotidien, qui demande aux partenaires de trouver la « bonne distance » (gestion du temps et de l’espace personnel et conjugal). Conclusions : Faire couple comporte toujours une mise en commun et ce peu importe le mode de conjugalité. L’équilibre entre fusion et autonomie s’articule dans différents arrangements et les potentiels de l’avancer en âge sont riches. Contribution : Ces résultats montrent l’importance de tenir compte des âges de la vie dans l’étude de la conjugalité et comment les trajectoires de vie influencent les choix conjugaux dont ceux liés à la cohabitation.
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