Current Directions in Psychological Science· 2013Q1
Narrative Identity
- 1,411citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2013year
Short summary
Internalized life stories that integrate past and future, providing unity and purpose, are linked to higher mental health and maturity.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Narrative identity is an internalized, evolving life story that provides unity and purpose.
- Finding redemptive meanings in suffering and adversity is linked to higher mental health and well-being.
- Life stories featuring personal agency and exploration correlate with greater maturity.
- Narrative identity development begins in early childhood and becomes more sophisticated through adolescence and emerging adulthood.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
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.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2013 · DOI ↗
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Field: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Developmental and Educational PsychologyPsychology