Continuity and change in the life story: a longitudinal study of autobiographical memories in emerging adulthood.

Full Abstract

If a person's internalized and evolving life story (narrative identity) is to be considered an integral feature of personality itself, then aspects of that story should manifest some continuity over time while also providing evidence regarding important personality change. Accordingly, college freshmen and seniors provided detailed written accounts of 10 key scenes in their life stories, and they repeated the same procedure 3 months and then 3 years later. The accounts were content analyzed for reliable narrative indices employed in previous studies of life stories:
emotional tone, motivational themes (agency, communion, personal growth), and narrative complexity. The results showed substantial continuity over time for narrative complexity and positive (vs. negative) emotional tone and moderate but still significant continuity for themes of agency and growth. In addition, emerging adults (1) constructed more emotionally positive stories and showed (2) greater levels of emotional nuance and self-differentiation and (3) greater understanding of their own personal development in the 4th year of the study compared to the 1st year. The study is the first to demonstrate both temporal continuity and developmental change in narrative identity over time in a broad sampling of personally meaningful life-story scenes.

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Author information

Author/s: McAdams, Dan P (DP); Bauer, Jack J (JJ); Sakaeda, April R (AR); Anyidoho, Nana Akua (NA); Machado, Mary Anne (MA); Magrino-Failla, Katie (K); White, Katie W (KW); Pals, Jennifer L (JL);

Affiliation: Foley Center for the Study of Lives, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. dmca(-atsign-)northwestern.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Journal of personality (J Pers), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Oct; vol 74 (issue 5) : pp 1371-400

Dates: Created 2006/09/08; Completed 2007/01/16;

PMID: 16958706, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Adolescent Psychology
Adult - psychology
Autobiography
Humans

Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Narration
Personality
Students - psychology

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