Narrative identity processes and patterns of adjustment across the transition to college: A developmentally contextualized approach.

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. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

When is meaning making unhealthy for the self? The roles of neuroticism, implicit theories, and memory telling in trauma and transgression memories.

The aim of this study was to examine how three factors-neuroticism, implicit theories of personality, and memory telling-relate to patterns of healthy and unhealthy meaning making in two kinds of negative memories: traumas and transgressions. Healthy meaning making was defined as self-growth, whereas unhealthy meaning making was defined as viewing the self as damaged in traumas (damaged self) and as a bad person in transgressions (bad self). A total of 85 adult participants completed survey measures of personality and memory telling (retrospective reports of extent to which memory was shared with others) and wrote a narrative of a trauma and a transgression which were coded for specific forms of meaning making. Results revealed distinct patterns of associations for trauma and transgression memories. The combination of low neuroticism and an incremental theory (belief that personality can change) predicted self-growth in traumas, whereas memory telling was predictive of self-growth in transgressions, especially among incremental theorists. For unhealthy forms of meaning making, an entity theory (belief that personality is fixed) was associated with the bad self in transgressions, and viewing the self as damaged by traumas was more common among younger adults than older adults.

Does ego development increase during midlife? The effects of openness and accommodative processing of difficult events.

OBJECTIVE: Although Loevinger's model of ego development is a theory of personality growth, there are few studies that have examined age-related change in ego level over developmentally significant periods of adulthood. To address this gap in the literature, we examined mean-level change and individual differences in change in ego level over 18 years of midlife. METHOD: In this longitudinal study, participants were 79 predominantly White, college-educated women who completed the Washington University Sentence Completion Test in early (age 43) and late (age 61) midlife as well as measures of the trait of Openness (ages 21, 43, 52, and 61) and accommodative processing (assessed from narratives of difficult life events at age 52). RESULTS: As hypothesized, the sample overall showed a mean-level increase in ego level from age 43 to age 61. Additionally, a regression analysis showed that both the trait of Openness at age 21 and accommodative processing of difficult events that occurred during (as opposed to prior to) midlife were each predictive of increasing ego level from age 43 to age 61. CONCLUSIONS: These findings counter prior claims that ego level remains stable during adulthood and contribute to our understanding of the underlying processes involved in personality growth in midlife.

Constructing stories of self-growth: how individual differences in patterns of autobiographical reasoning relate to well-being in midlife.

Although growth has been a central focus in narrative research, few studies have examined growth comprehensively, as a story that emerges across the interpretation of many events. In this study, we examined how individual differences in autobiographical reasoning (AR) about self-growth relate to traits and well-being in a national sample of midlife adults (N= 88) who ranged in age from 34 to 68. Two patterns of growth-related AR were identified: (1) positive processing, defined as the average tendency to interpret events positively (vs. negatively), and (2) differentiated processing, defined as the extent to which past events are interpreted as causing a variety of forms of self-growth. Results showed that positive processing was negatively related to neuroticism and predicted well-being even after controlling for the average valence of past events. Additionally, differentiated processing of negative events but not positive events was positively related to openness and predictive of well-being. Finally, growth-related AR patterns independently predicted well-being beyond the effects of traits and demographic factors.

Why recall our highs and lows: relations between memory functions, age, and well-being.

This study examined whether positive and negative memories (life story high and low points) were differentially used for reminiscence functions concerning self and social aspects of reminiscing, and relations between function use and well-being in two age groups. Life story high and low points were collected from a sample of emerging (n =56) and older (n =55) adults, as well as a measure of the use of these memories for the self-functions of death preparation, identity, and problem solving, and the social functions of conversation and teach/inform, and a measure of psychological well-being. Memories were also coded for whether or not they contained a redemptive narrative structure (from emotionally negative to emotionally positive). Results showed that the endorsement of reminiscence functions did differ by memory type, with high points more often endorsed for the functions of identity, teach/inform, and conversation than low points. These main effects were qualified by memory type x age interactions. The use of these functions for each kind of memory was also related to well-being, but differentially for older and younger people, and redemptive sequencing was especially important to the well-being of the younger group. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of different emotional memories for self and well-being at different points in the lifespan.