"I want to lift my people up": Exploring the psychological correlates of racial themes within the life stories of midlife Black Americans.

OBJECTIVE: This study explores how middle-aged Black Americans talk about race, without prompting, while telling their life stories. METHOD: Drawing upon a dataset of lengthy Life Story Interviews (N = 70), we first employed a keyword search to identify race-relevant interview scenes for each participant. Next, we conducted a thematic analysis of these scenes to identify salient racial narrative themes. Finally, we coded race-relevant scenes to examine the psychological correlates of racial narrative themes. RESULTS: We identified 460 total racially themed Life Story Interview scenes, with the number of racially themed scenes ranging from 1 to 17 across participants' interviews. Racial narrative themes included Community of Care, Black Cultural Identity, Multiculturalism, Activism, Encounter with Racism, Systemic Racism, and Racial Reckoning. Quantitative analyses highlight a relationship between racial narrative themes and psychological measures of wisdom and generativity. CONCLUSION: This study offers insight into the ways that race manifests in the life stories of Black Americans and highlights the importance of considering race in the study of narrative identity, and personality, more broadly.

Self-concept and Narrative Identity in Youth at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis.

BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS: Disturbances of the narrative self and personal identity accompany the onset of psychotic disorders in late adolescence and early adulthood (a formative developmental stage for self-concept and personal narratives). However, these issues have primarily been studied retrospectively after illness onset, limiting any inferences about their developmental course. STUDY DESIGN: Youth at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR) (n = 49) and matched healthy comparison youth (n = 52) completed a life story interview (including self-defining memory, turning point, life challenge, and psychotic-like experience) and questionnaires assessing self-esteem, self-beliefs, self-concept clarity, and ruminative/reflective self-focus. Trained raters coded interviews for narrative identity themes of emotional tone, agency, temporal coherence, context coherence, self-event connections, and meaning-making (intraclass correlations >0.75). Statistical analyses tested group differences and relationships between self-concept, narrative identity, symptoms, and functioning. STUDY RESULTS: CHR participants reported more negative self-esteem and self-beliefs, poorer self-concept clarity, and more ruminative self-focus, all of which related to negative symptoms. CHR participants narrated their life stories with themes of negative emotion and passivity (ie, lack of personal agency), which related to positive and negative symptoms. Reflective self-focus and autobiographical reasoning were unaffected and correlated. Autobiographical reasoning was uniquely associated with preserved role functioning. CONCLUSIONS: This group of youth at CHR exhibited some, but not all, changes to self-concept and narrative identity seen in psychotic disorders. A core theme of negativity, uncertainty, and passivity ran through their semantic and narrative self-representations. Preserved self-reflection and autobiographical reasoning suggest sources of resilience and potential footholds for cognitive-behavioral and metacognitive interventions.

Seeing your life story as a Hero's Journey increases meaning in life.

Meaning in life is tied to the stories people tell about their lives. We explore whether one timeless story-the Hero's Journey-might make people's lives feel more meaningful. This enduring story appears across history and cultures and provides a template for ancient myths (e.g., Beowulf) and blockbuster books and movies (e.g., Harry Potter). Eight studies reveal that the Hero's Journey predicts and can causally increase people's experience of meaning in life. We first distill the Hero's Journey into seven key elements-protagonist, shift, quest, allies, challenge, transformation, legacy-and then develop a new measure that assesses the perceived presence of the Hero's Journey narrative in people's life stories: the Hero's Journey Scale. Using this scale, we find a positive relationship between the Hero's Journey and meaning in life with both online participants (Studies 1-2) and older adults in a community sample (Study 3). We then develop a restorying intervention that leads people to see the events of their life as a Hero's Journey (Study 4). This intervention causally increases meaning in life (Study 5) by prompting people to reflect on important elements of their lives and connecting them into a coherent and compelling narrative (Study 6). This Hero's Journey restorying intervention also increases the extent to which people perceive meaning in an ambiguous grammar task (Study 7) and increases their resilience to life's challenges (Study 8). These results provide initial evidence that enduring cultural narratives like the Hero's Journey both reflect meaningful lives and can help to create them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Hiding in plain view: An historical perspective on the study of morality in personality psychology.

OBJECTIVE: We aim to identify the major ideas and trends in the study of morality within personality psychology over the past 100 years. METHOD: Our historical review is organized into three sections, examining moral dimensions in personality from the standpoints of the person as (1) a social actor (moral traits), (2) a motivated agent (the mental infrastructure of morality), and (3) an autobiographical author (moral life stories). RESULTS: Within the field of personality psychology, a great deal of research into morality has been hiding for decades in plain view. Accordingly, we trace the history of research on socialization and instrumental competence, altruism, moral traits and virtues, the dimensions of morality inherent in the authoritarian personality, personal values, moral reasoning, moral intuitions, and the life stories constructed by people who have distinguished themselves for moral excellence, as evidenced in extraordinary bravery, compassion, or generativity. CONCLUSIONS: In a multitude of ways, human beings express and experience individual differences in their moral engagement of the world, all of which fall within the purview of personality psychology.

The comforter-in-chief: How two traumatic experiences shaped president joe Biden's first 100 days.

OBJECTIVE: In the first 100 days of his U.S. presidency, Joe Biden sought to comfort Americans who had lost loved ones to the pandemic and to initiate a surprisingly progressive policy agenda. I interpret these two cardinal features of his early presidency in terms of two traumatic losses in Biden's personal life, contextualizing the argument within a 3-tiered model of personality. METHOD: This psychobiography of a single case mainly follows an inductive, grounded-theory approach that aims to find patterns in the data that both explain a life and link to evidence-based constructs in psychological science. RESULTS: As Biden understands his own life story, the deaths of his wife and daughter in 1972 and first-born adult son in 2015 forged an empathic sensibility that enables him to connect deeply with other Americans through shared grief and pain. These two traumatic events also inform the uniquely conciliatory approach he followed to instigate social change. CONCLUSIONS: The first 100 days of the Biden presidency provide a striking example of how a particular person's life history comes to meet the broader historical moment. The findings have implications for how personality researchers think about redemptive life stories and the nature of late-life narrative identity.

Narrative identity in the psychosis spectrum: A systematic review and developmental model.

Individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders face profound challenges as they attempt to maintain identity through the course of illness. Narrative identity-the study of internalized, evolving life stories-provides a rich theoretical and empirical perspective on these challenges. Based on evidence from a systematic review of narrative identity in the psychosis spectrum (30 studies, combined N = 3859), we argue that the narrative identities of individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders are distinguished by three features: disjointed structure, a focus on suffering, and detached narration. Psychotic disorders typically begin to emerge during adolescence and emerging adulthood, which are formative developmental stages for narrative identity, so it is particularly informative to understand identity disturbances from a developmental perspective. We propose a developmental model in which a focus on suffering emerges in childhood; disjointed structure emerges in middle and late adolescence; and detached narration emerges before or around the time of a first psychotic episode. Further research with imminent risk and early course psychosis populations would be needed to test these predictions. The disrupted life stories of individuals on the psychosis spectrum provide multiple rich avenues for further research to understand narrative self-disturbances.

Self-transcendence and life stories of humanistic growth among late-midlife adults.

OBJECTIVE: Self-transcendence is the experience of feeling connected to something greater than oneself. Previous studies have shown high scores on self-transcendence are associated with well-being and other psychological benefits, but have rarely examined the lived experiences of highly self-transcendent people. METHOD: Black and White men and women in late-midlife completed Life Story Interviews and self-report measures of self-transcendence. In Study 1 (N = 144, Mage  = 56.4), we used grounded theory methodology to differentiate the stories told by participants scoring either extremely high or extremely low on self-transcendence. In Study 2 (N = 125; Mage  = 60.4), we created a quantitative coding scheme and scored 1,375 new life story scenes. RESULTS: In Study 1, six narrative themes were identified (closure, interconnectedness, lifelong learning, secure attachment, self-actualization, and spiritual pluralism) as part of a "humanistic growth story." In Study 2, four of the narrative themes were found to predict self-transcendence scores with significant effect sizes of ß = .26 to .47. CONCLUSIONS: In our sample, highly self-transcendent individuals tended to narrate their lived experiences as spiritual journeys of humanistic growth. This study adds to our understanding of one path of personality growth in late-midlife, that toward self-transcendence.

The Episodic Man: How a Psychological Biography of Donald J. Trump Casts New Light on Empirical Research Into Narrative Identity.

People make meaning through life narrative. The central thesis of my book-length psychological biography of Donald Trump is that the 45th president of the United States defied this general meaning-making tendency and epitomized instead the episodic man. Like no other president in modern history, Trump seems to be nearly devoid of a narrative identity, which is an internalized and evolving story of the self that reconstructs the personal past and imagines the future in order to provide life with temporal continuity and meaning. Instead, Trump has always lived in the emotionally vivid moment (episode), fighting to win each moment, moment by discrete moment. Seeing him through the lens of the episodic man helps to explain many puzzling features of Donald Trump's personality, from his charismatic effect on millions of Americans to his penchant for lying and malice. Importantly, the analysis of Trump's episodic nature informs the scientific study of narrative identity and meaning making more generally, suggesting that people vary not only with respect to the kinds of stories they create for their lives but also with respect to the extent to which they construe life in narrative terms. Therefore, the analysis of Trump illustrates the potentially reciprocal relationship between the idiographic case and the nomothetic effort to develop and evaluate more general scientific hypotheses.

More Vulnerable? The Life Story Approach Highlights Older People's Potential for Strength During the Pandemic.

OBJECTIVES: Older adults have repeatedly been referred to as more physically vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic, however, is not only about becoming physically ill. It has many psychosocial aspects: people are exposed to myriad life challenges. The life story approach does not ignore physical status but also emphasizes psychosocial strengths. It highlights that older people are likely to have developed resilience through experiencing life challenges and living across history. METHOD: We used the narrative method to review research on three strengths: tendency toward life reflection, adaptive use of personal memory, and temporal focus encouraging generativity. RESULTS: For each, we (a) present evidence that this strength manifests in the second half of life, and (b) identify how it may specifically be applied in dealing with the challenges of the pandemic. In considering their life stories, the picture that emerges is one of older adults as having the potential to show considerable psychosocial strength despite the adversities of the pandemic. DISCUSSION: We conclude that during this period of sweeping change in the lives of individuals of all ages, our older citizens may act as valuable societal anchors.

The empirical structure of narrative identity: The initial Big Three.

A robust empirical literature suggests that individual differences in the thematic and structural aspects of life narratives are associated with and predictive of psychological well-being. However, 1 limitation of the current field is the multitude of ways of capturing these narrative features, with little attention to overarching dimensions or latent factors of narrative that are responsible for these associations with well-being. In the present study we uncovered a reliable structure that accommodates commonly studied features of life narratives in a large-scale, multi-university collaborative effort. Across 3 large samples of emerging and midlife adults responding to various narrative prompts (N = 855 participants, N = 2,565 narratives), we found support for 3 factors of life narratives: motivational and affective themes, autobiographical reasoning, and structural aspects. We also identified a "functional" model of these 3 factors that reveals a reduced set of narrative features that adequately captures each factor. Additionally, motivational and affective themes was the factor most reliably related to well-being. Finally, associations with personality traits were variable by narrative prompt. Overall, the present findings provide a comprehensive and robust model for understanding the empirical structure of narrative identity as it relates to well-being, which offers meaningful theoretical contributions to the literature, and facilitates practical decision making for researchers endeavoring to capture and quantify life narratives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychopathology and the self: Human actors, agents, and authors.

The articles included within this special issue of the Journal of Personality all conceptualize psychopathology as the result of problems in human selfhood. As such, they implicate a wide assortment of self-related constructs, from self-objectification to self-esteem, in the etiology and maintenance of psychopathology, and they point to interventions designed to alter these self-processes in order to alleviate suffering. In this commentary, I reinterpret and reorganize many of the ideas presented in the articles from the standpoint of a tripartite perspective on the reflexive human self. The self is first and foremost an inherent duality of I and Me. Psychologically speaking, the I/Me dynamic plays out in three different guises-the self as (1) social actor, (2) motivated agent, and (3) autobiographical author. Problems in human selfhood as they pertain to psychopathology may be profitably reconceived in terms of the corresponding performative styles expressed by social actors, the motivational agendas of values and goals that energize human striving and determine self-esteem, and the internalized life stories that human beings, as authors of the self, fashion and narrate to make sense of the reconstructed past and imagined future.

Authenticity and inauthenticity in narrative identity.

Self-reported authenticity is related to higher well-being, however, employing self-report questionnaires to measure authenticity may be limited in that they do not capture the lived experience of authenticity. We employ a narrative identity approach to the study of authenticity to potentially better capture some of the idiosyncratic richness and nuance of authentic experience. In Study 1, 87 undergraduates wrote descriptions of three separate memories: one in which they felt authentic, one in which they felt inauthentic, and a vivid, emotional memory. Thematic analysis identified five dimensions of authenticity (relational authenticity, resisting external pressures, expression of true self, contentment, owning one's actions) and 4 dimensions of inauthenticity (phoniness, suppression, self-denigration, and conformity). In study 2, 103 undergraduates provided written descriptions of authentic and inauthentic experiences. Scenes were coded for the dimensions of authenticity and inauthenticity listed above, and those categories were related to self-report scales assessing authenticity and related constructs (autonomy, honesty, Machiavellianism). Correlational and factor extension results suggested that narratives themes showed evidence of both convergent and discriminant validity. Implications for narrative and self-report approaches to authenticity are discussed.

Core beliefs in healthy youth and youth at ultra high-risk for psychosis: Dimensionality and links to depression, anxiety, and attenuated psychotic symptoms.

Cognitive theory posits that core beliefs play an active role in developing and maintaining symptoms of depression, anxiety, and psychosis. This study sought to comprehensively examine core beliefs, their dimensionality, and their relationships to depression, anxiety, and attenuated psychotic symptoms in two groups of community youth: a group at ultrahigh risk for psychosis (UHR; n = 73, M age = 18.7) and a matched healthy comparison group (HC; n = 73, M age = 18.1). UHR youth reported significantly more negative beliefs about self and others, and significantly less positive beliefs about self and others. HC youth rarely endorsed negative self-beliefs. Exploratory factor analyses found that HC negative self-beliefs did not cohere as a single factor. We hypothesized specific links between core beliefs and symptoms based on cognitive models of each disorder, and tested these links through regression analyses. The results in the HC group were consistent with the proposed models of depression and anxiety. The results in the UHR group were consistent with proposed models of depression and negative psychotic symptoms, somewhat consistent with a proposed model of positive psychotic symptoms, and not at all consistent with a proposed model of anxiety. These findings add to a growing developmental literature on core beliefs and psychopathology, with important clinical implications.

Identity development in cultural context: The role of deviating from master narratives.

OBJECTIVE: The great majority of research on identity and personality development has focused on individual processes of development, to the relative neglect of the cultural context of development. We employ a recently articulated framework for the examination of identity development in context, centered on the construct of master narratives, or culturally shared stories. METHOD: Across four studies, we asked emerging and midlife adults (N = 512) to narrate personal experiences of deviations from these master narratives. RESULTS: Across three quantitative studies, we show that (a) those who elaborated their deviation experiences were more likely to be in structurally marginalized positions in society (e.g., ethnic or sexual minorities); (b) those who elaborated an empowering alternative to the master narrative were more likely to be engaged in identity processes; and (c) master narratives maintain their rigidity by the frequency of their use. In study 4, using qualitative analyses, we illustrate the rigidity of master narratives, as well as the degree to which they take shape in social and group experiences. CONCLUSIONS: These studies emphasize the importance of cultural context in considering personality and identity development.

Personality development through natural language.

Ego level is a broad construct that summarizes individual differences in personality development 1 . We examine ego level as it is represented in natural language, using a composite sample of four datasets comprising nearly 44,000 responses. We find support for a developmental sequence in the structure of correlations between ego levels, in analyses of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) categories 2 and in an examination of the individual words that are characteristic of each level. The LIWC analyses reveal increasing complexity and, to some extent, increasing breadth of perspective with higher levels of development. The characteristic language of each ego level suggests, for example, a shift from consummatory to appetitive desires at the lowest stages, a dawning of doubt at the Self-aware stage, the centrality of achievement motivation at the Conscientious stage, an increase in mutuality and intellectual growth at the Individualistic stage and some renegotiation of life goals and reflection on identity at the highest levels of development. Continuing empirical analysis of ego level and language will provide a deeper understanding of ego development, its relationship with other models of personality and individual differences, and its utility in characterizing people, texts and the cultural contexts that produce them.

Parental Co-Construction of 5- to 13-Year-Olds' Global Self-Esteem Through Reminiscing About Past Events.

The current study explored parental processes associated with children's global self-esteem development. Eighty 5- to 13-year-olds and one of their parents provided qualitative and quantitative data through questionnaires, open-ended questions, and a laboratory-based reminiscing task. Parents who included more explanations of emotions when writing about the lowest points in their lives were more likely to discuss explanations of emotions experienced in negative past events with their child, which was associated with child attachment security. Attachment was associated with concurrent self-esteem, which predicted relative increases in self-esteem 16 months later, on average. Finally, parent support also predicted residual increases in self-esteem. Findings extend prior research by including younger ages and uncovering a process by which two theoretically relevant parenting behaviors impact self-esteem development.

Associations between spontaneous parental perspective-taking and stimulated cytokine responses in children with asthma.

OBJECTIVES: Cognitive empathy in parents-reflecting the extent to which one considers the perspectives and emotions of others-is hypothesized to contribute to family social environments in ways that affect youths' physical health. Using a novel assessment technique for cognitive empathy, the current study examined associations between spontaneous parental perspective-taking and key inflammatory processes implicated in pediatric asthma. METHOD: One hundred thirty children (ages 9-17) with physician-diagnosed asthma, along with 1 parent, participated in the current study. Parents completed an interview from which statements of perspective-taking were coded and youths provided blood samples. RESULTS: Youths whose parents demonstrated greater spontaneous perspective-taking during the interview had cells that mounted smaller inflammatory responses to stimulation by nonspecific, asthma-specific, and viral analogue ligands, as well as cells that showed greater sensitivity to the anti-inflammatory effects of glucocorticoids. These results were not accounted for by parental warmth or parent or youth depressive symptoms, nor by covariates of race, age, gender, parental education level, use of asthma medications over the past week, or asthma severity. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that parental perspective-taking may have implications for biological processes relevant to childhood asthma. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Relation of Ego Integrity and Despair to Personality Traits and Mental Health.

OBJECTIVES: Existing studies in the Eriksonian tradition found that ego integrity and despair are important indicators of life-span development. The present study relates ego integrity and despair to contemporary theories of personality and mental health. METHOD: A cross-sectional study of Dutch adults aged between 50 and 95 years (N = 218) was carried out, using the Northwestern Ego Integrity Scale, the subscales for neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience of the NEO-FFI, the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale-Short Form. RESULTS: Extraversion and openness to experience have an indirect relation to ego integrity that is mediated by well-being. Neuroticism was related to despair and explained the relationship of depressive symptoms to despair. Chronological age did not moderate these findings. DISCUSSION: Ego integrity appears to be related to fluctuating states of mental health, whereas despair is more an expression of a general trait-like disposition of neuroticism. Implications for further research are discussed.

Studying the Motivated Agent Through Time: Personal Goal Development During the Adult Life Span.

This research examined the rank-order and mean-level consistency of personal goals at two periods in the adult life span. Personal goal continuity was considered among a group of young adults (N = 145) who reported their goals three times over a 3-year period and among a group of midlife adults (N = 163) who specified their goals annually over a 4-year period. Goals were coded for a series of motive-based (viz., achievement, affiliation, intimacy, power) and domain-based (viz., finance, generativity, health, travel) categories. In both samples, we noted a moderate degree of rank-order consistency across assessment periods. In addition, the majority of goal categories exhibited a high degree of mean-level consistency. The results of this research suggest that (a) the content of goals exhibits a modest degree of rank-order consistency and a substantial degree of mean-level consistency over time, and (b) considering personality continuity and development as manifest via goals represents a viable strategy for personality psychologists.

Personality Traits, Ego Development, and the Redemptive Self.

Life narratives are the internalized stories that people construct to provide meaning, purpose, and coherence in their lives. Prior research suggests that psychologically healthy and socially engaged adults generally narrate their lives in a prototypical fashion labeled the redemptive self, consisting of five themes: (a) a sense of childhood advantage, (b) empathy for others' sufferings, (c) moral steadfastness, (d) turning of negative events into positive outcomes (redemption sequences), and (e) prosocial goals. The current study examines trait correlates of the redemptive self in 157 late-midlife adults. Summing thematic scores across 12 life story interview scenes, the redemptive self was positively associated with four of the Big Five traits: extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability, but unrelated to cognitive features of personality, as assessed on openness and ego development. The findings suggest those with positive socio-emotional personality traits, but not necessarily a proclivity for sophisticated thoughts, tend to have redemptive life stories.