Personal memories increasingly have been implicated in the process of identitymaking, but systema... more Personal memories increasingly have been implicated in the process of identitymaking, but systematic study of stability and change in memory telling is rare. Comparisons of relationship memories told by 46 young adults during two interviews separated by about 6 months found moderate thematic consistency across the two sets of memories. The similarity obtained despite a high turnover in the specific events that were selected for telling each time. These findings, paired with ancillary data indicating a similarly high turnover for earliest memories, high points, and low points, suggest that relationship memories for young adults serve more as examples of enduring concerns than as essential landmarks for the life story. Twice-told tales showed quite stable storylines, and were most dense for memories of intimate encounters in late adolescence, suggesting the centrality of this period for the development of relationship identity. {Development, Narrative, Memory, Identity) In the last decade, the "turn toward narrative" in the social sciences has begun to illuminate the role of life story-telling in the development of identity (McAdams, 1996, p. 380). Life stories begin to be constructed in late adolescence, and serve to unify and give purpose to past experience by organizing significant past events into a cohesive, purposeful, whole (McAdams, 1988). The life story is usually told with an implicit audience in mind, for the purpose of explaining or making meaning of past events to oneself and to others (Linde, 1990). The life story is presumed to be continually evolving, Requests for further information should be directed to
, A. (2004). When parents' stories go to pot: Telling personal transgressions to teenage kids. In... more , A. (2004). When parents' stories go to pot: Telling personal transgressions to teenage kids. In M. W. Pratt & B. E. Fiese (Eds), Family stories and the lifecourse: Across time and generations, pp. 187-209. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
This study examined late adolescents' self-defining memories about relationships. Participants we... more This study examined late adolescents' self-defining memories about relationships. Participants were 88 European Americans (M age 19 years) who reported 3 self-defining memories of their choosing, and were selected for the study because they reported a memory about parents and/or peers. Memory narratives were coded for themes of separation, closeness, and conflict, and for two kinds of meaning: learning lessons and gaining insight. Parent memories were found to emphasize separation more so than peer memories, which emphasized closeness. Within parent memories, however, separation and closeness were equally prevalent. Parent separation was exemplified by experiences of parental divorce, parent closeness by comforting a grieving parent, and peer closeness by episodes of first-time romance. Conflict was more prevalent in parent than peer memories, and was associated with meaning-making. Findings were discussed in terms of the usefulness of self-defining memories for illuminating contexts of relationship development in late adolescence, and for understanding the emergence of identity and the life story.
ABSTBACT This study of age-related changes in memories of personally important encounters showed ... more ABSTBACT This study of age-related changes in memories of personally important encounters showed "developmental truths," that is, patterns that converged with prior developmental theories and research. Participants were 47 males and 48 females in their early 20s. An average of 16 memories were collected from each person during an intensive personal interview. Memories were coded for age at the time of the episode, the identity of the other person with whom the study participant was interacting, what the participant wanted from the other person, and the outcome. As expected, memories of encounters with parents and about wanting help prevailed for childhood, whereas memories of encounters with close friends and about wanting intimacy prevailed by mid-adolescence. Memories about wanting to help others were sparse for this young-adult sample, but, like needs for intimacy, increased with age. Although patterns for males tended to be more dramatic than patterns for females, this trend appeared more attributable to actual developmental differences in social dynamics than to differences in the degree to which current concerns intruded into the memory process. The advantages of personally salient, event-specific retrospective reports for understanding personality development and change are discussed.
Not long ago, a teacher of troubled youth grew weary of the school district’s failure to understa... more Not long ago, a teacher of troubled youth grew weary of the school district’s failure to understand why it was difficult for her students to come to school. She asked her students to “tell truth to power” by sending the school superintendent a booklet of their personally crafted life stories. In the 5 years she has taught at Penny Lane,
Prior research has shown shyness to be related to concern about evaluations or possible evaluatio... more Prior research has shown shyness to be related to concern about evaluations or possible evaluations by others (Schlenker & Leary, 1982; Zimbardo, 1977), discomfort and inhibition in the presence of others (Cheek & Buss, 1981), diffidence about entering into social interaction (Pilkonis, 1977), and exaggerated self-scrutiny and self-appraisal (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975; Leary, 1982). Small wonder that shyness is typically viewed as a problem or deficit to be overcome (Zimbardo & Radl, 1981), and as a barrier preventing individuals from demonstrating their true worth in dealings with others (Leary & Schlenker, 1981). Even from this very brief formulation, it seems clear that research investigations of shyness may profitably address two themes, (a) assessment of the inner or self-view of oneself as shy, and (b) analyses of reactions of others to determine whether such responses have the negative tone feared and expected by the shy person.
Jane Loevinger here and elsewhere (Loevinger, 1976) argues that her measure of ego development ca... more Jane Loevinger here and elsewhere (Loevinger, 1976) argues that her measure of ego development captures a domain of personality unlike that of most personality measures. The ego is conceived as a master trait of personality, with a core organizing function. At the same time, that organizing function is also grounded enough to be applicable to life as it is lived in everyday social relations. It is appealing to conceive of a core organizing function, something that acts as a rudder for inner and outer forces. I want to know more about what and how the ego organizes. At the end of this commentary, I suggest that some of this ambiguity can be clarified by examining more closely the content of Loevinger's measure-the sentence stems, or conditions, through which ego level is assessed and the collections of responses to these conditions that have been accumulated for each syndrome or type.
Personality and Social Psychology Review, Feb 1, 2000
Although personal memories have been appreciated bypsychologists for nearly a century, their sign... more Although personal memories have been appreciated bypsychologists for nearly a century, their significance for personality development has tended to be relegated to internalized representations of early childhood experiences. Recent research, however, suggests that adolescence and early adulthood are the most memorable parts of the life span and perhaps the broadest period of memory telling. This article integrates recent work in cognitive and developmental psychology into a framework for studying how and why tellers proffer and make sense of momentous emotional events, and how families and friends collude in self-making. Promising areas for future research include individual differences in readiness for memory telling, gendered ecologies of memory telling, the developmental significance of parents' stories, and reconciling personal memories and personality traits. Personal memory telling is not just for fun and entertainment, but, more important, drives social and emotional development in concrete moments of social life.
This study explored patterns emerging in videotaped sessions of group psychotherapy with seven ou... more This study explored patterns emerging in videotaped sessions of group psychotherapy with seven outpatients of a large mental health facility. The 22 sessions spanned the 12th to 27th months of the group's existence. Group members had long histories (25-50 years) of symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia. Each session was rated on the Group Environment Scale. One session from a group in its earlier stages was also rated on the same instrument to give some indication of baseline patterns. Analyses of changes across the 15 months were not statistically significant. However, some GES subscales, including Cohesion, Independence, and Self-Discovery, showed relatively high mean levels across the 15-month period. These elevations are discussed as suggesting the codevelopment of orientations that have sometimes been viewed as incompatible and unattainable for schizophrenics. Interpreted clinically, the GES patterns help
THORNE, AVBIL, and MtCHAEUEU-QHYBRAE. Situoimg Adolescent Gender and Self-Esteem with Personal Me... more THORNE, AVBIL, and MtCHAEUEU-QHYBRAE. Situoimg Adolescent Gender and Self-Esteem with Personal Memories. CHILD DEVELOPMBINT, 1996, 67, 1374-1390. To identify social schemas that are associated With self-esteem in adolescence, the contents of approximately i,400 ...
In recent years, the turn toward narrative in psychology has shifted the carrier of identity from... more In recent years, the turn toward narrative in psychology has shifted the carrier of identity from stages to stories. Like Erik Erikson’s [1959] stage theory of identity, storied approaches construe identity as a psychosocial project, developing through engagement with larger social forces. Storied approaches also preserve Erikson’s premise that identity emerges through the struggle to make sense of oneself in the complex world of adulthood. Stories, however, are a more visible and efficient vehicle than stages, which are more elusive and more tenuously tied to the social world. Although all narrative researchers are fascinated by the power of stories to make sense of lived experience, some view identity as a socially situated enterprise whereas others view identity as a long-term autobiographical project. Bamberg’s study pursues identity-making as a situated project: identities are created on the spot when speakers orient or ‘position’ themselves and others vis-à-vis culturally available ‘master’ narratives. The autobiographical approach, in contrast, views identity as a long-term personal project, more situated in the person than the situation, and oriented toward developing a coherent story across an individual’s past, present, and imagined future. As someone who values socially situated and personal-historical understandings of identity development, I welcome the opportunity to ponder how Bamberg’s work fits into the larger field of storied identity research, what is new, and where it might lead.
Personal memories increasingly have been implicated in the process of identitymaking, but systema... more Personal memories increasingly have been implicated in the process of identitymaking, but systematic study of stability and change in memory telling is rare. Comparisons of relationship memories told by 46 young adults during two interviews separated by about 6 months found moderate thematic consistency across the two sets of memories. The similarity obtained despite a high turnover in the specific events that were selected for telling each time. These findings, paired with ancillary data indicating a similarly high turnover for earliest memories, high points, and low points, suggest that relationship memories for young adults serve more as examples of enduring concerns than as essential landmarks for the life story. Twice-told tales showed quite stable storylines, and were most dense for memories of intimate encounters in late adolescence, suggesting the centrality of this period for the development of relationship identity. {Development, Narrative, Memory, Identity) In the last decade, the "turn toward narrative" in the social sciences has begun to illuminate the role of life story-telling in the development of identity (McAdams, 1996, p. 380). Life stories begin to be constructed in late adolescence, and serve to unify and give purpose to past experience by organizing significant past events into a cohesive, purposeful, whole (McAdams, 1988). The life story is usually told with an implicit audience in mind, for the purpose of explaining or making meaning of past events to oneself and to others (Linde, 1990). The life story is presumed to be continually evolving, Requests for further information should be directed to
, A. (2004). When parents' stories go to pot: Telling personal transgressions to teenage kids. In... more , A. (2004). When parents' stories go to pot: Telling personal transgressions to teenage kids. In M. W. Pratt & B. E. Fiese (Eds), Family stories and the lifecourse: Across time and generations, pp. 187-209. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
This study examined late adolescents' self-defining memories about relationships. Participants we... more This study examined late adolescents' self-defining memories about relationships. Participants were 88 European Americans (M age 19 years) who reported 3 self-defining memories of their choosing, and were selected for the study because they reported a memory about parents and/or peers. Memory narratives were coded for themes of separation, closeness, and conflict, and for two kinds of meaning: learning lessons and gaining insight. Parent memories were found to emphasize separation more so than peer memories, which emphasized closeness. Within parent memories, however, separation and closeness were equally prevalent. Parent separation was exemplified by experiences of parental divorce, parent closeness by comforting a grieving parent, and peer closeness by episodes of first-time romance. Conflict was more prevalent in parent than peer memories, and was associated with meaning-making. Findings were discussed in terms of the usefulness of self-defining memories for illuminating contexts of relationship development in late adolescence, and for understanding the emergence of identity and the life story.
ABSTBACT This study of age-related changes in memories of personally important encounters showed ... more ABSTBACT This study of age-related changes in memories of personally important encounters showed "developmental truths," that is, patterns that converged with prior developmental theories and research. Participants were 47 males and 48 females in their early 20s. An average of 16 memories were collected from each person during an intensive personal interview. Memories were coded for age at the time of the episode, the identity of the other person with whom the study participant was interacting, what the participant wanted from the other person, and the outcome. As expected, memories of encounters with parents and about wanting help prevailed for childhood, whereas memories of encounters with close friends and about wanting intimacy prevailed by mid-adolescence. Memories about wanting to help others were sparse for this young-adult sample, but, like needs for intimacy, increased with age. Although patterns for males tended to be more dramatic than patterns for females, this trend appeared more attributable to actual developmental differences in social dynamics than to differences in the degree to which current concerns intruded into the memory process. The advantages of personally salient, event-specific retrospective reports for understanding personality development and change are discussed.
Not long ago, a teacher of troubled youth grew weary of the school district’s failure to understa... more Not long ago, a teacher of troubled youth grew weary of the school district’s failure to understand why it was difficult for her students to come to school. She asked her students to “tell truth to power” by sending the school superintendent a booklet of their personally crafted life stories. In the 5 years she has taught at Penny Lane,
Prior research has shown shyness to be related to concern about evaluations or possible evaluatio... more Prior research has shown shyness to be related to concern about evaluations or possible evaluations by others (Schlenker & Leary, 1982; Zimbardo, 1977), discomfort and inhibition in the presence of others (Cheek & Buss, 1981), diffidence about entering into social interaction (Pilkonis, 1977), and exaggerated self-scrutiny and self-appraisal (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975; Leary, 1982). Small wonder that shyness is typically viewed as a problem or deficit to be overcome (Zimbardo & Radl, 1981), and as a barrier preventing individuals from demonstrating their true worth in dealings with others (Leary & Schlenker, 1981). Even from this very brief formulation, it seems clear that research investigations of shyness may profitably address two themes, (a) assessment of the inner or self-view of oneself as shy, and (b) analyses of reactions of others to determine whether such responses have the negative tone feared and expected by the shy person.
Jane Loevinger here and elsewhere (Loevinger, 1976) argues that her measure of ego development ca... more Jane Loevinger here and elsewhere (Loevinger, 1976) argues that her measure of ego development captures a domain of personality unlike that of most personality measures. The ego is conceived as a master trait of personality, with a core organizing function. At the same time, that organizing function is also grounded enough to be applicable to life as it is lived in everyday social relations. It is appealing to conceive of a core organizing function, something that acts as a rudder for inner and outer forces. I want to know more about what and how the ego organizes. At the end of this commentary, I suggest that some of this ambiguity can be clarified by examining more closely the content of Loevinger's measure-the sentence stems, or conditions, through which ego level is assessed and the collections of responses to these conditions that have been accumulated for each syndrome or type.
Personality and Social Psychology Review, Feb 1, 2000
Although personal memories have been appreciated bypsychologists for nearly a century, their sign... more Although personal memories have been appreciated bypsychologists for nearly a century, their significance for personality development has tended to be relegated to internalized representations of early childhood experiences. Recent research, however, suggests that adolescence and early adulthood are the most memorable parts of the life span and perhaps the broadest period of memory telling. This article integrates recent work in cognitive and developmental psychology into a framework for studying how and why tellers proffer and make sense of momentous emotional events, and how families and friends collude in self-making. Promising areas for future research include individual differences in readiness for memory telling, gendered ecologies of memory telling, the developmental significance of parents' stories, and reconciling personal memories and personality traits. Personal memory telling is not just for fun and entertainment, but, more important, drives social and emotional development in concrete moments of social life.
This study explored patterns emerging in videotaped sessions of group psychotherapy with seven ou... more This study explored patterns emerging in videotaped sessions of group psychotherapy with seven outpatients of a large mental health facility. The 22 sessions spanned the 12th to 27th months of the group's existence. Group members had long histories (25-50 years) of symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia. Each session was rated on the Group Environment Scale. One session from a group in its earlier stages was also rated on the same instrument to give some indication of baseline patterns. Analyses of changes across the 15 months were not statistically significant. However, some GES subscales, including Cohesion, Independence, and Self-Discovery, showed relatively high mean levels across the 15-month period. These elevations are discussed as suggesting the codevelopment of orientations that have sometimes been viewed as incompatible and unattainable for schizophrenics. Interpreted clinically, the GES patterns help
THORNE, AVBIL, and MtCHAEUEU-QHYBRAE. Situoimg Adolescent Gender and Self-Esteem with Personal Me... more THORNE, AVBIL, and MtCHAEUEU-QHYBRAE. Situoimg Adolescent Gender and Self-Esteem with Personal Memories. CHILD DEVELOPMBINT, 1996, 67, 1374-1390. To identify social schemas that are associated With self-esteem in adolescence, the contents of approximately i,400 ...
In recent years, the turn toward narrative in psychology has shifted the carrier of identity from... more In recent years, the turn toward narrative in psychology has shifted the carrier of identity from stages to stories. Like Erik Erikson’s [1959] stage theory of identity, storied approaches construe identity as a psychosocial project, developing through engagement with larger social forces. Storied approaches also preserve Erikson’s premise that identity emerges through the struggle to make sense of oneself in the complex world of adulthood. Stories, however, are a more visible and efficient vehicle than stages, which are more elusive and more tenuously tied to the social world. Although all narrative researchers are fascinated by the power of stories to make sense of lived experience, some view identity as a socially situated enterprise whereas others view identity as a long-term autobiographical project. Bamberg’s study pursues identity-making as a situated project: identities are created on the spot when speakers orient or ‘position’ themselves and others vis-à-vis culturally available ‘master’ narratives. The autobiographical approach, in contrast, views identity as a long-term personal project, more situated in the person than the situation, and oriented toward developing a coherent story across an individual’s past, present, and imagined future. As someone who values socially situated and personal-historical understandings of identity development, I welcome the opportunity to ponder how Bamberg’s work fits into the larger field of storied identity research, what is new, and where it might lead.
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