Creating something new from past experiences-The meaning of change in repeated narratives

OBJECTIVE

Narrative identity is an essential level of personality, and to develop, the life narrative should entail both stability and change. In this study, we examine the meaning of change in repeated narratives about occupational experiences.

METHOD

Fifty-nine individuals were interviewed at age 25, 29, and 33. In these interviews 544 narratives and 142 sets of repeated narratives were identified, of these 39 sets of repeated narratives had changed between interviews. A thematic narrative analysis was conducted focusing on the meaning of change in repeated narratives.

RESULTS

The analysis resulted in five narrative themes: Gaining insights about one's identity, transforming views of past challenges, increasing agency, increasing motivation for occupational commitments, and accentuating competence and importance. In the context of occupational experiences, the results from the narrative themes illuminate how narrators repeatedly engage with the same narrative to elaborate their narrative identity.

CONCLUSION

This study presents a novel method for capturing identity development, which show that changes in repeated narratives can entail important information about identity growth as well as the way narrators create new stories of their previous experiences in order to continue to make sense of their lives.

A conceptual review of identity integration across adulthood

Though Erikson recognized identity development as a lifelong project, most research on identity has focused on adolescents and emerging adults. Less is known about how the identity formed in adolescence is maintained and adapted across the adult life span. The purpose of the present paper is to provide a conceptual review and elaboration of Erikson's (1968) theory focused on identity integration, a construct that is particularly relevant to adult identity development. Identity integration describes the process of bringing together various aspects of one's self into a coherent whole, and the sense of self-continuity and wholeness that emerges as a result of these processes. Informed by the identity and life span development literatures, we present a conceptual framework that describes how identity integration is maintained across the adult life span, and how it is reestablished when changing life circumstances present threats to an individual's identity. These maintenance and reestablishment processes help to support adults' well-being and adaptation to major life transitions and stressful events. This conceptual framework is intended to facilitate research on identity integration in adulthood, a time of life that has been less often studied in the identity literature but that can involve identity dynamics that are just as critical as those in adolescence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Identity development in early adulthood

This longitudinal study investigated identity development across early adulthood. To examine both stability and change in identity development, an explanatory mixed-methods design was employed. First, patterns of identity status development across early adulthood were examined, followed by an in-depth qualitative approach to understand more about the processes within identity status stability from the late 20s into the 30s. Analyses revealed group-level changes in identity status across ages 25 (Mage = 24.9, SD = 0.7), 29 (Mage = 29.3, SD = 0.6), and 33 (Mage = 33.3, SD = 0.5) among the 118 participants, with fewer individuals in moratorium and more in identity achievement in later years. Stable identity statuses with established commitments (identity achievement and foreclosure) were by far the most common patterns across early adulthood. To understand how early adults maintain their identity within these stable patterns, we employed longitudinal qualitative analyses of identity status interviews from ages 29 and 33. These analyses revealed 3 processes of identity development: approach to change (willingness to adjust and evolve previously established commitments), story integration (thematic and temporal integration, and metaexploration of previous identity work), and participation in a broader life context (identity expanding beyond personal aspirations). Together, these findings show that there is identity status change toward maturity across early adulthood and high stability within individual patterns. The findings also show that stable identity achievement facilitates further deepening within the three processes of identity development, and that stable foreclosure can be connected to both weakening and deepening in identity development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Personality development from age 2 to 33: Stability and change in ego resiliency and ego control and associations with adult adaptation

The purpose of this study was to examine the developmental course and implications of the personality metatraits ego resiliency and ego control across the first 3 decades of life. The sample consisted of 139 participants who were assessed 9 times between ages 2 and 33. Participants completed measures of ego resiliency, ego control, Big Five personality traits, identity development, and positive and negative well-being. The findings indicated strong stability of ego resiliency, in terms of both rank-order and mean-level change. Ego control also demonstrated stability over the full time span, but there was greater change in childhood relative to adolescence and adulthood. Ego resiliency and control were associated with adult well-being, but these associations were generally accounted for by the Big Five traits. Finally, there were small relations between ego resiliency and control in childhood and later adult identity development processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).