Increasingly, studies are exploring using Large Language Models (LLMs) for accelerated or scaled qualitative analysis of text data. While we can compare LLM accuracy against human labels directly for deductive coding, or labeling text, it is more challenging to judge the ethics and effectiveness of using LLMs in abstractive methods such as inductive thematic analysis. We collaborate with psychologists to study the abstractive claims LLMs make about human life stories, asking, how does using an LLM as an interpreter of meaning affect the conclusions and perspectives of a study? We propose a summarization-based pipeline for surfacing biases in perspective-taking an LLM might employ in interpreting these life stories. We demonstrate that our pipeline can identify both race and gender bias with the potential for representational harm. Finally, we encourage the use of this analysis in future studies involving LLM-based interpretation of study participants' written text or transcribed speech to characterize a positionality portrait for the study.

OBJECTIVE:Psychologists have long studied people's responses to adverse life events. Certain ways of telling a story of suffering, favored by a person's culture, may be more adaptive than others. The present study explores the culturally sanctioned script for how to tell the story of the lowest point in one's life. METHOD:The present study introduces the Psycho-Social Script for Suffering (PSSS), a four-step narrative sequence through which a story of suffering features (1) situational context, (2) emotional expression, (3) closure, and (4) positive meaning. From a sample of 158 Black and white American midlife adults interviewed at three time points over 9 years, the authors coded 426 low point stories for the four narrative themes and analyzed their relationship to self-report measures. RESULTS:Narrating low point stories with higher levels of PSSS was positively associated with measures of well-being, maturity, and adaptive personality traits. Moreover, with a significant main effect of time, PSSS increased over the 9 years as indicative of a developmental sequence in midlife. CONCLUSIONS:The longitudinal analysis and rigorous mixed-methods approach offer novel insights into the potential benefits of narrating suffering in a way that resonates with culturally accepted discursive norms.

Agency and communion are two core motivational themes in narrative identity, reflecting drives for independent control and relatedness, respectively. Despite significant attention to the salience of these narrative themes, no previous research has examined thematic change or associations with well-being and developmental outcomes in late midlife. In a diverse sample of 128 adults transitioning from middle to later adulthood, life story interviews were conducted at three time points (ages 55, 60, and 65, approximately). Five autobiographical scenes from each participant per wave were coded for agency and communion, for a total of 1,913 scenes. At the between-person level, adults who were highly generative and reported greater ego integrity at age 65 tended to tell life stories marked by fulfilled agency and communion. Higher levels of these themes across the three waves were also linked to greater well-being and life satisfaction at age 65. There was no significant within-person change in agency or communion across the three waves of this longitudinal study, and the small changes that did occur did not predict well-being or developmental outcomes assessed at age 65. Taken together, the findings suggest that fulfilled agency and communion function as enduring markers of narrative identity that significantly relate to adjustment in late midlife.

Abstract This reflective essay examines the uneasy relation between lived experience and ideas in a life devoted to narrative psychology. Although life-story theory assumes that embodied experience supplies the raw material for narrative identity, McAdams traces how his core concepts—narrative identity, generativity, redemptive stories, and later-life narratives of acceptance—emerged primarily from intellectual engagement rather than dramatic personal events. Recounting a conventional life course, formative reading, fatherhood, teaching, and the pandemic, he suggests that ideas often precede experience, with lived life later confirming and deepening their meaning. Aging foregrounds constraint and vulnerability, rendering narratives of acceptance increasingly salient. The essay proposes that personal experience may trail theory, serving less as origin than as validation, resonance, and grounding for narrative ideas over time.

This randomized controlled trial compared turning-point and expressive writing for emerging adults' health and well-being. Undergraduates (N = 253; 18-25 years; 65.2% New Zealand European) were randomly assigned to a turning-point writing, expressive writing, or control writing condition. In each condition, participants wrote over three consecutive days; they completed health and well-being measures at baseline and 6 weeks later. No intervention effects emerged for physical symptoms, anxiety, stress, life satisfaction, or thriving. Turning-point participants wrote more positive narratives with stronger causal coherence, agency, and communion themes; they subsequently reported higher posttraumatic growth relative to expressive writing (d = .45) and control (d = 2.81) and lower depression symptoms relative to control (dz = -.36). Causal coherence mediated self-esteem improvements in turning-point participants; communion mediated reduced doctor visits for expressive writing and depression for turning-point participants; pronouns mediated intervention effects on self-esteem. Writing intervention prompts and subsequent narrative themes and linguistic features are important in improving health and well-being.

This article presents a metamorphic model to describe the manifold role of narrative identity, a person's internal life story, across the course of mental illness and personal recovery. First, early adversity and negative co-authoring may contribute to the development of a fragile life story, which itself may combine with life stressors to increase the likelihood of mental illness. Second, mental illness may negatively impact the development of narrative identity, which in turn may exacerbate the devastating effects of mental illness on daily functioning. Finally, positive changes in narrative identity, as they are influenced by recovery stories of peers and the supportive co-authorship provided by mental health professionals, may contribute in powerful ways to the process of personal recovery. In sum, the metamorphic model demonstrates how narrative identity, as it is implicated in a variety of social spheres, shapes and is shaped by the course of mental illness and recovery. We also show how the model differs from other personality-oriented theories of psychopathology and how it may guide future research and interventions.

Introduction: Self-transcendence—connectedness within and beyond the self—is a complex phenomenon theorized to increase with age, but evidence is mixed. This longitudinal study is the first to investigate changes in self-transcendence across late midlife using life story narratives. Method: We tracked self-reported and narrative identity self-transcendence scores of 163 participants as they aged from M=56.4 (SD=0.95) to M=64.5 (SD=0.94). Participants were 64.4% women, 35.6% men; 55.2% White, 42.9% Black, 1.8% interracial/other; median income was $75,000–$100,000; median education was college graduate. Results: Self-transcendence narrative themes of closure and self-actualization increased significantly over time, especially between ages 60–65, but self-reported self-transcendence did not change. These trends were not uniform; race by gender groups exhibited distinct trajectories over time.Discussion: Late midlife is seen as ushering in opportunities for increased self-transcendence, especially acceptance of oneself and one’s life. We found some of the strongest empirical evidence of this phenomenon to date. On average, U.S. Black and White adults narrated their life stories with less regret and more satisfaction with self across late midlife. Findings demonstrate the utility of leveraging first-person narrative identity methods to collect and analyze data about rich, complex personality constructs and highlight positive changes associated with late midlife.

This randomized controlled trial was the first to compare turning-point writing, expressive writing, and a control condition for physical health using wearable devices and self-reported well-being. A total of 89 U.S. emerging adults (aged 18-25) completed a writing prompt online (2-3 times). Six weeks later, controlling for baseline, turning-point participants reported fewer depressive symptoms compared to control and lower stress compared to expressive writing and control. Overall, expressive writing did not improve physical or mental health and turning-point writing did not enhance well-being compared to other methods. Mediation analyses showed that across both experimental conditions, greater use of insight words was linked to physical health and causal words to mental health. Yet, positive tone was linked to poorer sleep, and longer narratives were linked to fewer physical symptoms but shorter sleep and lower well-being. These findings suggest that writing about difficult experiences affects health and well-being in complex ways.

Intact social functioning relies on a combination of explicit and implicit behavioral, attentional, and interpersonal processes referred to as “social cognition”. Characterizing these interpersonal processes forms a critical underpinning to understanding and treating psychopathology, particularly in disorders where deficits in social functioning do not emerge as a secondary symptom but rather as an essential feature of the disorder. Two of such disorders are autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SZ). However, despite the substantial overlap in the features of social dysfunction between ASD and SZ, including social cognitive deficits in theory of mind, perspective-taking, and empathy, there is a limited understanding of the mechanisms underlying those shared deficits, and how to treat them. We suggest that disruptions of interpersonal functioning emerge over the course of development, and that interpersonal synchronization, a phenomenon in which behavioral and physiological cues align between interacting partners, forms a critical component of social cognition that underlies the disruption in social functioning in ASD and SZ. We present a conceptual review of typical and atypical development of social processes and highlight the role of interpersonal synchronization across the course of development. Then, we review the existing evidence suggesting impairments in both the intentional and spontaneous synchronization of interpersonal processes in ASD and SZ, as well as studies suggesting that interpersonal synchronization and clinical symptoms may be improved through body-oriented interventions within these disorders. Finally, we suggest potential mechanisms that may underpin typical and atypical development of interpersonal synchronization.

How do people incorporate collective major historical events into their personal life stories? This study investigates the concept of historical consciousness, which is the extent to which individuals integrate the recollection of major historical events into their narrative identity in personally meaningful ways. A sample of 134 midlife adults were asked to describe in detail two major historical events, social movements, or societal changes that impacted them and explain their personal significance. Individual differences in the degree to which the participants incorporated these collective events into their narrative identities were coded on a dimension running from "tuning history out" (low scores) to "witnessing history" (medium) to "living history" (high). Scores on the narrative measure of historical consciousness were positively associated with extraversion, identification with all humanity, indicators of psychosocial adjustment (i.e., generativity and psychological well-being), and civic and political engagement behaviors.

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.

Much of the research on narrative identity has used the Life Story Interview (LSI) to better understand the person through the story they construct of their life. However, the effect that the LSI has on participants has not yet been examined. Study 1 looked at 163 middle-aged adults who completed a measure of self-reported positive and negative affect both immediately before and after being interviewed. Results indicated that participants experienced a significant increase in positive affect and that this mood boost was experienced regardless of background, personality, and mental health. Study 2 involved a qualitative analysis of the interview transcripts of the 20 participants who experienced the most and the least benefit from the interview, with results indicating three emerging themes ( identity development, identity fulfillment, the storied self ) that appear to reflect two forms of storytelling: autobiographical versus episodic.

In narrative identity research, variables are typically captured through detailed content-coding of personal narratives. Yet, alternative methods have been suggested, notably self-report scales, because they capture a participant's own interpretation of their personal narratives, and because they are efficient to administer as a supplement to more labor-intensive coding methods. This study developed and validated the Narrative Identity Self-Evaluation (NISE) questionnaire. In Study 1, the questionnaire was developed through exploratory factor analysis (n = 425) and its criterion validity examined. In Study 2, the NISE factor structure and criterion relationships were confirmed (n = 304). In Study 3 (based on the same sample as Study 1), content-coding of 11 narrative identity characteristics in open-ended personal story accounts was conducted, and NISE scores were compared to corresponding content-coded variables. The 20-item NISE has three factors replicating common dimensions in narrative identity (autobiographical reasoning, desire for structure, positive motivational/affective themes) and a novel fourth factor capturing disturbances of narrative identity. The NISE correlated in theoretically-coherent ways with content coded narrative identity variables, self-report traits, and measures relevant for narrative identity, self-concept, well-being, and psychopathology. We discuss the scale's advantages in complementing content-coding of narrative accounts to assess variation in narrative identity within both clinical and non-clinical populations.

Mental health and well-being tend to improve with age, and personality differences affect these trajectories. Although it is well established that dispositional traits, such as extraversion and neuroticism, relate to well-being, the incremental validity of other important personality constructs, such as narrative identity, remains unknown. Across 9 years, 157 late-midlife adults (Mage = 56.4 years, SD = 0.96) self-reported their well-being and symptoms of depression each year and wrote an annual narrative account describing their greatest life challenge (Nchallenges = 1,211). The narrative accounts were content-coded for themes of agency and communion. Results showed that themes of agency and communion in narrative identity were significantly and uniquely associated with well-being and depression across time, over and above the effects of traits. The benefits of considering both narrative identity and dispositional personality traits as they jointly apply to mental health are discussed.

ObjectiveWe aim to identify the major ideas and trends in the study of morality within personality psychology over the past 100 years. MethodOur 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). ResultsWithin 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. ConclusionsIn 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.

Integrating the selective reconstruction of the past with an imagined future, narrative identity is a person's internalized and evolving story of the self, functioning to provide life with some degree of meaning and purpose (McAdams & McLean, 2013). While narrative identity has been found to be associated with a range of psychological and social phenomena (e.g., Adler et al., 2015; McAdams & Guo, 2015), cross-national variation in narrative identity has been only minimally examined. For the purposes of the current inquiry, 438 adults from the United States (N = 102), Japan (N = 122), Israel (N = 103), and Denmark (N = 111) wrote narratives on adversity (low point and life challenge) and completed self-report measures on psychological well-being. Part 1 examined the narrative topics discussed, the frequency of narrative indices (redemption, contamination, agency, communion, meaning-making), and their relationship to well-being across the four countries, finding the most cultural difference in levels of redemption and meaning-making and the kinds of events narrated. Part 2 involved a qualitative, thematic analysis of the Japanese, Danish, and Israeli narratives to derive a set of narrative indices characterizing each country. Several emerged in the Japanese narratives (acceptance, attribution of blame, unresolved), the Danish narratives (balanced affect, communal growth, normality), and Israeli narratives (collective responsibility). Taken together, our findings regarding narratives of adversity support the idea that narrative identity cannot be fully captured without an understanding of culture but needs to instead be studied in tandem with the cultural context in which stories reside.

Abstract In The Plague, Albert Camus (1947) tells the story of a pathogen’s spreading uncontrollably through a small city on the Algerian coast. A close reading of Camus’s novel provides the interpretive frame for considering three different narratives that people may construct to make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic. In turn, these stories depict the virus as (1) the malevolent manifestation of a discrete episode in time, (2) the motivating adversary that prompts a long-term narrative of redemption, and (3) an enduring nemesis who must be managed within a story that bears honest witness to human suffering. In discussing these three narrative forms, the author draws widely from psychological research on narrative identity, generativity, and the redemptive self; wisdom and ego integrity; and a psychological biography of Donald J. Trump, who was president of the United States at the outset of the pandemic.

Abstract Inspired by an overlooked passage in the writings of Erik Erikson, the author comments on the preceding chapters in this volume by considering the different ways generativity is wrapped up with love, necessity, and accident. Generativity springs from love, both literally and figuratively. Under the banner of love, young adults care for each other, which prepares them to care for the next generation. Yet, the author would argue that the full expression of generativity, including features fraught with ambivalence and psychological complexity, typically awaits the midlife years. Generativity springs from necessity, too, in the hard work of caring, in paid and unpaid work itself, in volunteer activities, through leadership, and in a host of other activities, opportunities, and burdens. And generativity sometimes simply happens, by accident, chance events, bad luck or good, and in situations that defy the best efforts of human agency. Accepting the limits of human agency, and the inevitable constraints on generativity, becomes an increasingly urgent task as adults move into their later years.