Narrative as Self-Identification in VKontakte Social Network

Abstract

In social nets, personal narrative serves as a means of self-identification and self-awareness. A user constructs a concept of Self as a temporary I-image for virtual self-perception and self-explanation. As an interpretative process, narrative endows the story of emotions and experiences with personal meaning. The research objective was to describe virtual narrative as part of identification processes in public accounts in VKontakte social net. Personal narratives were used to detect values and beliefs manifested as text elements. This information revealed neurotic conflicts, triggers, points of tension, identify mechanisms, psychological dominants, etc. The research relied on narrative psychology, which emphasizes the constructive role of language in personality development: people understand themselves and the world through oral and written speech. The analysis of meanings and structural elements of narratives published in social networks made it possible to construct a matrix of identification preferences of the narrator, thus modelling a basic personal construct. Observing how the narrators interpreted their experience revealed the mechanisms behind their subjectivity, worldview, and temporal attitude. The authors believe that narrative psychology brings to surface the temporal aspect of human experience, which tells a lot about the personality of the narrator. Writing about their personal experience allows narrators to identify their values and beliefs, as well as brings clarity and meaning to life as a project in words. Personal narrative offers strategies for self-fulfillment that fit one’s actual psychological resource state, i.e., it is not the narrator that shapes the narrative, but the other way round. The subjective linguistic worldview revealed by personal narratives in social nets makes it possible to profile the narrator’s personality.