Narrative identity does not predict well-being when controlling for emotional valence

Associations between autobiographical memory and dreaming: An individual-differences approach.

“…Second, consistent with our hypotheses and prior findings (Cárdenas-Egúsquiza & Gehrt et al, 2023), we found that people with higher scores on the ART tended to report a higher tendency toward positive affect. Results were less clear regarding associations between dream experiences and affectivity, which is in line with previous conflicting results on dreaming and its relation to positive and negative emotions (R. Fosse et al, 2001;Valli et al, 2008).…”

“…Another possible explanation is that these measures related very differently to affectivity and measures of psychological well-being. Indeed, while dream apprehension strongly correlated with negative affect in the current study and has shown associations with measures of psychological distress (Beaulieu-Prévost et al, 2009), the ART showed a strong correlation with positive affect in the present paper as well as in previous studies, where correlations with well-being have also been reported (Gehrt et al, 2023). Future studies should examine whether the ART and dream apprehension are related among patients with psychiatric disorders in which both autobiographical memory and dreaming are disrupted, such as in trauma-and stressor-related disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).…”

“…We expected to observe positive associations between individual differences in autobiographical memory and individual differences in dreaming. We also hypothesized that better autobiographical remembering (i.e., higher scores on the ART) would be related to higher trait positive affect due to the positivity bias in autobiographical memory (Walker et al, 2003), and previous associations with measures of positive affect and well-being (Cárdenas-Egúsquiza & Berntsen, 2023;Gehrt et al, 2023). We did not have specific hypotheses concerning the relationship between dreaming and affectivity due to contradictory results regarding a positivity or negativity bias in dreams (R. Fosse et al, 2001;Revonsuo, 2000;Valli et al, 2008).…”

Narrative Identity May or May Not Be Related to Well-Being: Comment on Gehrt et al. (2023)

“…In their paper, Narrative identity does not predict well-being when controlling for emotional valence, Gehrt et al (2023) claim to provide empirical evidence in support of their assertive title. They frame the findings in opposition to McLean et al (2020), among other articles claiming evidence of incremental associations of narrative identity with well-being beyond various other constructs (see Adler et al, 2016).…”

“…The current state of the literature simply does not provide strong evidence either way. Unfortunately, despite the assertion in the title, the Gehrt et al (2023) paper has done little to change my mind in either direction. I outline those reasons here.…”