The Development of Coherence in Adolescents’ Life Narratives

Abstract

Although the ability to tell a story of a personal experience is learned between two and six years and is refined during middle childhood, how to coherently narrate the story of one's life seems to be acquired only during adolescence. The life story integrates autobiographical memories with a biographical view of the self. In an initial cross-sectional study of how life narratives gain in global coherence across adolescence, a sample of 12-, 15-, and 18-year-olds produced life narratives that were analyzed for elements that contribute to global coherence and for ways in which the textual openings set the stage for one's life. Results indicate linear agetrends for the temporal extension of causally linked statements, for causal links between events and personal change, for past-present comparisons, for other biographical concepts, and for hedges relating to explanations. There were also age-differences in the degree to which family history served as a setting for the life narratives.

Life's little (and big) lessons: Identity statuses and meaning-making in the turning point narratives of emerging adults.

“…Thus, McLean and Thorne's (2001) system was adapted to a linear system (0 -3), with increasing scores reflecting increased complexity in autobiographical reasoning. This adaptation converges with other systems for coding the increased complexity of meaning, which have often examined meaning in relation to age, finding that complexity of meaning tends to increase with age (e.g., Habermas & Paha, 2001;McCabe et al, 1991;McLean, 2005;Pratt et al, 1999), and also converges with McLean and original conceptualization of lessons as a less sophisticated form of meaning than insights.…”

“…Other researchers have also found that meaningtype processes increase in sophistication with age (e.g., Habermas & Paha, 2001;McCabe, Capron, & Peterson, 1991;Pratt, Norris, Arnold, & Filyer, 1999). Since identity statuses also show development across adolescence and emerging adulthood (Meilman, 1979), the sophistication of identity development advances with age in both approaches, following Erikson's (1968) original formulations.…”

Self and Identity across the Life Span

“…Furthermore, she may now identify an overarching theme, value, or principle that integrates many different episodes in her life and conveys the gist of who she is and what her biography is all about-a cognitive operation that Habermas and Bluck (2000) called thematic coherence. In their analyses of life narratives constructed between the ages of 8 and 20 years of age, Habermas and Paha (2001) and Habermas and de Silveira (2008) showed that causal and thematic coherence are relatively rare in autobiographical accounts from late childhood and early adolescence but increase substantially through the teenage years and into early adulthood.…”

Conversar para relembrar em família

“…A emergência da adolescência ainda trará mais mudanças pois duas capacidades previamente independentes -relembrar o passado e compreender as pessoas -são coordenadas e o resultado disso é uma percepção crescente de que o passado não é simplesmente o que está armazenado, mas algo que requer interpretação (Habermas & Paha, 2001).…”