When Remembering Is Not Enough: Reflecting on Self‐Defining Memories in Late Adolescence

Abstract

This study examined which kinds of self‐defining memories show spontaneous references to larger meanings, and listener responses to two kinds of meaning—lessons and insights. Narratives of three self‐defining memories and episodes of telling the memories to others were collected from each of 168 late adolescents (M age=19). Narratives were coded for event type (relationship, mortality, achievement, and leisure) and for references to tension and to meaning (lesson or insight). Narratives of memorable episodes of having told the memories to others were coded for listener response (positive or negative). References to meaning emerged in one‐fourth of the memory narratives, and meaning was more common for self‐defining memory narratives that contained references to tension. Memories that reportedly had not been told to others in the past showed the same proportion of meaning as did memories that had been told to others (23%), with insights more prevalent than lessons. For memories that had been told to others, insights were more likely to be accepted by listeners than lessons. Implications were discussed for understanding the development of meaning in self‐defining memories and the collaborative construction of identity.

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

“…Thorne et al (2004) found that relationship and mortality events had the most meaning in late adolescents' selfdefining memory narratives compared with achievement and leisure events. Building on those findings, the present study again found mortality events to be of primary relevance to meaning filled memories and found achievement events to be less relevant.…”

Late Adolescent Identity Development: Narrative Meaning Making and Memory Telling.

“…McLean and Thorne (2003) defined two specific kinds of meaning in late adolescent's self-defining memory narratives, lesson learning and gaining insight, which will also be examined in the present study (see also Blagov & Singer, 2004;McCabe, Capron, & Peterson, 1991;Pratt, Norris, Arnold, & Filyer, 1999;Thorne et al, 2004). Lesson learning refers to learning a specific lesson from an event that could direct future behavior in similar situations (e.g., "I should not talk back to my mother").…”

Adult age differences in autobiographical reasoning in narratives.

“…One prominent approach has been to examine lessons and insights (Blagov & Singer, 2004;Thorne, McLean, & Lawrence, 2004). Lessons are defined as something people have learned from an experience that narrowly generalizes to similar future experiences, such as "I learned it's probably not a good idea to spit at people from bridge tops."…”