Young Women in Today’s Taiwan: Relation of Identity Status and Redemptive Narration to Psychological Well-Being

Abstract

The task of identity development is a process of balancing multiple values (Grotevant and Cooper 1998). For young women living in a society where values are in transition, such as Taiwan, this task may be particularly challenging. Forging their identity as an adult woman may have implications for their well-being. Adopting a mixed-method approach, the current study investigated two aspects of undergraduate Taiwanese women's identity development: identity status and narrative identity. The study assessed achieved and diffused identity status as well as redemption and contamination, two aspects of narrative identity, as independent predictors of women's psychological well-being. Eighty-five undergraduate women in Northern Taiwan (M age=19.92, SD= 1.58) completed the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status. To assess aspects of narrative identity, they also provided a Self-Defining Memory narrative of a turning point in their lives. Specific interpretation sequences (i.e., redemption versus contamination) were reliably content-coded from the narratives. A Psychological Well-Being scale was also administered. As expected, results of hierarchical regressions show that having an achieved identity status (as found in US samples) predicts higher psychological well-being. Notably, however, showing redemption (i.e., as compared to contamination) in one's narrative also uniquely predicted higher psychological well-being. Sociocultural factors and psychological processes that are associated with Taiwanese women's identity development are discussed.

Echoes of the Past: Meaning Making in Congolese Narratives Relates to Their Social Distance Attitudes Toward Europeans

“…In line with our hypotheses, we found higher levels of closure, redemption, and additionally of outgroup heterogeneity to predict significantly higher willingness to interact with Europeans. Contamination as a sole narrative predictor, by contrast, did not relate to greater social distance, which presumably is the result of a small number of narrative accounts exhibiting contamination (Table 1) and which coincides with other studies finding contamination to be rare in American (McAdams et al., 2001) and Asian samples (Liao, Bluck, & Cheng, 2015). Future research needs to draw on other and preferably larger international samples to examine the possible relation of contamination with social distance.…”

Perceived Autobiographical Coherence Predicts Depressive Symptoms Over Time Through Positive Self–Concept

“…Therefore, coherence is fundamental to narrative content about oneself, such as personal agency, overcoming stressful experiences, and turning-points in life. Some of these themes, as well as coherency itself, have been linked with psychological well-being (e.g., McAdams et al, 2001 ; Tavernier and Willoughby, 2012 ; McAdams and McLean, 2013 ; Liao et al, 2015 ). Indeed, Waters and Fivush ( 2015 ) suggest that having coherent accounts of one's experience may be a critical feature of psychological health and, in particular, foundational to a sense of personal agency.…”

Moving Beyond Redemptive Magnitude: Examining Redemptive Forms and Themes in Young Adults’ Narratives of Difficult Life Experiences

“…Redemption has demonstrated robust positive ties to PWB and related constructs (life satisfaction) among young adults (Cox et al, 2019;Eriksson et al, 2020;Liao et al, 2015;McAdams et al, 2001;Philippe et al, 2011). However, such trends are not without qualification, depending on factors such as age (McLean & Lilgendahl, 2008), the PWB dimension in question (Grossbaum & Bates, 2002;McLean & Lilgendahl, 2008), and gender (McLean & Breen, 2009).…”