Consistency and stability of narrative coherence: An examination of personal narrative as a domain of adult personality
Published online on March 31, 2018
Abstract
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Abstract
Objective
Narrative theories of personality assume that individual differences in coherence reflect consistent and stable differences in narrative style rather than situational and event‐specific differences (e.g., McAdams & McLean, 2013). However, this assumption has received only modest empirical attention. Therefore, we present two studies testing the theoretical assumption of a consistent and stable coherent narrative style.
Method
Study 1 focused on the two most traumatic and most positive life events of 224 undergraduates. These event‐specific narratives were coded for three coherence dimensions: theme, context, and chronology (NaCCs; Reese et al., 2011). Study 2 focused on two life narratives told 4 years apart by 98 adults, which were coded for thematic, causal, and temporal coherence (Köber, Schmiedek, & Habermas, 2015).
Results
Confirmatory factor analysis in both studies revealed that individual differences in the coherence ratings were best explained by a model including both narrative style and event‐/narration‐specific latent variables.
Conclusions
The ways in which we tell autobiographical narratives reflect a stable feature of individual differences. Further, they suggest that this stable element of personality is necessary, but not sufficient, in accounting for specific event and life narrative coherence.
- Journal of Personality, EarlyView.