The narrative psychology of love lives

Abstract

Narrative identity is an internal and evolving story about the self. Individual differences in narrative identity have been found to correspond with several important constructs (e.g., well-being, health behaviors). Here, we examined the nature and correlates of participants’ love life narrative identities. In Study 1, participants provided autobiographical narratives from their love lives and rated their personality traits and authenticity within the romantic domain. In Study 2, participants again provided narratives from their love lives and completed measures assessing their attachment tendencies and relationship contingent self-esteem. Narratives were coded for agency, communion, redemptive imagery, contaminated imagery, affective tone, and integrative complexity. Across our studies, the communion and positive tone in participants’ love life narratives was associated with certain traits, authenticity, attachment tendencies, and relationship contingent self-esteem. These results suggest that love life narrative identity represents a promising construct in the study of functioning within the romantic domain.

Keywords

Adult attachment authenticity narrative identity relationship contingent self-esteem romantic relationships

In late adolescence and early adulthood, individuals begin to construct autobiographical life stories, or narrative identities, which are phenomenological representations of their personal pasts, presents, and anticipated futures (McAdams, 2013; Singer, 2004). Narrative identity is a psychological resource, as it allows for an understanding of how the self of the past has led to the present self and will lead to the (presumed) self of the future, thereby providing the narrator with a sense of coherence, purpose, and direction. Individual differences in the features of narrative identity have been linked to a host of important constructs including well-being and health behaviors (Adler, 2012; Adler, Lodi-Smith, Philippe, & Houle, 2016; Bauer, McAdams, & Sakaeda, 2005; Dunlop, Walker, & Wiens, 2013; McAdams, Diamond, de St. Aubin, & Mansfield, 1997; McAdams, Reynolds, Lewis, Patten, & Bowman, 2001).

On several occasions, relationship researchers have considered couples’ narratives of their current romantic relationships (e.g., Buehlman, Gottman, & Katz, 1992; Doohan, Carrére, & Riggs, 2010; Holmberg, Orbuch, & Veroff, 2004; Koenig Kellas, Trees, Schrodt, LeClair-Underberg, & Willer, 2010). These researchers, however, have yet to adopt a narrative identity approach in the study of participants’ entire romantic lives—that is, these researchers have yet to move beyond the study of narrative constructions of current relationships to a consideration of the construction of love lives on the whole. For this reason, little is known about the narrative representations of individuals’ broader love lives. The narrative representations of single (i.e., noncoupled) individuals also remain largely unexplored. Given the many significant relations noted between narrative identity and important constructs such as well-being (Adler et al., 2016), it is likely that features of participants’ love life narrative identities will correspond with constructs relevant to an understanding of functioning within the romantic domain. Speaking to this possibility, over a span of two studies, we considered the features of participants’ love life narrative identities in relation to personality traits and self-reported authenticity within the romantic domain (Study 1), romantic attachment styles, and relationship contingent self-esteem (Study 2).

Narrative identity

Narrative identity represents the internal and evolving understanding of an individual’s personal past, present, and (presumed) future (McAdams, 1995, 2013; Singer, 2004). When assessing narrative identity, researchers typically prompt participants for accounts of key autobiographical scenes, in particular life high points, low points, and turning points (e.g., Cox & McAdams, 2014; McAdams et al., 2006). These idiographic scenes are then quantified by human coders for any number of nomothetic categories. Recently, McCoy and Dunlop (2016) recognized six nomothetic categories that are often considered in the literature and, collectively, offer some indication of the nature of participants’ autobiographical narratives. These six categories represent the degree to which the narrator (a) emphasizes his or her own dominance, power, mastery, and strength (i.e., agency); (b) emphasizes issues concerning belonging, care, intimacy, and unity (i.e., communion; see McAdams, Hoffman, Mansfield, & Day, 1996); (c) discloses stories that begin negatively and end positively (i.e., redemptive imagery); (d) discloses stories that begin positively and end negatively (i.e., contaminated imagery; McAdams et al., 2001); (e) invokes positive emotions, as compared to negative emotions, when describing the events in question (i.e., positive affective tone; see McAdams et al., 2001); and (f) identifies multiple perspectives and/or mixed emotions and the degree to which these various aspects are reconciled (i.e., integrative complexity; see McAdams et al., 2006).

Researchers from within social, personality, and developmental psychology have exhibited an interest in narrative identity for a number of reasons, one being McAdams’ (1995) claim that a consideration of narrative identity is required to truly know a person and his or her personality. Within McAdams’ framework, personality consists of multiple conceptual levels, each coupled with its own distinct conceptual and analytic history. Narrative identity represents one such level. An additional level of personality captures participants’ broad dispositional patterns of affect, cognition, and behavior—that is their personality traits (see John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008). These traits provide indication of the manner in which individuals tend to feel, think, and behave across contexts and through time.

Significant relations have often been observed between certain traits and aspects of individuals’ autobiographical stories (for a review, see Dunlop, 2015). For example, agreeable individuals are noted to construct stories that contain high levels of both agency and communion (McAdams et al., 2004). In addition, agreeableness has been found to correspond with the frequency of redemptive personal stories in participants’ narrative identities. Redemptive imagery has also been noted to correspond positively with extroversion, conscientiousness, and emotional stability (Guo, Klevan, & McAdams, 2016). Finally, positive affective tone has exhibited a similar relation with these traits, save for a nonsignificant relation with extroversion (McAdams et al., 2004).

The six conceptual categories identified by McCoy and Dunlop (2016) have also been found to relate to a host of constructs important for an understanding of personal and social functioning. For example, narrators who emphasize communal themes in their stories tend to place an accentuated value on relationships of various sorts, including those occurring in the romantic domain (e.g., McAdams et al., 1996). In contrast, themes of redemption, contamination, and positive affective tone have been found to relate to well-being, such that those who evaluate their lives positively tend to construct personal stories that are highly redemptive and infused with substantial levels of positive emotions, relative to those who hold largely negative evaluations of their lives. In contrast, when reflecting on and describing their lives, these latter individuals typically produce a higher number of contaminated stories (McAdams et al., 2001).

Narrative identity and the romantic domain

Evident from the above, narrative identity is important for understanding the nature of personality (e.g., Dunlop, 2015; McAdams, 1995) as well as personal and social functioning (e.g., Adler et al., 2016; McAdams et al., 2001). Recently, Dunlop (2015, 2017) championed the notion of operationalizing narrative identity with a greater degree of specificity or contextualization. Drawing from similar calls within the personality trait literature (Roberts & Donahue, 1994), Dunlop (2015, 2017) proposed that assessing narrative identity as manifest within specific domains (e.g., one’s love life) will provide at least two benefits: (1) a better grasp of the experiences individuals recognize as relevant to narrative representations of this domain and (2) stronger relations with domain-specific indicators of functioning (e.g., adult romantic attachment tendencies), when compared to relations noted with parallel constructs drawn from individuals’ broader, or generalized, narrative identities.

Speaking to the former point, Dunlop, Hanley, McCoy, and Harake (2017) categorized the events their participants listed as the high points, low points, and turning points of their love lives. In their sample of approximately 400 individuals, one’s first romantic partner, being rejected, and losing one’s virginity were the most commonly reported love life high, low, and turning points. Speaking to the latter point, the bandwidth–fidelity trade-off proposes that constructs pertaining to a specific domain will serve as stronger predictors of outcomes within this domain, relative to the parallel constructs from a differing domain-specific self-representation. Several empirical studies within the personality trait literature align with the tenet of this trade-off (see, e.g., Roberts & Donahue, 1994; Slatcher & Vaizire, 2009). Taking the above into account, a consideration of love life narrative identity will likely further understanding regarding functioning within the romantic domain, more so than a consideration of the generalized narrative identity. Furthermore, although individual differences in participants’ key scenes have been linked to many important constructs, these individual differences have yet to be examined in relation to the constructs of most interest to relationship researchers (e.g., adult romantic attachment tendencies).

Of course, the current article is not the first to consider the narratives pertaining to experiences from within the romantic domain (see, e.g., Buehlman et al., 1992; Doohan et al., 2010; Frost, 2013; Holmberg et al., 2004; Koenig et al., 2010; Murray & Holmes, 1993, 1999). Previous efforts situated at the nexus of narrative and the romantic domain, however, have typically focused on couples’ storied constructions of their current romantic relationships. For example, Doohan, Carrére, and Riggs (2010) prompted married couples for co-constructed narratives about their marriages. These researchers noted that the degree of marital bond exhibited while couples described their relationships (which was indexed on the basis of features such as the level of affection/fondness shown toward one’s partner) served as a positive predictor of marital satisfaction (see also Buehlman et al., 1992). Researchers have also examined non-co-constructed narratives about romantic partners and/or current romantic relationships (e.g., Frost, 2013; Murray & Holmes, 1993, 1999).

The focus on the narration of participants’ current relationships has led to several important findings. Due to this focus, however, the narrative psychology of single individuals has been somewhat neglected. In addition, among nonsingle individuals, current relationships likely represent only a portion of their entire love lives. In the extant literature, storied representations of previous relationships, and the key autobiographical scenes from coupled individuals’ love lives on the whole, have yet to be thoroughly considered.

A final justification for the study of love life narrative identities consists of the possibility of informing subsequent intervention-based research. It is likely the case that many constructs, including personality traits and attachment dimensions, influence the nature of narrative identity. It is also the case, however, that certain features of this identity may come to influence the expression of participants’ traits and attachment tendencies (Dunlop, 2015). Relative to these nonnarrative constructs, narrative identity broadly and love life narrative identity specifically are more amenable to modification (see Adler, 2012; McCoy & Dunlop, 2016). In addition, recent research on personality change has made clear that more specific and contextualized interventions possess a certain efficacy that is absent in comparably general/less direct interventions (e.g., see Hudson & Fraley, 2015). Thus, if a feature of love life narrative identity is found to correspond positively with adaptive attachment tendencies, for example, this narrative feature may be targeted in future intervention-based research in the interest of enhancing participants’ functioning within the romantic domain.

The present studies

In the present studies, we examined love life narrative identity in relation to a series of constructs important to an understanding of personality and functioning within the romantic domain. In our first study, we considered personality traits and authenticity within the romantic domain in relation to features of participants’ love life narrative identities. The impetus for studying relations between traits and stories has been outlined in our introduction. Authenticity, in contrast, has been found to correlate positively with well-being and negatively with depression (Sheldon, Ryan, Rawsthorne, & Ilardi, 1997). In addition, it represents a particularly apt indicator of functioning within specific domains or contexts (in this case, the romantic domain), as individuals often struggle to feel like “themselves” within these domains/contexts. Thus, we contend that this construct provides some indication of individuals’ general psychological adjustment within the romantic domain. In Study 2, we built upon and extended the focus exhibited in our preliminary study, by examining aspects of participants’ love life narrative identities in relation to multiple indicators of romantic domain functioning. In particular, in this latter study, we examined dimensions of adult romantic attachment (see Fraley, Waller, & Brennan, 2000) and the degree to which evaluations of the self are influenced by the ongoing romantic relationships (viz., relationship contingent self-esteem; see Knee, Canevello, Bush, & Cook, 2008) in relation to participants’ love life narrative identities. Measures of adult romantic attachment and relationship contingent self-esteem were selected on the basis of their prevalence and importance within the close relationships literature (e.g., Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012; Simpson, 1990).

In each study, participants’ narrative materials were quantified in terms of the six dimensions recognized by McCoy and Dunlop (2016). We had a series of predictions that were made on the basis of previous research examining narrative identity outside of the romantic domain (e.g., Guo et al., 2016; McAdams et al., 2001, 2004) regarding the manner in which our nonnarrative variables would correspond with features of participants’ love life narrative identities. These predictions are outlined when describing each of our studies.

Study 1

In Study 1, personality traits and a single indicator of adjustment within the romantic domain (i.e., romantic domain authenticity) were examined in relation to features of participants’ love life narrative identities. Participants provided three key scenes pertinent to their love lives, completed measures of dominance and nurturance (traits that closely mirror extroversion and agreeableness; see Wiggins, 2003) and a measure of authenticity pertaining to the romantic domain. Participants’ stories were then quantified in terms of agency, communion, redemptive imagery, contaminated imagery, positive affective tone, and integrative complexity (McCoy & Dunlop, 2016). On the basis of previous research (e.g., Guo et al., 2016; McAdams et al., 2001, 2004), we entertained the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1. Trait dominance will correspond positively with the frequency of redemptive stories.

Hypothesis 2. Trait nurturance will correspond positively with agency, communion, redemptive sequences, and positive affective tone in participants’ stories.

Hypothesis 3. Romantic domain authenticity would correspond positively with redemptive sequences and the positive affective tone of participants’ stories.

Hypothesis 4. Features of participants’ love life narrative identities will account for a significant degree of variability in authenticity, after “controlling” for participants’ traits.

Method

Participants

One hundred and fifty-seven participants (M _age = 32.64 years, SD = 9.66), 50% of whom were male and 76% of whom self-identified as being of Euro-American descent, were recruited from MTurk, an online survey-based website (for a discussion on the appropriateness of this website, see Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011). Participants were required to be fluent in English and at least 18 years of age. No inclusion restrictions were adopted regarding participants’ current relationship statuses or histories within the romantic domain.¹ Participants received an honorarium of US$4.00 in exchange for their participation in this study.

Procedure

After providing informed consent, participants were asked to specify the high point, low point, and turning point from their love lives. Three additional narratives not pertinent to the current study were also collected. The prompts used to solicit participants’ key scenes from their love lives were taken from McAdams’ (2008) life story interview (LSI) and modified for domain-specificity. Directly below we present the prompt used to collect high points from participants’ love lives.

Please describe a scene, episode, or moment in your LOVE LIFE that stands out as an especially positive experience. This might be the high point of your LOVE LIFE, or else an especially happy, joyous, exciting, or wonderful moment that has occurred in this domain. Please describe this high point scene in detail. What happened, when and where, who was involved, and what were you thinking and feeling? Also, please say a word or two about why you think this particular moment was so good and what the scene may say about who you are as a person.

The average length of the individual narratives generated by participants was 148 words (SD = 93; range = 12–571). This length is consistent with previous research examining narrative identity (e.g., Dunlop et al., 2013; McCoy & Dunlop, 2016). After specifying their narratives, participants completed a battery of questionnaires that contained prompts for basic demographic information and measures of personality traits and authenticity within the romantic domain.²

Demographic information

Participants were asked to specify their age, gender, and indicate their relationship status by selecting from the following options: (1) married, (2) cohabitating, (3) single, (4) widowed, and (5) divorced/separated. Participants were then dichotomized on the basis of whether they were “coupled” (categories 1–2) or “single” (categories 3–5). This dichotomization roughly divided our sample, with 43% being classified as coupled. These resulting groups were comparable in terms of age, F(1, 155) = .23, p = .63, and gender, χ²(1, N = 157) = 3.49, p = .06 (continuity corrected).³

Personality traits

The Interpersonal Adjective Scale (IAS; Wiggins, 2003) was used to assess participants’ personality traits within the romantic domain. In this measure, participants rated themselves in terms of 64 adjectives falling along a circumplex of interpersonal behavior (viz., the interpersonal circumplex). The resulting ratings allowed for the derivation of eight octant scores that were reduced to dimensional scores of dominance and nurturance. Adjectives pertaining to dominance include “enthusiastic,” “self-assured,” and “cunning,” whereas adjectives pertaining to nurturance include “accommodating,” “charitable,” and “unargumentative.” In the interest of matching the domain-specificity of the narratives requested in the current study, participants were asked to rate their interpersonal behaviors as expressed within the romantic domain. Consistent with the psychometric properties of the IAS reported by Wiggins (2003), the internal reliabilities of the octants used to derive dominance and nurturance scores were acceptable (α = .83, range = .78–.88).

Authenticity

Authenticity within the romantic domain was assessed using a 3-item measure of this construct modified from Sheldon, Ryan, Rawsthorne, and Ilardi’s (1997) earlier research. Participants were asked to consider their love lives on a whole and then rate on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with higher values indicating greater endorsement using the following 3 items: “I experience this aspect of myself as an authentic part of who I am,” “This aspect of myself is meaningful and valuable to me,” and “I feel tense and pressured in this part of my life [R].” Responses were recoded (as required) and then averaged (α = .60).⁴

Narrative coding

Participants’ narratives were entered in a single spreadsheet and their order was randomized. In the case of each narrative dimension, a primary coder who was blind to all other data generated by participants (e.g., gender, relationship status, authenticity) and had trained extensively with the published coding manuals coded the entirety of the sample for the given narrative element. With respect to agency, communion, positive affective tone, and integrative complexity, one of the junior authors of this article served as the primary coder. With respect to redemption and contamination, in contrast, the primary coder was an undergraduate research assistant otherwise unconnected with this study. In the interest of determining the degree of intercoder reliability, a secondary coder (either one of the current article’s authors or an undergraduate research assistant) coded a random quarter of the narratives in this sample. The primary coder’s ratings were considered in all analyses (for further discussion on assessing the intercoder reliability of narrative materials, see Adler et al., 2017).

Agency and communion

Drawing from McAdams’ (2001) coding system, each narrative was coded for the presence/absence of four types of agency: self-mastery (wherein the protagonist becomes more powerful and wiser within his or her world), status/victory (wherein the protagonist attains an accentuated status or recognition from others), achievement/responsibility (wherein the protagonist accomplishes an important goal, attains success, and/or amasses greater professional or personal responsibilities), and empowerment (wherein the protagonist increases in stature by aligning himself or herself with something greater than the self, such as a mentor or spiritual agent) and four types of communion: love/friendship (wherein the protagonist experiences a heightened degree of love, be it romantic or platonic, toward another person), dialogue (wherein the protagonist experiences a intrinsically meaningful conversation with someone else), caring/help (wherein the protagonist helps or provides care for someone else), and unity/togetherness (wherein the protagonist experiences a sense of connection, or kinship, with a group of people and/or a collective of some kind). In principle, a single narrative may be recognized as a “hit” for more than one component of agency or communion. In practice, this is quite rare and it is much more common that any narrative be scored as a single hit for either agency or communion. Nevertheless, each time a distinct form of agency or communion is noted within a narrative, a point is tallied, meaning that any one narrative may range in value from 0 to 4 for each of agency and communion (in Study 1, no narrative received a score greater than 1 for agency or communion). Intercoder reliability for agency and communion was substantial (87% and 90% agreement, κs = .71 and .76, respectively).

Redemptive and contaminated imagery

McAdams’ (1998, 1999) scoring manuals were used to quantify the presence/absence of redemptive and contaminated imagery in participants’ narratives. Redemptive imagery manifests when negative beginnings give way to positive endings. In Study 1, examples of redemptive imagery exhibited by participants include getting a speeding ticket on the way to a good first date and gaining a new and positive perspective on life after being rejected. Contaminated imagery is, in some sense, the opposite of redemptive imagery insofar as positive beginnings are construed as spoiled by negative endings. From our sample, examples of contaminated imagery include looking forward to an upcoming birthday celebration only to be unexpectedly dumped and an enjoyable relationship ending due to a partner’s infidelity. Narratives that contained the applicable imagery received a score of “1,” whereas those that did not received a score of “0” (i.e., these systems are based on determining the presence/absence of redemptive and contaminated imagery in autobiographical narratives). The intercoder reliability for redemption (90% agreement, κ = .64) and contamination (94% agreement, κ = .69) was substantial.

Positive affective tone and integrative complexity

The positive affective tone of each narrative was quantified using McAdams’ (n.d.) coding manual. Within this system, the emotional quality of narratives is rated on a scale from 1 (very negative) to 5 (very positive). With respect to complexity, we adapted Baker-Brown et al.’s (1992) integrative complexity framework (see McAdams et al., 2006) in the rating of the present data. Within this framework, integrative complexity represents the degree to which narrators both differentiate multiple perspectives, feelings, or opinions and integrate these various positions in a coherent manner (see also Suedfeld, Tetlock, & Siegfried, 1992). Each narrative was rated on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (no recognition of multiple viewpoints) to 5 (harmonious integration of differentiated perspectives). Interrater reliability was acceptable for both positive affective tone (intra-class correlation (ICC) = .91) and integrative complexity (ICC = .80).

Derivation of narrative scores

Narrative identity represents an emergent property inferred on the basis of the quantitative values derived from participant’s key scenes, much like socioeconomic status represents an emergent property of factors such as income and education (for a similar argument, see Frimer, Walker, Lee, Riches, & Dunlop, 2012). Due to the nature of our underlying construct of interest (viz., love life narrative identity), we were justified in our choice to aggregate values of agency, communion, redemption, contamination, positive affective tone, and complexity across each participant’s stories as this provided the most reliable measure of the contours of each dimension of an individual’s underlying narrative identity (see Epstein, 1983). For this reason, as well as the fact that the majority of previous research has considered average ratings of narratives (e.g., McAdams et al., 2001, 2004, 2006) and we wished to allow for the easiest comparison between this previous research and the current efforts, we summed participants’ scores of agency, communion, redemptive sequences, and contaminated sequences and took the average degree of affective tone and complexity across their narratives.

Results

In the following sections, participants’ demographic characteristics are considered in relation to features of their love life narrative identities. Following these analyses, we examined relations between personality traits, romantic domain authenticity, and love life narrative identities. Finally, we considered the relation between authenticity and love life narrative identity, while controlling for the predictive ability of personality traits.

Demographics and love life narrative identities

Relations between age and features of participants’ love life narrative identities were small (rs ≤ .14) and did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance. To examine relations between features of participants’ love life narrative identities, gender, and relationship status, we conducted six 2 (gender: male, female) × 2 (relationship status: coupled, single) analyses of variance (ANOVAs), with one of the six narrative features serving as the dependent variable. When considering narrative agency and integrative complexity, significant main effects or interactions were not observed for gender or relationship status, Fs(1, 153) ≤ 3.61, ps ≥ .06, η_p ²s ≤ .02.⁵ In contrast, we noted that coupled individuals exhibited higher levels of narrative communion, M = 1.58, SD = .65, than single participants, M = 1.00, SD = .65, F(1, 153) = 27.34, p < .001, η_p ² = .15. Coupled individuals also exhibited lower levels of contaminated imagery, M = .40, SD = .51, relative to single participants, M = .66, SD = .67, F(1, 153) = 6.01, p = .02, η_p ² = .04. Furthermore, coupled individuals exhibited higher levels of positive affective tone, M = 3.04, SD = .37, relative to single participants, M = 2.85, SD = .45, F(1, 153) = 9.65, p =.002, η_p ² =.06. We did not observe main effects for gender nor interactions between gender and relationship status when considering levels of communion, contaminated imagery, or positive affective tone in participants’ love lives, Fs(1, 153) ≤ 2.07, ps ≥ .15, η_p ²s ≤ .01. Finally, males were found to exhibit lower levels of redemptive imagery in their love life narratives M = .54, SD = .61, relative to females, M = .76, SD = .65, F(1, 153) = 4.38, p = .04, η_p ² = .03. When predicting redemptive imagery, gender and relationship status did not interact, nor did relationship status emerge as a significant predictor of this narrative feature, Fs(1, 153) ≤ 2.50, ps ≥ .12, η_p ²s ≤ .02. Thus, on a collective whole, when narrating the significant moments of their love lives, coupled individuals more regularly evoked themes of communion, exhibited reduced levels of contaminated imagery, and offered more positive stories, relative to noncoupled individuals.

Personality traits, authenticity, and love life narrative identity

Table 1 reports descriptive statistics and interrelations among all study variables. Evident from this table, traits and authenticity corresponded with several of the measures derived from participants’ narratives. Turning first to participants’ personality traits, although we did not observe a positive relation between dominance and narrative redemption (as was predicted in Hypothesis 1), those higher in dominance constructed stories about their love lives that had more positive affective tone, relative to those low in dominance. In contrast, those with high levels of trait nurturance constructed stories with greater levels of agency and communion (as predicted in Hypothesis 2) and lower levels of contaminated imagery. Finally, consistent with Hypothesis 3, love life authenticity corresponded positively with levels of redemptive imagery and positive affective tone. Authenticity also related significantly with levels of communion in participants’ stories. Thus, individuals who felt particularly authentic within the romantic domain tended to construct stories with a greater emphasis on intimacy, optimism, and positivity.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics and interrelations among age and study variables (Study 1).

	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Nonnarrative variables
1. Dominance	.03	.11	—
2. Nurturance	.06	.13	−.07	—
3. Authenticity	4.34	.68	.21**	.28***	—
Narrative variables
4. Agency	.27	.48	−.03	.19*	.06	—
5. Communion	1.33	.71	.10	.17*	.33***	-.12	—
6. Redemptive imagery	.65	.64	−.08	.10	.18*	.07	.19*	—
7. Contaminated imagery	.51	.61	.02	−.22**	−.10	−.13	−.13	−.22**	—
8. Positive affective tone	2.96	.42	.21**	.08	.32***	−.04	.42***	−.01	−.12	—
9. Integrative complexity	1.67	.70	−.01	.10	.11	.06	.14⁺	.29***	.06	−.13

***p < .001; ** p < .01; *p < .05; ⁺ p< .10.

Authenticity and love life narrative identity: Supplemental analysis

Evident from Table 1, authenticity related significantly with both dominance and nurturance. As a result, in line with previous research (e.g., Adler et al., 2016; Dunlop & Tracy, 2013), we next sought to determine whether the variables derived from participants’ love life narrative identities related significantly with authenticity, after accounting for participants’ traits. In the first step of this analysis, authenticity was entered as the outcome (predicted) variable, whereas measures of personality traits were entered as a block of predictor variables. In the second step of this analysis, features of participants’ love life narrative identities were entered as a block of predictor variables. Participants’ love life narrative identities were understood to serve as a substantial predictor of authenticity if this second block of predictor variables accounted for a significant portion of the variance in romantic domain authenticity.

The first step in this analysis accounted for a significant portion of variability in authenticity, adjusted R ² = .28, F(2, 154) = 29.32, p < .001. This effect was driven by measures of both dominance, b = 1.25, SE = .42, β = .21, t = 2.99, p = .003, and nurturance, b = 2.51, SE = .36, β = .48, t = 7.03, p < .001. Furthermore, and consistent with Hypothesis 4, the second step in this equation contributed to the predictive ability of authenticity, R ² change = .10, F(6, 148) = 3.72, p = .002. Among constructs derived from participants’ love life narrative identities, only communion, b = .16, SE = .07, β = .17, t = 2.21, p = .03, and positive affective tone, b = .32, SE = .12, β = .20, t = 2.61, p = .01, served as significant predictors of authenticity.

Discussion

In Study 1, we determined the ability of certain demographic characteristics, personality traits, and an indicator of adjustment (viz., authenticity) to correspond with features of participants’ love life narrative identities. Several of the resulting findings are worthy of note. First, with respect to relevant demographic variables, we observed that coupled and noncoupled individuals differed in the levels of communion, contaminated imagery, and positive affective tone expressed in their stories. With respect to the anticipated relations between personality traits, authenticity, and love life narrative identities, mixed support was amassed for our hypotheses. The divergences noted between our data and predictions suggest that the functioning and correlates of narrative identity within the romantic domain may differ slightly from that of the more often considered generalized narrative identity (recall that our predictions were made on the basis of this existing literature; e.g., Guo et al., 2016; McAdams et al., 2001).

In any manner, our results provide indication that those with varying levels of trait dominance and nurturance (constructs corresponding closely to extroversion and agreeableness, respectively; Wiggins, 2003) story their love lives in divergent ways. In addition, romantic domain authenticity was found to correspond with several dimensions of participants’ stories. Finally, consistent with previous research noting the incremental predictive ability of narrative identity (e.g., Adler et al., 2016; Dunlop & Tracy, 2013), we observed that, collectively, features of participants’ love life narrative identities accounted for significant variability in reports of authenticity, over and above the variability in this construct accounted for by traits.

The observed relation between authenticity and communion was not anticipated and, for this reason, deserves further comment. Those with high levels of communion in their life stories tend to prioritize being connected with others, particularly within the confines of intimate relationships (McAdams et al., 1996). By extension, individuals with higher levels of communion may dedicate a heightened degree of energy toward this life domain and, as a result, feel more satisfied within it (these and other substantive issues will be revisited in our general discussion section). Unfortunately, we included only a single measure of adjustment within our first study, so the relation between functioning and communion within the romantic domain remains tentative at best. We addressed this limitation in Study 2.

Indeed, there were several limitations inherent in the design of Study 1 that required addressing in our subsequent study. First, our measure of relationship status was less than ideal insofar as we did not explicitly prompt participants to indicate whether they were, or were not, currently single. Second, authenticity, although related to psychological adjustment (see Kernis & Goldman, 2006), is a relatively idiosyncratic construct. In a related manner, our measure of authenticity exhibited a relative low level of internal reliability (α = .60). Although this lack of reliability likely underestimated the magnitude of the relation between authenticity and features of participants’ love life narrative identities (see Block, 1963), it would have been ideal to consider additional markers of functioning within the romantic domain. This was precisely what was done in Study 2. In this latter study, we examined dimensions of adult romantic attachment and relationship contingent self-esteem in relation to participants’ love life narrative identities. These indicators were selected on this basis of their prevalence and importance within the literature (e.g., Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012; Simpson, 1990). In Study 2, we also shored up our relationship status measure.

Study 2

In Study 2, we examined participants’ love life narrative identities in relation to two domain-specific indicators of functioning (viz., romantic attachment and relationship contingent self-esteem; Fraley et al., 2000; Knee et al., 2008). After specifying a series of narratives pertaining to their love lives, participants completed measures assessing the degree to which they experienced anxiety and avoidant tendencies within the context of romantic relationships and a measure of relationship contingent self-esteem, which represents a “form of self-esteem that depends on one’s relationship and represents a particular kind of relationship investment” (Knee et al., 2008, p. 609). Narratives generated in Study 2 were quantified in terms of the six features considered in Study 1. Below, we list the hypotheses tested in Study 2.

Hypothesis 1. Due to the fact that narrative communion provides indication of the degree to which one is motivated by desires for care and connectedness and values intimate relationships (McAdams et al., 1996), as well as the positive relation this narrative feature exhibited with romantic domain authenticity in Study 1, we predicted that communion would correspond negatively with anxious and avoidant attachment and positively with relationship contingent self-esteem.

Hypothesis 2. On the basis of previous research noting a positive relation between well-being and positive affective tone (e.g., McAdams et al., 2001), as well as our results in Study 1, we predicted that levels of positive tone in participants’ love life narrative identities would relate positively with the nonnarrative variables in a manner paralleling the anticipated relations with communion.

Hypothesis 3. On the basis of the positive relation noted in Study 1 between authenticity and redemptive imagery in participants’ stories, we predicted that this narrative dimension would relate negatively with maladaptive attachment dimensions.

Participants

One hundred and forty-nine participants (M _age = 36.17 years, SD = 11.44), 50% of whom were male and 80% of whom self-identified as being of Euro-American descent, were recruited from the online survey-based website used in Study 1. The same inclusion criteria adopted in Study 1 was used in Study 2. Participants received an honorarium of US$4.00 in exchange for their participation.

Procedure

After providing informed consent, participants were asked to specify a high point, low point, and turning point from their love lives, using the same prompts as Study 1, and three narratives unrelated to the current project. Individual narratives pertaining to participants’ love lives had an average length of 179 words (SD = 105; range = 13–742). Participants next provided basic demographic information (e.g., age, gender) and were asked to indicate whether they were currently in a romantic relationship. They then completed a battery of questionnaires that included measures of anxious attachment tendencies, avoidant attachment tendencies, and relationship contingent self-esteem (described in detail below). Seventy-nine percent of our participants reported currently being in a relationship. Coupled and single participants were comparable in terms of age, F(1, 147) = .34, p = .55, and gender, χ²(1, N = 149) = .91, p = .34 (continuity corrected).

Nonnarrative variables

Romantic attachment dimensions

Individual differences in participants’ romantic attachment dimensions were assessed using the Experiences in Close Relationships–Revised (ECR-R) questionnaire (Fraley et al., 2000).⁶ The ECR is a 36-item self-report measure that quantifies participants’ anxious and avoidant tendencies within romantic relationships. The ECR has been validated among samples of individuals who are, and are not, currently in romantic relationships. Participants were asked to rate their typical behavior in romantic relationships rather than how they behave in any one (presumably current) relationship. They rated each of the 36 items on a scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). Exemplary items from the anxious and avoidant scales include “I am afraid that I will lose my partner’s love” and “I don’t feel comfortable opening up to romantic partners,” respectively (αs = .97).

Relationship contingent self-esteem

Relationship contingent self-esteem was assessed using Knee, Canevello, Bush, and Cook’s (2008) 11-item measure. On a 5-point scale ranging from not at all like me (1) to very much like me (5), participants were prompted to rate the degree to which they agreed with statements such as “I feel better about myself when it seems like my partner and I are getting along” and “I feel better about myself when others tell me that my partner and I have a good relationship” (α = .91). Like the ECR-R, participants completing this measure are asked to rate themselves as they generally are in relationships, rather than how they are in the context of their current relationship (if they are in one). Thus, this measure provides a sense of how much individuals’ self-evaluations are influenced by the state of their romantic relationships, in general.

Narrative variables

The coding procedure in Study 2 paralleled that of Study 1. Narratives were first placed in a single spreadsheet and their order was randomized. A primary coder who was familiar with the applicable coding system and blind to participants’ demographic information and all other study variables then coded or rated the entirety of the sample. As was the case in Study 1, the primary coder for each narrative dimension, who was either a junior author on this article or an undergraduate research assistant, was blind to all additional data generated by participants, including participants’ current relationship status, attachment tendencies, and relationship contingent self-esteem. A secondary coder (again, either a study author or an undergraduate research assistant) coded or rated a random quarter of the sample. Intercoder/-rater reliability was substantial for agency (93% agreement, ICC = .89), communion (89% agreement, ICC = .86),⁷ redemptive imagery (84% agreement, κ = .70), contaminated imagery (90% agreement, κ = .75), tone (ICC = .83), and complexity (ICC = .69). The primary coder/rater’s evaluations were considered in all analyses. Consistent with the analytic approach adopted in Study 2 as well as our framing of narrative identity as an emergent property of participants’ key autobiographical scenes, we summed scores of agency and communion and averaged ratings of positive affective tone and complexity across each participant’s narratives.

Results

In the following analyses, we first considered participants’ demographic information in relation to features of their love life narrative identities. We next examined adult romantic attachment tendencies and relationship contingent self-esteem in relation to aspects of these identities.

Demographic variables and love life narrative identities

As was the case with Study 1, age did not correspond with the content or structure of participants’ love life narrative identities (rs ≤ .15). Relations between participants’ love life narrative identities, gender, and relationship status were examined via six 2 (gender: male, female) × 2 (relationship status: coupled, single) ANOVAs with one of the six narrative features serving as the dependent variable. No significant main effects or interactions were observed for gender and relationship status when considering narrative agency, Fs(1, 147) ≤ .04, ps ≥ .84, η_p ²s = .00, redemptive imagery, Fs(1, 147) ≤ 2.20, ps ≥ .14, η_p ²s ≤ .02, contaminated imagery, Fs(1, 147) ≤ .75, ps ≥ .39, η_p ²s ≤ .01, or integrative complexity, Fs(1, 147) ≤ 1.80, ps ≥ .18, η_p ²s ≤ .01. When considering communion, a main effect for gender was not observed, F(1, 147) = .98, p = .32, η_p ² = .01. We did note, however, a main effect for relationship status, with coupled individuals exhibiting higher levels of this narrative variable, M = 1.51, SD = .58, when compared to single participants, M = 1.03, SD = .54, F(1, 147) = 19.67, p < .001, η_p ² = .12, and a significant gender × relationship interaction, F(1, 147) = 6.97, p = .009, η_p ² = .06.

Unpacking the above interaction within each relationship status group, comparable levels of communion were observed among single females and males, F(1, 147) = .86, p = .36, η_p ² = .03. In contrast, coupled females exhibited significantly lower levels of communion, M = 1.30, SD = .54, than coupled males, M = 1.70, SD = .56, F(1, 147) = 15.66, p < .001, η_p ² = .12. Turning attention to positive affective tone, we observed that females had lower levels of positive emotion in their stories, M = 2.89, SD = .40, when compared to males, M = 3.14, SD = .37, F(1, 147) = 8.06, p = .01, η_p ² = .05. Also, coupled participants exhibited more positive affective tone, M = 3.08, SD = .36, than single participants, M = 2.78, SD = .48, F(1, 147) = 8.06, p = .01, η_p ² = .05. The interaction between gender and relationship status did not reach significance, F(1, 147) = .06, p = .81, η_p ² = .00. Thus, considering in tandem the relations noted in Studies 1 and 2, coupled participants exhibited higher levels of communion and positive affective tone in their love life narrative identities, relative to single participants.

Attachment tendencies, self-esteem, and love life narrative identities

Table 2 reports descriptive statistics and relations among study variables. Evident from this table, several significant relations were noted between functioning within the romantic domain and features of participants’ love life narrative identities. Turning first to individual differences in anxious attachment tendencies, this construct related negatively with the positive affective tone in participants’ stories (as predicted in Hypothesis 5) and positively with the integrative complexity of these stories (this latter finding was unpredicted). Thus, highly anxious individuals tended to construct complex stories that contained low levels of positive affect. With respect to avoidant attachment, consistent with Hypotheses 4 and 5, this attachment tendency related negatively with narrative communion and positive affective tone. Thus, those who were highly avoidant within romantic relationships tended to disclose stories that were low in intimacy/connectedness and positive tone. Finally, with respect to relationship contingent self-esteem, again consistent with Hypotheses 4 and 5, we noted that this construct corresponded positively with both communion and positive affective tone. Thus, those whose self-evaluations were highly influenced by the state of their romantic relationships tended to construct love life narrative identities that were high in themes of intimacy and positive emotions. Finally, no support was gathered for Hypothesis 6 (i.e., the prediction that redemptive imagery would be negatively correlated with anxious and avoidant attachment tendencies).

Table 2.

Descriptive statistics and interrelations among age and study variables (Study 2).

	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Nonnarrative variables
1. Anxious attachment	2.82	1.57	—
2. Avoidant attachment	2.54	1.28	.67***	—
3. RCSE	3.67	.83	.21*	−.24**	—
Narrative variables
4. Agency	.17	.37	.02	.00	−.01	—
5. Communion	1.41	.60	−.11	−.29***	.23**	−.22**	—
6. Redemptive imagery	.94	.81	.02	−.05	−.01	.19*	.04	—
7. Contaminated imagery	.67	.64	.06	.08	−.08	−.05	.02	−.30***	—
8. Positive affective tone	3.02	.41	−.22**	−.36***	.25**	.13	.54***	.03	−.21*	—
9. Integrative complexity	1.62	.54	.22**	.07	.14−	−.04	−.12	.13	.14	−.15⁺

Note. RCSE = relationship contingent self-esteem.

***p < .001; ** p < .01; *p < .05; ⁺ p < .10.

Discussion

In Study 2, we explored features of participants’ love life narrative identities in relation to their romantic attachment tendencies (indexed in terms of anxiety and avoidance) and levels of relationship contingent self-esteem. Relations between these identities and demographic factors were also considered (as was done in Study 1). Consistent with our earlier study, we noted that the love life narratives of coupled individuals housed higher levels of communion and positive affective tone relative to single participants. In addition, we observed several significant relations between participants’ love life narrative identities, attachment tendencies, and relationship contingent self-esteem.

Unexpectedly, participants with higher levels of anxious attachment tendencies constructed more complex recounts of their love lives. We speculate that this relation may be because individuals with higher levels of anxiety ruminate on the events in their love lives and, as a result, create more complex stories about their experiences in this domain (see also, Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008). Of course, it may also be the case that individuals with higher levels of anxious attachment have actually led more complex/difficult love lives, and these difficulties are responsible for the noted relation between anxious attachment and narrative complexity.

In any manner, among the narrative variables considered, communion and positive affective tone exhibited the most robust relations with romantic domain functioning, with higher levels of communion and more positive affective tone in participants’ love life narrative identities corresponding with lower levels of avoidant romantic attachment tendencies and higher levels of relationship contingent self-esteem. Put simply, those who felt comfortable depending on, and opening up to, romantic partners, as well as those whose sense of self was highly influenced by the quality of their romantic relationships, tended to construct stories about their love lives that emphasized themes of belongingness, care, intimacy (i.e., communal motivation), and positive emotions (i.e., affective tone). It is to a consideration of these and other issues that we now turn.

General discussion

Narrative identity captures the phenomenological representation of one’s past, present, and future. In the current studies, we applied a narrative identity approach to the study of functioning within the romantic domain. In Study 1, we observed that trait dominance and nurturance corresponded with several aspects of participants’ love life narrative identities, notably the level of communion and positive affective tone expressed therein. In addition, romantic domain authenticity related positively with levels of communion, redemptive imagery, and positive affective tone in the key autobiographical scenes drawn from participants’ love lives. In Study 2, individual differences in avoidant attachment tendencies and relationship contingent self-esteem corresponded with levels of communion and positive affective tone in participants’ stories. In Study 2, anxious attachment tendencies were also found to correspond with the positive affective tone and integrative complexity of participants’ stories (negatively and positively, respectively). Finally, across both studies, coupled participants evidenced higher levels of communion and more positive affective tone in their love life narratives relative to participants who were currently single. Collectively, these results provide indication that many constructs important to the romantic domain relate to features of the storied myth individuals create about their love lives. These results also suggest that, among the narrative features considered, there may be something particularly impactful about communion and positive affective tone.

Communion and positive affective tone in love life narrative identities

Across our two studies, several nonnarrative constructs relevant to the romantic domain (e.g., authenticity, avoidant attachment) corresponded with the communion and positive affective tone of participants’ love live narrative identities. People with high levels of communal motivation place an accentuated value on relationships of various sorts, including those occurring in the romantic domain (e.g., McAdams et al., 1996). Positive affective tone, in contrast, represents the degree to which positive, rather than negative, emotions are emphasized in participants’ narratives. In previous research, this construct has been found to relate to psychological adjustment (i.e., individuals who tell stories high in positive valence tend to exhibit higher levels of psychological adjustment; e.g., McAdams et al., 2001). Due to the nature of these narrative dimensions, it is perhaps unsurprising that individuals who have constructed love life narrative identities infused with high levels of communion and positive affective tone were more likely to have lower levels of attachment-related avoidance and higher levels of authenticity and relationship contingent self-esteem.

One question that emerges from the current findings is whether there exists a causal relation between the communion and positive affective tone of love life narrative identities and adjustment within the romantic domain. Several narrative researchers (e.g., Dunlop, 2015, 2017; Giddens, 1991; Sarbin, 2004) have flagged the influence narrative identities exhibit on one’s character, personality, and behavior. From this perspective, one might predict that increasing the levels of communion and positive affective tone in participants’ love life narrative identities would actually lead to a change in adjustment within the romantic domain. For example, accentuating levels of communion and positive affective tone in someone’s love life narrative identity may work to reduce the degree to which this individual exhibited an insecure attachment tendency. Alternatively, certain social psychologists (e.g., Nisbett & Wilson, 1977) have suggested that the causal relation between narrative identity and adjustment moves in the opposite direction, with current adjustment coming to influence the nature of the narrative identities individuals construct. From this perspective, one might predict that bettering one’s adult attachment tendencies would lead to increased levels of communion and positive affective tone in participants’ love life narrative identities.

The above vantages are, of course, amenable to empirical examination. We recommend such examination be undertaken along at least three lines. First, within a single experimental session, researchers may wish to manipulate the levels of communion and positive affective tone in participants’ narratives pertaining to their love lives and examine the influence such manipulations exhibit of participants’ attachment tendencies and other self-based evaluations within the romantic domain. Alternatively, state-based indicators of adjustment within the romantic domain may be targeted for intervention prior to the assessment of love life narratives. Second, researchers may wish to examine relations between love life narrative identities and adjustment within the romantic domain via a longitudinal study design. For example, it would be interesting to determine whether increases in communal imagery and positive affective tone in participants’ love life narrative identities predict the subsequent commencement of romantic relationships, the commencement of romantic relationships predicts increases in communal imagery and positive affective tone in these identities, or both. Finally, researchers may wish to conduct more in-depth randomized control trials wherein participants’ love life narrative identities or attachment tendencies are modified and the changes in these tendencies/identities are tracked.

Moving beyond a consideration of communion and positive affective tone within love life narrative identities, it is important to underscore the fact that narrative identity provides a window from which to view the manner in which the narrator understands the world around him or her as well as his/her place within it (Dunlop, 2015, 2017; McAdams, 1995). Applied to the romantic domain, this construct affords an intimate understanding of the ways in which individuals represent and construe their previous and current relationships. As Giddens (1991) contended, once a narrative is formed, there exists an impetus to keep it “going.” It follows that knowing how an individual construes his or her romantic past will likely offer insights regarding how, in future, they will behave.

For the reasons noted above, in subsequent research, the ability of features of love life narrative identity to anticipate subsequent behavioral patterns and life outcomes relevant to the romantic domain (e.g., marriage, divorce) should be explored. As was done in Study 1, in this future research, it would be beneficial to examine relations between constructs derived from participants’ love life narrative identities in relation to certain romantic domain outcomes, while controlling for more established antecedents of these outcomes (e.g., attachment tendencies; see Simpson, 1990). If such relations remained significant under these conditions, the call made here for the widespread study of love life narrative identity would gain further credence.

Implications, limitations, and future directions

We believe that the current studies illustrate the viability of considering participants’ narrative identities within specific domains and contexts (see also, Dunlop, 2015, 2017). Drawing from the tenets of the bandwidth–fidelity trade-off (see Roberts & Donahue, 1994), we contend that a consideration of these more contextualized storied self-representations offers greater insights into individuals’ functioning with the corresponding domain. Indeed, our research is the first known to link individual differences in romantic domain authenticity, attachment tendencies, and relationship contingent self-esteem to features of narrative identity, be they drawn from participants’ conceptions of their love lives or otherwise.

Despite the insights gained from the current research, inherent limitations must be acknowledged, the first of which being the manner in which we assessed participants’ love life narrative identities. We targeted only a small sample of key autobiographical scenes from participants’ love lives. Although the resulting narrative measures were interpretable and predictive, it remains possible that more reliable indicators of participants’ identities would have been ascertained had we extracted more information from our participants. The LSI (McAdams, 2008), for example, prompts participants for life chapters, several additional key scenes, and several assertions regarding trajectories and personal ideologies. Adopting a similar approach in the narrative study of love lives may prove useful.

The nature of our samples also deserves comment. The majority of our participants were of Euro-American descent, while all of our participants were functioning within a highly Westernized cultural context. Furthermore, the influence of culture may be particularly apparent in narratives about participants’ love lives, given the diversity that exists in courtships and mating rituals (e.g., arranged marriages, sexual masochism; Schmitt, 2005). For this reason, it is unclear whether we would have observed similar results if our data had been collected within a different, non-Western cultural context. The diversity present within Western cultural contexts is also in need of further examination. For example, it remains an open question as to whether the pattern of results reported here would replicate among samples drawn exclusively from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community.⁸

Third, when considered in relation to the types of constructs often examined by relationship researchers, which tend to focus on participants’ functioning within specific romantic relationships (e.g., current relationship satisfaction, subsequent relationship dissolution; see Frost, 2013), our measures of authenticity, attachment, and relationship contingent self-esteem may be deemed somewhat limited. Our choice to consider these particular constructs, however, stemmed in part from our interest to assess the love life narrative identities of those who were, and were not, currently in romantic relationships. Nevertheless, in future, researchers are encouraged to consider a broader array of constructs relevant to an understanding of love lives. It is hoped that such efforts are conducted with sensitivity to the limitations recognized above. We contend that love life narrative identities represent a necessary consideration in the study of love lives and intimate relationships. In the absence of such consideration, a complete story of these and related topics will escape us.

Footnotes

Authors’ note

Tara P. McCoy is now at the Department of Psychology, Monmouth College.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

References

Adler

J. M.

(2012). Living into the story: Agency and coherence in a longitudinal study of narrative identity development and mental health over the course of psychotherapy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 367–389. doi:10.1037/a0025289

Adler

J. M.

Dunlop

W. L.

Fivush

Lilgendahl

J. P.

Lodi-Smith

McAdams

D. P.

Syed

(2017). Research methods for studying narrative identity: A primer. Social and Personality Psychological Science, 8, 519–527. doi:10.1177/1948550617698202

Adler

J. M.

Lodi-Smith

Phillippe

Houle

(2016). The incremental validity of narrative identity in predicting psychological well-being: A review of the field and recommendations for the future. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 142–175. doi:10.1177/1088868315585068

Baker-Brown

Ballard

E. J.

Bluck

de Vries

Suedfeld

Tetlock

P. E.

(1992). The conceptual/integrative complexity scoring manual. In Smith

C. P.

(Ed.), Personality and motivation: Handbook of thematic content analysis (pp. 401–418). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Bauer

J. J.

McAdams

D. P.

Sakaeda

A. R.

(2005). Interpreting the good life: Growth memories in the lives of mature, happy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 203–217. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.88.1.203

Block

(1963). The equivalence of measures and the correction for attenuation. Psychological Bulletin, 60, 152–156. doi:10.1177/0013164497057005004

Buehlman

K. T.

Gottman

J. M.

Katz

L. F.

(1992). How a couple views their past predicts their future: Predicting divorce from an oral history interview. Journal of Family Psychology, 5, 295–318. doi:10.1037/0893-3200.5.3-4.295

Buhrmester

Kwang

Gosling

S. D.

(2011). Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 3–5. doi:10.1177/1745691610393980

Cox

K. S.

McAdams

D. P.

(2014). Meaning making during high and low point story episodes predicts emotion regulation two years later: How the past informs the future. Journal of Research in Personality, 50, 66–70. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2014.03.004

10.

Doohan

E. M.

Carrére

Riggs

M. L.

(2010). Using relational stories to predict the trajectory toward marital dissolution: The oral history interview and spousal feelings of flooding, loneliness, and depression. Journal of Family Communication, 10, 57–77. doi:10.1080/15267430903396401

11.

Dunlop

W. L.

(2015). Contextualized personality, beyond traits. European Journal of Personality, 29, 310–325. doi:10.1002/per.1995

12.

Dunlop

W. L

. (2017). The narrative identity structural model (NISM). Imagination, Cognition, & Personality.

13.

Dunlop

W. L.

Hanley

G. E.

McCoy

T. P.

Harake

. (2017). Sticking to the (romantic) script: A examination of love life scripts, stories, and self-reports of normality. Memory, 25, 1444–1454. doi:10.1080/09658211.2017.1316509

14.

Dunlop

W. L.

Tracy

J. L.

(2013). Sobering stories: Narratives of self-redemption predict behavioral change and improved health among recovering alcoholics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104, 576–590. doi:10.1037/a0031185

15.

Dunlop

W. L.

Walker

L. J.

Wiens

T. K.

(2013). What do we know when we know a person across contexts? The differing relationship between self-concept differentiation and adjustment at the three levels of personality. Journal of Personality, 81, 376–389. doi:10.1111/jopy.12018

16.

Epstein

(1983). Aggregation and beyond: Some basic issues on the prediction of behavior. Journal of Personality, 51, 360–392. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1983.tb00338.x

17.

Fraley

R. C.

Waller

N. G.

Brennan

K. A.

(2000). An item response theory analysis of self-report measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 350–365. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.78.2.350

18.

Frimer

J. A.

Walker

L. J.

Lee

B. H.

Riches

Dunlop

W. L.

(2012). Hierarchical integration of agency and communion: A study of influential moral figures. Journal of Personality, 80, 1117–1145. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2012.00764.x

19.

Frost

D. M.

(2013). The narrative construction of intimacy and affect in relationship stories: Implications for relationship quality, stability, and mental health. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30, 247–269. doi:10.1177/0265407512454463

20.

Giddens

(1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late-modern age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

21.

Guo

Klevan

McAdams

D. P.

(2016). Personality traits, ego development, and the redemptive self. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin, 42, 1551–1563. doi:10.1177/0146167216665093

22.

Holmberg

Orbuch

T. L.

Veroff

(2004). Thrice told tales: Married couples tell their stories. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

23.

Hudson

N. W.

Fraley

R. C.

(2015). Volitional personality trait change: Can people choose to change their personality traits? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109, 490–507. doi:10.1037/pspp0000021

24.

John

O. P.

Naumann

L. P.

Soto

C. J.

(2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative big-five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and conceptual issues. In John

O. P.

Robins

R. W.

Pervin

L. A.

(Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 114–158). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

25.

Kernis

M. H.

Goldman

B. M.

(2006). A multicomponent conceptualization of authenticity: Theory and research. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 283–357. doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38006-9

26.

Knee

C. R.

Canevello

Bush

A. L.

Cook

(2008). Relationship–contingent self-esteem and the ups and downs of romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 608–627. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.95.3.608

27.

Koenig Kellas

Trees

A. R.

Schrodt

LeClair-Underberg

Willer

E. K.

(2010). Exploring links between well-being and interactional sense-making in married couples’ jointly told stories of stress. Journal of Family Communication, 10, 174–193. doi:10.1080/15267431.2010.489217

28.

McAdams

D. P.

(1995). What do we know when we know a person? Journal of Personality, 63, 365–396. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1995.tb00500.x

29.

McAdams

D. P.

(2001). Coding autobiographical episodes for themes of agency and communion. Unpublished manuscript, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

30.

McAdams

D. P.

Reynolds

Lewis

Patten

A. H.

Bowman

P. J.

(2001). When bad things turn good and good things turn bad: Sequences of redemption and contamination in life narrative and their relation to psychosocial adaptation in midlife adults and in students. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 474–485.

31.

McAdams

D. P.

(2008). The life story interview. Unpublished manuscript, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

32.

McAdams

D. P.

(2013). The psychological self as actor, agent, and author. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 272–295. doi:10.1177/1745691612464657

33.

McAdams

D. P.

Anyidoho

N. A.

Brown

Huang

Y. T.

Kaplan

Machado

M. A.

(2004). Traits and stories: Links between dispositional and narrative features of personality. Journal of Personality, 72, 761–784. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00279.x

34.

McAdams

D. P.

Bauer

J. J.

Sakaeda

A. R.

Anyidoho

N. A.

Machado

M. A.

Magrino-Failla

… Pals

J. L

. (2006). Continuity and change in the life story: A longitudinal study of autobiographical memories in emerging adulthood. Journal of Personality, 74, 1371–1400. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00412.x

35.

McAdams

D. P.

Diamond

de St. Aubin

Mansfield

. (1997). Stories of commitment: The psychosocial construction of generative lives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 678–694. doi:1997-07966-018

36.

McAdams

D. P.

Hoffman

B. J.

Day

Mansfield

E. D.

(1996). Themes of agency and communion in significant autobiographical scenes. Journal of Personality, 64, 339–377. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996.tb00514.x

37.

McCoy

T. P.

Dunlop

W. L.

(2016). Contextualizing narrative identity: A consideration of assessment settings. Journal of Research in Personality, 65, 16–21. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2016.08.006

38.

Mikulincer

Shaver

P. R.

(2012). Adult attachment and caregiving: Individual differences in providing a safe haven and secure base to others. In Brown

S. L.

Brown

R. M.

Penner

L. A.

(Eds.), Moving beyond self-interest: Perspectives from evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and the social sciences (pp. 39–52). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

39.

Murray

Holmes

(1993). Seeing virtues in faults: Negativity and the transformation of interpersonal narratives in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 707–722. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.65.4.707

40.

Murray

Holmes

(1999). The (mental) ties that bind: Cognitive structures that predict relationship resilience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1228–1244. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1228

41.

Nisbett

R. E.

Wilson

T. D.

(1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231–259. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.84.3.231

42.

Nolen-Hoeksema

Wisco

B. E.

Lyubomirsky

(2008). Rethinking rumination. Perspective on Psychological Science, 3, 400–424. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00088.x

43.

Roberts

B. W.

Donahue

E. M.

(1994). One personality, multiple selves: Integrating personality and social roles. Journal of Personality, 62, 199–218. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1994. tb00291.x

44.

Sarbin

T. R.

(2004). The role of imagination in narrative construction. In Daiute

Lightfoot

(Eds.), Narrative analysis: Studying the development of individuals in society (pp. 5–20). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

45.

Schmitt

D. P.

(2005). Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe: A 48-nation study of sex, culture, and strategies of human mating. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 247–311.

46.

Sheldon

K. M.

Ryan

R. M.

Rawsthorne

L. J.

Ilardi

(1997). Trait self and true self: Cross-role variation in the Big-Five personality traits and its relations with psychological authenticity and subjective well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1380–1393. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1380

47.

Simpson

J. A.

(1990). Influence of attachment styles on romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 971–980. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.59.5.971

48.

Simpson

J. A.

Rholes

S. W.

Phillips

(1996). Conflict in close relationships: An attachment perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 899–914. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.71.5.899

49.

Singer

J. A.

(2004). Narrative identity and meaning-making across the adult lifespan: An introduction. Journal of Personality, 72, 437–460. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00268.x

50.

Slatcher

R. B.

Vazire

(2009). Effects of global and contextualized personality on relationship satisfaction. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 624–633. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2009.02.012

51.

Suedfeld

Tetlock

P. E.

Streufert

(1992). Conceptual/integrative complexity. In Smith

C. P.

(Ed.), Motivation and personality: Handbook of thematic content analysis (pp. 393–400). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

52.

Wiggins

J. S.

(2003). Paradigms of personality assessment. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB