The Emergence Of Narrative Identity

Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x

The Emergence of Narrative Identity Kate C. McLean* Western Washington University

Abstract

This paper reviews the current research on narrative identity. Narrative identity is quickly becoming accepted as a promising process approach to self-development in a variety of fields, including developmental, clinical, cultural, personality, and social psychology. This paper reviews factors surrounding the emergence of narrative identity in adolescence, relations between narrative patterns and age and personality, as well as factors that are important to developing a coherent narrative identity, such as the emotional valence of experience, storytelling, and culture. Finally, new and emerging issues are raised for those interested in the study of narrative identity, with a particular focus on narratives that are difficult to tell and may violate cultural norms. ‘I had ACL surgery this past year. The surgery was successful and I have made a normal recovery so it is not the surgery in particular that constituted a major turning point in my life, it is more the other issues that came out of it. In the month or so after the surgery I experienced a lot of depression, apathy, anxiety, and self-doubt. I have always been a positive person who tries to make the best of things instead of getting stuck or complaining. Therefore the feelings I was experiencing in the weeks after the surgery were very distressing for me because I didn’t recognize the decisions, actions or attitudes that I had. They were so different than the way that I had previously seen myself. It made me question a lot about myself and my perception of self. I think overall I felt a lack of security. I think this was a significant point in my life because it made me become aware of a lot of things about myself. I figured out quite a bit about myself in relation to my family, friends, and boyfriend. I also figured out a lot about my own way of thinking and handling things.’

This narrative comes from a 17-year-old female, whom I will call Annie. She participated in a study I conducted on adolescent identity development, and this is her response to the request for a turning point memory: ‘a particular episode in your life story in which you underwent an important change in terms of how you understand yourself.’ There are several aspects of Annie’s narrative that are notable, but most relevant here, she is reporting her emerging identity. This paper focuses on the emergence of identity, developmentally, but also on the emergence of narrative identity as a field of research that has taken a central role in psychological approaches to understanding self and identity development. © 2008 The Author Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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Questions about identity should be questions about developmental processes; yet, people go about this developmental process in quite different ways, which makes identity questions also fundamentally about personality. I focus on a narrative approach because it is a process approach, and because narratives can reveal important individual differences in the process of constructing a meaningful identity. In this paper, I will address when narrative identity begins to emerge, as well as facilitating factors in narrative identity development. I will then turn to a discussion of the role that personality plays in the course of identity development and conclude with some suggestions as to what I see as the interesting and important issues facing narrative identity researchers. Narrative Approaches to Identity Narratives about the self are not only stories about what happened in a particular time and place; they also provide both an evaluation of past events in relation to the self and a sense of temporal continuity (e.g., Bruner, 1990; Fivush & Haden, 1997; Habermas & Bluck, 2000). Indeed, one of the essential questions facing narrative researchers is how people develop a sense of self that is continuous through time – a temporal coherence that serves to integrate the person (e.g., Chandler, Lalonde, Sokol, & Hallett, 2003; Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McAdams, 1988, 1993). Although children are able to talk about self-attributes (e.g., I am nice) and to organize events temporally (e.g., Nelson, 1986), it is not until at least adolescence that the temporally continuous self begins to develop (Chandler et al., 2003; Habermas & Bluck, 2000). The mechanism of creating temporal continuity is to story the self. For example, Habermas and Bluck (2000) suggested that in adolescence individuals begin to be able to explain the self in terms of stories, and to see connections between the self in different settings and across time via personal story construction. The goal of this beginning story construction is to create a life story, which is a selective narrative of one’s past experiences and thoughts about those experiences that serves to integrate the self (McAdams, 1988). Bruner (e.g., 1990) has suggested that stories are used to make sense of experience, particularly experiences that violate our expectations, or the canonical narrative. That is, storytelling facilitates managing ‘trouble’ in the world as we seek to make sense of experiences that are new or unexpected. It is through this process of making sense of trouble that a storied self begins to emerge. McAdams (e.g., 1988, 1993) has written most specifically about the life story and how that particular narrative serves to make sense of, or draw continuity to the self. Forming a life story involves the process of integrating one’s past, present and anticipated future by using important past events to weave a personal story of one’s life (McAdams, 1988). McAdams (1988) has suggested that individuals use life stories as a way to interpret the past © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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and the present and to anticipate future experiences. According to McAdams, the life story is constantly revised, making identity development a life-long task. Although the life story plays an important role across the lifespan, adolescence marks the beginning of life story development primarily due to the onset of formal operations and, in many societies, demands for establishing oneself in the world through work, school, and relationships. To understand this integration, narrative researchers have focused most robustly on how people make meaning of past experiences (e.g., Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007). This process of meaningmaking involves thinking and talking about specific experiences and how they relate both to the self and to other experiences one has had (Habermas &Bluck, 2000; McLean & Fournier, forthcoming). Interestingly, we do not get a specific example of meaning in Annie’s narrative, precisely because, I propose, she is in the midst of constructing that meaning; she has not yet figured it out. Another adolescent, an 18-year-old from the same study who I will call Sara, reported the following meaning after she decided to walk out of school to protest the Iraq war, against the advice of her teachers who threatened suspension. She discusses the dilemma she felt within her self in making that decision, and then what she specifically learned about herself: ... I generally follow rules, and I didn’t want to risk not getting accepted to the high school of my choice. The turning point for me in this event is that I walked out anyway. ... I walked out of school and marched through San Francisco, standing up for what I believed in. That day I learned that to do what I really felt was right, I had to take a risk and face the consequences. I learned that to be true to what I believe, I sometimes have to let other people down. I also learned how to use my voice to advocate for others. I found a strength that day that I had never used before, and whenever I’m afraid of standing for what I believe in or owning my voice, I remember this turning point and how good it felt to do what I knew I had to do.

In Sara’s example, we see specific meaning attributed to a past experience, as opposed to Annie who is still working to develop her meaning. Overall, in engaging in the process of making meaning of the past, one is developing and then sustaining, one’s identity. Finding unity in a multiplicity of experiences is a challenge that takes time, but once that unity is found, the life story is a powerful integrative force for the person. The Process of Identity Development When does identity emerge? Lawrence Friedman’s (1999) biography of Erik Erikson is titled, ‘Identity’s Architect’. Indeed, Erikson (1968) proposed that the central task of adolescence is to construct a personal identity, and that failure to do so would result in stunted development in subsequent stages of the life course. Interestingly, like Annie, Erikson also experienced feelings of insecurity and uncertainty about himself in late adolescence and young adulthood. Friedman writes, © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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‘Clearly Erik was in a fragile state at the start of adulthood. The stepson’s identity of ‘mixed’ and confused parentage, religion, and nationality had produced a person who felt himself living precariously ‘on the line’ and having to negotiate multiple border crossings’ (Friedman, 1999, 49). This description is representative of the stage of ‘identity crisis,’ during which most people experience a questioning and exploration of who they are and their role in society. Thus, whereas Erikson and Annie were both wrestling with different kinds of experience (the aftermath of surgery and heritage), both were also wrestling with the selves of the past in trying to organize a present and future self on the cusp of adulthood. The critical initiation of the process of identity development is the recognition of inconsistency, contradiction, or to put it more positively, possibilities, within the self; that is, the recognition of ‘trouble.’ Most often, this initial realization of different aspects of the self is distressing. Indeed, Annie discusses becoming aware of more aspects of herself, coupled with felt lack of security. Similarly, the sense that Erikson was living a precarious existence ‘on the line’ reflects the difficulty of managing the emerging awareness of many aspects of self. Sara describes the distress of feeling the contradiction in her desires to express her views and the lack of acceptance from authority figures. Although making meaning of violations in the canonical narrative, or managing trouble, is a challenge for everyone, this meaning-making process may be particularly distressing at younger ages when narrative skills are still developing, or for people who have had less narrative practice with reflection in childhood (e.g., Fivush, Marin, Crawford, Reynolds, & Brewin, 2007; McLean & Breen, forthcoming; McLean, Breen, & Fournier, forthcoming). So, why adolescence? The first answer concerns cognitive development. A major revolution in an individual’s thought processes occurs in the transition from childhood to adolescence and continues across adolescence. Specifically, new cognitive structures that are critical to the developing self-system emerge in adolescence (Harter, 2003, 2006; Harter & Monsour, 1992; Harter, Bresnick, Bouchey, & Whitesell, 1997), such as those relating to considering and testing possibilities (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958) and those that allow for the integration of single abstractions into higher order abstractions (Case, 1985; Fischer, 1980). Adolescents can hold multiple variables in mind at one time, can engage in scientific reasoning, metacognition, and can think about abstractions, such as love, faith, and politics. With the ability to hold multiple variables in mind, one can begin to hold different ideas of the self in mind, particularly the self in terms of the past and the present. Further, with the development of analytical reasoning skills (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958), adolescents have the ability to make causal connections between experience and the self, as Sara did, a critically important process in developing a life story (e.g., Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Lilgendahl & McAdams, forthcoming). Thus, these new cognitive skills allow one to begin to see the self in time and to begin to bring coherence to that self across time. Nevertheless, these skills emerge slowly over the course of adolescence. For example, the skills that © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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arise that enable adolescents to see contradictions in the self come before the skills arise to integrate those contradictions (e.g., Harter & Monsour, 1992), creating the possibility for the distress reported by Annie. The second answer to the question of ‘why adolescence’ centers more on social and cultural perspectives. Erikson (1968) viewed identity development as situated in an historical place and time, and as a particular problem of more industrialized societies that allow for choice in and exploration of the self. Thus, identity development is not a solo endeavor, but is constructed in concert with and in reference to one’s cultural and societal milieu (e.g., Bruner, 1990; Fivush, 2004b; McAdams & Pals, 2006; McLean et al., 2007; Pasupathi, 2001; Thorne, 2000, 2004). Consequently, we are pressed both by our emerging capacities to think in abstract and complex ways and by society to develop a coherent sense of self. While adolescence is a crucial time in the development of identity, most researchers do not view identity development as done by 18 or even 25 years of age (Kroger, 2007). Indeed, most identity theories, particularly those that have a process perspective, hold that identity development is a life long process, such that identity is revised as new experiences and aspects of self arise that need to be integrated into an ongoing narrative. For example, from adolescence through mid-life there is an increasing frequency of engaging in reflection on and autobiographical reasoning about the self (Habermas & Paha, 2001; McLean et al., forthcoming; Pasupathi & Mansour, 2006), supporting the idea that identity development is not ‘completed’ at adolescence. It is important to note, however, that viewing identity development as ongoing is not to suggest that an identity is never formed. Rather, the idea is that the healthiest trajectory is one in which, like a plant, roots are established in adolescence and young adulthood. These roots can be seen as the establishment of an identity, and once the roots are established, the plant can grow in a variety of ways, changing over time. Thus, with solid roots our identities can be revised and re-worked with new experiences and insights that one gathers about the self. Whereas age predicts certain factors of identity development in positive and linear fashions across adulthood, there are also some important qualitative shifts in narrative identity in adulthood. Specifically, it seems that the content and function of identity development changes across adulthood, particularly when looking to old age. Indeed, beginning around age 60, narrative reflection appears to level off or decline (Pasupathi & Mansour, 2006; McLean, 2008). That is, the frequency of self-event connections (Pasupathi & Mansour, 2006) increases from early to middle adulthood, and then appears to become asymptotic (see also, McLean, 2008). Furthermore, the content of that reasoning for older people (65–85 years old) turns to reflections on self-stability as compared with younger people (18–35 years old) who report more self-change (McLean, 2008). That is, although younger and older adults are experiencing transitions in relation to jobs, health, and relationships, for example, older adults are more likely to make connections between the © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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past and the self that are about enduring, stable characteristics (e.g., ‘This experience shows that I am a strong person’ as opposed to ‘I became a stronger person after that experience.’). Some have argued that this is due to the threats that occur in old age, such as mortality, such that a more stable, less exploratory sense of self is more adaptive (e.g., Cohen, 1998; Sneed & Whitbourne, 2005). This research does not suggest that narrative identity becomes irrelevant in old age, or that older adults are not actively engaged in life review, but rather these results suggest that the ways in which narratives are used to sustain the self shift across adulthood. How do people go about constructing an identity? Whereas the first stage of identity development is the recognition of contrasts within the self, the next stage is finding a way to integrate these contrasts, which is where the formation of a narrative life story becomes critical. There are three topics that I will touch on to discuss the process of identity development via the narrative approach: storytelling, cultural constraints, and variations in experience. Storytelling: In solitude and with others In some ways, the most intuitive way to think about identity development is personal reflection. The idea that people think about themselves and the past in order to construct a story makes sense. Indeed, adolescents, who are in the midst of identity construction, spend far more time alone than do children (Laursen, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, & Duckett, 1996). Thus, the interest in and time to reflect on oneself in solitude is an important part of identity development. Nevertheless, the social world intrudes on the solitary one in many ways. First, even when one is engaged in solitary reflection, one might imagine conversations about specific events (Pasupathi, Weeks, & Liu, 2005). Further, although even solitary reflection has a hint of the social world, we actually disclose most of the memorable events in our lives to others. For example, the great majority of our memorable and emotional experiences are disclosed within days of their occurrence, across gender and culture (Pasupathi, McLean, & Weeks, forthcoming; Rimé, Mesquita, Philippot, & Boca, 1991). Married couples and families tell stories with surprising regularity (Bohanek, Marin, Fivush, & Duke, 2006; Pasupathi, Lucas, & Coombs, 2002). Finally, 90% of personally important memories, like Annie’s story, have been shared at least once in the past (Thorne, McLean, & Lawrence, 2004). Thus, whereas solitary reflection occurs and is likely important, others quickly and ubiquitously become our listeners, interlocutors, and co-authors of our stories. Recently, colleagues and I proposed a process model of self-development that has personal storytelling at its center (McLean et al., 2007). We suggested that a major way that identity is constructed and maintained is by sharing © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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stories with others. Sharing stories not only allows others to help to construct the story, but also moves the story into the external world for validation. Furthermore, recent data have shown that there are clear aspects of conversational contexts that impact later story development. For example, in experimental designs, Pasupathi and colleagues (Pasupathi, Alderman, & Shaw, 2007; Pasupathi & Hoyt, forthcoming) have shown that listener behavior changes how elaborative the story is in the moment of telling, with effects that are evident on subsequent remembering occasions. These findings are also supported by a wealth of longitudinal and experimental research in childhood showing that the way in which parents scaffold their children’s personal narratives impacts later narrative development (see Fivush, Haden, & Reese, 2006 for a review). Culture The discussion of the social construction of identity brings us directly to a discussion of culture. The data are clear showing that narratives are used differently and vary in content across cultures (e.g., Wang & Brockmeier, 2002). Cultures also vary in the existing possibilities for identities and in the kinds of available stories used to create those identities (e.g., McAdams & Pals, 2006). For example, McAdams (2006) has shown that in America the ‘redemptive self ’ is a particularly relevant and powerful narrative. This is a narrative in which negative experiences are transformed into positive that McAdams (2006) suggests, is a ‘life story made in America’ (p. 3). For example, in discussing the attacks of September 11, 2001, McAdams (2006, 3–4) writes, ‘... men and women who had never known a foreign attack on American soil ... felt deep in their bones that bad things, even things this bad, ultimately lead to good outcomes, that suffering is ultimately redeemed.’ Using this powerful narrative of good triumphing over bad to structure one’s own experiences is not only a way to develop a culturally acceptable identity, but is also a narrative that appears to reflect, affect, or sustain psychological well-being (McAdams, Reynolds, Lewis, Patten, & Bowman, 2001). Thus, cultures provide us with possibilities for who we might become and the story structures to create those identities. These narratives that reflect cultural norms provide a structure that may ease the emergence of identity because individuals have an acceptable story structure in which to construct their experiences. However, for others, whose experiences and identities are not part of the canonical narrative, this can be a particular challenge to identity construction, to which I will return in discussing future directions. Variations in experience The final topic that I want to touch on is the kinds of experiences that are especially potent for identity construction. A robust finding in the narrative © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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identity literature is that difficult experiences provide opportunities for the development of self-understanding and personal growth. At the basic level, meaning-making is more likely to occur in negatively valenced events than in positive events (e.g., McLean & Thorne, 2003; Thorne et al., 2004). In more complex designs, researchers have shown that it is the degree to which individuals are able to process, make meaning, and often to find redemption, in negative experiences that predicts positive well-being (e.g., King, Scollon, Ramsey, & Williams, 2000; McAdams et al., 2001; McLean & Pratt, 2006; Pals, 2006). Laura King (2001) has termed this phenomenon ‘the hard road to the good life.’ Thus, the experience of, reflection on, and resolution of past difficult experiences appears to be a powerful process in identity development and psychological well-being more broadly (see also Pals & McAdams, 2004). These findings are also echoed in research on diary-writing (Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999) where repeated and analytical journal writing about negative events leads to increases in physical health. It is important to note the meanings made may not always be positive and growth promoting. Therefore, this reflective process, difficult as it may be, is the critical component to the emergence of narrative identity, but it may also be risky as we open ourselves up to the vulnerabilities of reflection. Although the processing of negative life experiences seems robustly important to self-development and to well-being, there also seem to be some age differences in the narrative structuring of emotional events. Recently, Jennifer Pals Lilgendahl and I (McLean & Lilgendahl, forthcoming) examined the reasons that younger and older people report using their most positive and most negative life story events (e.g., for identity, relationships, to guide behavior) (see Webster & McCall, 1999). We found that younger people appear to use positive memories and redemptive negative memories to develop and sustain an identity. Older adults on the other hand, report using negative memories for identity functions, regardless of whether or not they are redemptive. We suggested that in developing an identity, a focus on the positive may be important as one looks to the future with hope for what one might become. As one nears the end of life, however, the acceptance and ability to sit with the negative may become more tolerable. Furthermore, it may be that with the more stable sense of self that comes with age (e.g., Cohler, 1993; McLean, 2008; Sneed & Whitbourne, 2005; Troll & Skaff, 1997), one is able to acknowledge experiences of pain without painting a silver lining (see also Pals, 2006). Of course it is important to note that not everyone engages in these complex narrative processes that facilitate personal growth and transformation. There are clear developmental issues, such that children and adolescents may need help in scaffolding more challenging events, particularly those with a negative emotional valence (Fivush et al., 2007). There are also individual differences in personality that account for the engagement in meaning-making processes, to which we now turn. © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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Role of personality Narrative psychology can point to its beginnings in the writings of personality theorists such as Henry Murray, Alfred Adler, and Sylvan Tomkins (1979). For example, Tomkins’ (e.g., 1979) theory suggests that we have general guiding scripts to organize our many experiences, and that these scripts usually have their origin in early childhood scenes. Adler (e.g., 1927) focused on the story of one’s earliest memory as a theme for one’s later life and personality development. Finally, Henry Murray (e.g., 1938) is often thought of as the father of personological psychology in which a tradition has developed centered on the ‘study of lives.’ Researchers in this tradition focus on individual life stories as critical component to understanding persons. Dan McAdams (1988, 1993, 1995) has taken these earlier theories to conceptualize a more modern theory of personality, in which there are three levels to personality: traits (e.g., extraversion, neuroticism), characteristic adaptations (e.g., goals, ego development), and life stories (see also, McAdams & Pals, 2006). Life stories are thought to constitute one’s identity, and it is only in knowing someone’s life story that one truly knows another person (McAdams, 1995). The critical challenge for many personality psychologists is to understand the whole person and the individuality of that person, while at the same time understanding how to quantify and generalize aspects of persons. For example, there are some studies that have shown that simple, but modest, correlations exist between the three levels of personality. For example, between level one and level three, more neurotic people tell more negative stories (McAdams et al., 2004; Pals, 2004; Pennebaker & King, 1999). In contrast, agreeable and open people tend to tell more positively toned and linguistically positive narratives (McAdams et al., 2004; Pals, 2004). Between level two and level three, those higher on ego development report more growth and transformation in their stories (e.g., King et al., 2000; McLean & Fournier, forthcoming). In interpreting these findings, it is important not to view narratives as an epiphenomena of traits. First, Bauer, McAdams and Sakeda (2005) found that narratives were independent of goals (level 2) and traits (level 1) in predicting well-being, for example. Second, studying narratives provides a more dynamic view of personality and self than do traits, which are viewed as more or less stable or static over the course of the lifespan (Costa & McCrae, 1994; Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000). This does not mean that the relation between traits and narratives is not useful to pursue. To the contrary, I suggest that an exciting way to embark on the endeavor of understanding narrative identity is to examine the interaction between all levels of personality. Although it is likely that personality influences life experience, which is the raw material for stories, the construction of those stories can just © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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as likely feed back into one’s personality, maintaining trait stability or influencing personality development. For example, in examining 52-year-old women’s narratives of difficult life experiences, Pals (2006) found that exploratory processing of those difficult experiences at age 52 mediated the relation between the traits of coping openness at age 21 and emotional maturity at age 61. Similarly, King has shown that ego development is related to the exploration and elaboration of the self over time in samples of parents with children with Down Syndrome and divorced women (King et al., 2000). I have also found that ego development is particularly important to processing the kinds of events that may lead to personal growth compared to other kinds of events (McLean & Fournier, forthcoming). Taking a more microgenetic, or contextual, approach to identity development, Monisha Pasupathi and I (McLean & Pasupathi, forthcoming) have recently been exploring the nature of meanings about the self in conversations between romantic partners, in which a personally important memory is shared by one partner that he or she has never told the other partner before. We have been examining what predicts sharing meanings that elaborate episodes of self-change or self-continuity, in reference to a variety of variables including, characteristics of the teller (i.e., personality traits) and characteristics of the conversational context (e.g., behavior of the listener). We have found that listeners press for stability; that is, listeners want to hear, or provide, meanings about how the teller has stayed the same, not about change. This makes sense in that stories about personal change can be more complicated stories to tell, which might create a more difficult conversational context. This effect of listener’s press for stability is exacerbated with responsive and engaged listeners and tellers who are higher on openness to experience. This suggests that these listeners may be actively directing the conversation towards stability, and that open tellers are either more amenable to listener’s ideas or, perhaps, they need to be reigned in. These data are an example of how the dynamics of everyday behavior (conversations about the past) interact with stable aspects of personality in producing personal meanings. Indeed, these data suggest that stable self-views are particularly important to others (see also De La Ronde & Swann, 1998), such that the stories of growth and transformation that are of such great interest to narrative researchers may be hard won in social situations. Overall, these kinds of studies provide a dynamic perspective on the role of personality in the development of personal meanings about the self with long-term longitudinal data as well as micro analyses of conversations. Indeed, just examining one aspect of personal meanings (whether they are about personal change or continuity) is related to various levels of personal characteristics and contextual influences that together bring a more complex and dynamic lens to the study of narrative meaning-making and the emergence of identity. © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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Emerging issues Understanding the complex links between the individual differences in narrative identity construction and culture are critically important. While each story is unique, commonalities in stories often reveal something about the culture from which they derive, or put more eloquently, narratives provide ‘unique and culturally anchored meanings’ (McAdams & Pals, 2006, 210). Indeed, the manner in which the individual negotiates the construction of his or her own story within his or her culture tells us about the person, the culture, and their intersection. I suggest that one avenue for future research linking individuals to culture is work with ‘master narratives.’ Broadly, master narratives are story structures that we accept as a general truth for a particular group of people at a particular time and place (Boje, 1991). In studying master narratives, we can learn how people construct their individual stories in reference to these broader narratives. At the same time, and more provocatively, we can learn what society silences and what stories are untellable. Indeed, the narratives that cultures allow and encourage to emerge may not always match the personal narratives of the individual. For example, certain stories may be silenced, such as sexual abuse or rape (Fivush, 2004b), and certain people may be silenced, such as ethnic minority groups (Michaels, 1991), women (Gilligan, 1982), or homosexuals (Cohler & Hammack, 2006; Weststrate & McLean, forthcoming) (see also Cue, Koppel, & Hirst, 2007). Silencing refers to the explicit or implicit message that one’s stories, and consequently, one’s self, are not acceptable, interesting, or relevant, thus rendering one’s voice unheard. Therefore, the canonical narrative in a given culture is given privilege and authority over the non-canonical narrative. Voice is given to those people who have personal narratives that match the canonical narrative, as their experiences are both socially accepted and assumed. Conversely, those people who cannot identify with the canonical narrative have experiences that are silenced. Fivush (2004a, b) has eloquently placed this discussion of voicing and silencing into one of place and power. Simply put, we are located within a certain ‘place’ (e.g., historical or cultural context) and within a certain power structure (e.g., one has more or less authority in a given place). Thus, one’s place and relative power will determine how much his or her voice is heard or silenced, and most relevant here, how and whether one’s identity will successfully emerge. Narrative researchers have done a better job at identifying the appropriate and healthy ways to story the self than they have at identifying the untellable and the silenced self and, of course, part of this is methodological. For example, the redemptive self is an American master narrative (e.g., McAdams, 2006). That is, one way to narrate past difficulties is to find the silver lining, and to do otherwise may risk censure, misunderstanding, or rejection. Furthermore, McAdams et al. (2001) have convincingly shown that those © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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with less redemptive life stories are less psychologically healthy. One question that arises from these latter results is whether that lower psychological health is due to the individual inability to construct the ‘right’ story or to the cultural constraints that prevent other stories from emerging? One place that has been shown to be a fruitful arena for research on voice and silence is with the narrative identities of homosexuals. As gays and lesbians do not inhabit the canonical heterosexual narrative in most cultures, their narratives are silenced through the active oppression of their experiences (overt discrimination) and are passively oppressed by virtue of exclusion from the canonical dialogue, a more subtle form of silencing. The fact that gays and lesbians need to ‘come out’ is evidence of their isolation from the canonical narrative, placing a burden on them to overtly acknowledge their difference from the mainstream narrative, unlike heterosexuals who assume the canonical narrative as their own with no need for public acknowledgement. Indeed, King and N. Smith (2004) examined how much gay individuals elaborated on future gay and straight possible selves. They found that greater elaboration on a gay possible self was positively correlated with well-being. In another study, King and S. Smith (2004) found that gay individuals who reported coming out stories that were situated in warm, interpersonal contexts had higher well-being. One way to interpret these results is that the opportunity to voice, or elaborate, on one’s identity is critically important to psychological functioning, and that his voicing happens within interpersonal, accepting contexts. Provocatively for researchers, however, over the past 50 years, the social climate for homosexuals has evolved dramatically (e.g., greater legal rights for gay partners, the identification of prominent gay politicians, greater representation of gay people in the media), making gay identity an interesting subject for understanding the influence that culture and changing master narratives have on the developing self. In other words, the decade in which a gay or lesbian person comes of age might in fact influence how he or she constructs his or her self. Moreover, such cultural shifts are reflected in the dynamics of voice and silence for this population, with a shift towards greater voice for homosexuals. Building on previous qualitative research on gay male identity in relation to historical cohort (Cohler & Hammack, 2006), Nic Weststrate and I (Weststrate & McLean, forthcoming) have conducted a large scale study to examine the phenomenon of voicing and silencing in gay identity. We conducted an anonymous Internet-based survey with a wide age range of adult participants, in which one task was to report a self-defining memory pertaining to one’s sexuality. This was described as an event that is remembered vividly, helps him or her to understand themselves better as a gay or lesbian individual, leads to strong positive or negative feelings, and is a memory that is thought about frequently (modified from Singer & Salovey, 1993). We coded the event content of these narratives (e.g., about © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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sex, coming out, relationships), and we found support for the idea that older cohorts experienced greater silencing and more recent cohorts seemed to have more voice to their identities. For example, in the cohort that came of age in the 1960s (when discrimination was widespread, and when homosexuality was still listed in the DSM) there was one dominant narrative about gay identity and it was about sex. For the cohort that came of age at the millennium (when gay marriage is legal in some countries and locales, and when some politicians, talk show hosts, and movie stars are openly gay), there was no one dominant kind of narrative, instead there were many stories about identities, some having to do with sex, others with relationships, discrimination, and coming out, to name a few. In this study we were able to see how the possibilities for voice grew with each generation, at the same time that the culture was changing in terms of acceptance of this identity. This paradigm of studying cultural master narratives has also been applied to studies of gender (e.g., Thorne & McLean, 2003) and the struggles of Palestinian and Israeli youth (Hammack, 2006), and provides a new paradigm for understanding the emergence of narrative identity. Another way to study cultural master narratives in relation to silenced identities is to tackle the question of what stories are not told, why, and what the consequences are of having an untold self ? Recently, we have found that when asked to report stories that are important to the self, but that are untold, transgressions are the most dominant kind of story to emerge (Pasupathi et al., 2007). Transgressions are a particularly interesting identity narrative to study because there are at least two ways to go about narrating them, both of which have consequences for the self. One can narrate transgressions to mitigate the impact on the self via rationalization of justification, or one can make meaning of them and integrate them into the self. Mitigating the impact of a transgression may preserve a positive sense of self (e.g., Baumeister, Stilman, & Wotman, 1990); yet, from a narrative perspective, finding a way to understand and integrate a transgression should provide great opportunities for growth. In other words, understanding when and why one has transgressed may have the power to transform one’s thoughts about the self and one’s behavior (Breen & McLean, forthcoming). This may be particularly important for people who have a history of transgressing, such as criminals. Indeed, recently Andrea Breen and I have suggested that transforming from juvenile delinquency involves desisting from criminal behavior as well as finding a way to make meaning of transgressions (Breen & McLean, forthcoming; see also, Maruna, 2001). What makes transgressions more intriguing is that, as life experiences, they have qualities that make them ripe for meaning-making, namely negative emotion, but we do not appear to have a master narrative for them, given that they are not told. Thus, the consequences of these contested stories are an exciting area for future research. © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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Conclusions In concluding, I return to Annie who began this discussion of the emergence of identity. Annie is a typical adolescent, still in the process of discovering herself, reflecting on her specific life experiences to find meaning in them and unity for her self. The difficult event of surgery led to a cascade of difficult experiences, but provided her with an opportunity to learn about herself and to allow a personal identity to begin to emerge. Intriguingly, she notes that it was not the event of surgery that caused this reflective process to begin, but the ‘other issues that came out of it.’ Thus, events can serve as catalysts for seeing things in a different light and for self-discovery. The hope for Annie is that working through the process of storying this period in her life will lead to the emergence of a well-founded identity – one that she has explored, pondered, and earned – and a general feeling of integration as she embarks on her adult life. In this paper, I have argued that the reflective meaning-making process is one of the major mechanisms by which identity emerges in adolescence and is revised, deepened, and sustained throughout the life course. We have different kinds of experiences that afford greater or lesser opportunities for meaning-making, and we are different kinds of people who experience and interpret events according to various aspects of our personalities, age, and historical and cultural place in time. Continuing to explore the links between experience, individuals, and culture is critical as our understanding of this fascinating and complex process continues to grow. Short Biography Kate McLean’s research focuses on how individuals represent, tell, and otherwise manage momentous memories, and how such memory management informs the development of identity in adolescence and adulthood. She is particularly interested in the development of narrative identity and individual differences in developmental trajectories across the lifespan, as well as how narrative patterns predict well-being and positive functioning. She has published articles in journals such as Developmental Psychology, Journal of Personality, Journal of Research in Personality, and Personality and Social Psychology Review. She is currently co-editing a book on narrative identity in adolescence with Monisha Pasupathi. She is presently an assistant professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. She was previously on faculty at the University of Toronto for 3 years. She has a BA from Mills College in Oakland, CA, and holds a PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Jennifer Pals Lilgendahl and Lewis Webster Jones for comments on a previous draft of this manuscript. © 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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Endnote * Correspondence address: Western Washington University, 516 High Street, MS 9089, Department of Psychology, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA; 360-650-3570. Email: [email protected]

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© 2008 The Author Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2 (2008): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00124.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd