The development of the temporal macrostructure of life narratives across adolescence: beginnings, linear narrative form, and endings.

Abstract
The ontogeny of the ability to describe people culminates in adolescence in the development of the life story. An overarching temporal macrostructure and framing by a prehistory and a future-oriented global evaluation of life helps integrate disparate autobiographical memories into a coherent story. Two life narratives each of 8-, 12-, 16-, and 20-year-olds (N=102) were analyzed in terms of how well-formed their beginnings and endings are and how much they follow a linear temporal order. By age 12, the majority of life narratives began with birth, ended in the present, and followed a chronological order. In late adolescence and early adulthood, more elaborate birth narratives and retrospective evaluations of life and outlooks into the future were added. These formal characteristics were related to biographical practices, biographical knowledge, and fluid intelligence. Text-analytical methods are proposed as a method for the analysis of biographical and autobiographical reasoning and understanding.
Notes
ID: 19410317213703
Year of Publication
2009
Journal
Journal of personality
Volume
77
Issue
2
Pagination
527-59
Publication Language
English
ISBN Number
0022-3506
T, Habermas, Ehlert-Lerche S, and C de Silveira. 2009. “The Development Of The Temporal Macrostructure Of Life Narratives Across Adolescence: Beginnings, Linear Narrative Form, And Endings.”. Journal Of Personality 77 (2): 527-59.
Journal Article