Narrative Psychology by Julia Vassilieva

Author:Julia Vassilieva
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK, London

The emergence of the autobiographical author relies on the developing skills of autobiographical reasoning, as outlined by Habermas and Bluck (2000)—a wide set of semantic operations that people use to interpret autobiographical memories and connect them with their present and their future. These skills begin to emerge in late childhood and continue to grow through the adolescent years. McAdams reviews evidence regarding research on autobiographical reasoning and concludes that young adults possess skills of mature self-authorship evident in (a) deriving organizing themes in their life stories; (b) sequencing memories of the events into causal chains in order to explain their development; (c) articulating the theme of personal growth over time; (d) formulating clear beginnings and endings in their life narrative accounts; and (e) incorporating foreshadowing and reflection on the past.

McAdams conceives his new tripartite model as a broad conceptual scheme ‘that reorganizes many different strands of research and theory of the psychological self under the three rubrics of the self as actor, agent, and author’ (McAdams 2013: 289). It makes possible the addressing of some key issues in the area of human selfhood, including three perennial problems: self-regulation, self-esteem and self-continuity. McAdams suggests that there is a developmental logic for these three problems of selfhood that can be productively mapped onto the development of the self as actor, agent and author. McAdams notes that the problem of self-regulation emerges as the first and most pressing problem for the self during early childhood years, corresponding to the emergence of the self as social actor, although it continues to be relevant for authorship and agency as well. The issue of self-esteem becomes salient in middle childhood; it corresponds to the emergence of the self as motivated agent and is deeply linked to the I’s appraisal of its performance with respect to important goals, projects and motives. Self-continuity becomes the central problem in late adolescence and young adulthood and is tackled by the autobiographical author who on an ongoing basis must address the question: ‘how did the self of yesterday become the self of today, and how will that lead to the anticipated self of tomorrow?’ (McAdams 2013: 274). As McAdams notes, as the three main issues of selfhood—self-regulation, self-esteem and self-continuity—are closely intertwined and interdependent, so is the work of self as actor, agent and author. Self-authorship continues through the course of adult life, while the I continues to understand the Me in terms of its traits and roles as a social actor, and the goals, plans and values of the motivated agent. However, McAdams insists that the efforts of all three components of selfhood are determined by one overarching agenda: ‘Put simply, the I seeks to enhance the Me—to make it bigger, stronger, and more excellent. The I also seeks to make the Me consistent, understandable, and predictable’ (McAdams 2013: 290). Within the complex interplay of actor, agent and author the perspective of the latter seems to McAdams to be ‘especially germane for the I’s efforts to enhance the Me and to construct a Me that seems consistent and verifiable’ (McAdams 2013: 291).

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