Getting a life: The emergence of the life story in adolescence.

“Habermas and Bluck (2000) proposed that a coherent life story does not emerge until early adolescence, when single events are incorporated into a meaningful and integrated narrative.”

“These results are consistent with the task that is developmentally ascribed to the younger adulthood, namely that of exploring and consolidating one’s sense of self and thus creating a clear and coherent identity (Erickson, 1968, 1980; Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McAdams, 1999).”

“…in adolescence, we begin to tell stories about our lives, which integrate past experiences with the present and projected future in order to describe a “self” or “identity” (Cohler, 1982; Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Habermas & Hatiboğlu, Chapter 3 of this volume; Habermas & Paha, 2001; McAdams, 1996).”

“…2005; Fivush & Buckner, 1998; Fivush & Haden, 2003) e as demandas socioculturais para um posicionamento dentro da sociedade (Erikson, 1968; Habermas, 2007; Habermas & Bluck, 2000), as quais culminam na necessidade e na possibilidade de construção de uma identidade socioculturalmente situada.”

“É também o momento em que as pessoas reúnem condições sociocognitivas para a construção de narrativas autobiográficas coerentes (Fivush & Buckner, 1998; Fivush & Haden, 2003; Fivush & Baker-Ward, 2005; Fivush, 2008; McAdams, 1985; Habermas & Bluck, 2000).”

“Thus the study aims at describing historical change in the ways individuals conceptualize their lives, their life stories [Habermas & Bluck, 2000], and what kinds of events they value as consequential for their lives [see also Mackavey, Malley, & Stewart, 1991].”

“Habermas and Bluck (2000) argued that not until adolescence does the cognitive capacity exist to construct a coherent life story.”

“In doing so, people evaluate what happened, why it matters, and what it implies for the self across time [25, 30, 56, 57, 65].”

“These approaches introduced coherence in a more accessible way than typical approaches for adolescents such as narrative identity practices, which involve actively crafting stories to create coherence between life events and the self (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; George & Park, 2016).”

“In addition, a process of self-conscious construction of integrative meta-positions contributes to the foundations of a life story, which typically initiates in adolescence (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McAdams, 2006).”

“Importantly, from a cognitive perspective, individuals form a sense of self and personality through a constructive process of meaning-making of their lived experiences [6, 24–26].”

“This construction of a life story implies selecting key past events and creating links between them and the present self (Habermas and Bluck, 2000).”

“…see Rubin & Umanath, 2015), narrative coherence and life story relevance are important aspects of the overall narrated life (for reviews, see Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Gehrt et al., 2018), and reliving is central to the conceptualization of episodic memory (for a review, see Tulving, 2002;…”

“, especially through the impact of trauma), then this damages the formation of a coherent self [3].”

“…1983), but the ability to produce a connection between an event and the self (as well as the ability to self-reflect and create explicit links between experience and self-understanding) substantially emerge in adolescence (Friedman, 2005; Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Habermas & de Silveira, 2008).”

“Personal life stories, or narrative identity, capture the intimate and uniquely personal way individuals make sense of themselves and their lives, through time (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McAdams, 1996).”

“…broad terms, two main forms of coherence can be outlined, coined global and local coherence.1 Global coherence refers to the coherence of full life narratives (Baerger & McAdams, 1999; Bohn & Berntsen, 2008; Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Habermas & de Silveira, 2008; McAdams, 1985; Waters & Köber, 2018).”

“address both the positive and negative consequences of their behavior within a safe and engaging environment [8, 18, 20, 40, 53, 54].”

“Habermas and Bluck (2000) stated that individuals cannot form a life story until middle and late adolescence.”

“The self function is the use of AMs for promoting self coherence, providing material for the self-concept, and telling people who they are (e.g., Bluck & Alea, 2009; Habermas & Bluck, 2000).”

“Viewing oneself in relation to the world and to the past, present and future depends upon the cognitive ability to think in abstract and introspective ways, which develops in adolescence and increases in sophistication throughout adulthood (Erikson, 1994; Habermas & Bluck, 2000).”

“…designadas de narrativas de vida e consistem na perspetiva do narrador acerca do curso da sua vida, englobando o que sabe que aconteceu na sua vida e, ainda, uma representação subjetiva do percurso, que é relembrado através de uma retrospetiva (Bluck & Habermas, 2000; Habermas & Silveira, 2008).”

“Thus, their works index the kind of reflective scrutiny that memory researchers refer to as autobiographical reasoning or the interpretive processes that guide people’s evaluation of remembered experiences (Habermas, 2010; Habermas & Bluck, 2000).”

“Their place in the field of personality psychology has been examined (Thorne, 2000; Bamberg, 2004; Fivush, 2008), as have the development and emergence of the ability to construct a coherent life story (Habermas & Bluck, 2000).”

“…past, present, and even future life, has a crucial role in the development of self-identity (and implications for the self) especially for older adults (Bluck & Habermas, 2000, 2001; Habermas, 2011; Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Pasupathi & Mansour 2006; McLean & Fournier, 2007; Singer & Bluck, 2001).”

“Study findings supported the notion that narrative identity is consolidated at key developmental transitions, particularly pre-adolescence and emerging adulthood (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Habermas & de Silveira, 2008).”

“Notably, Habermas and Bluck (2000) emphasize the centrality of temporal or causal, autobiographical or thematic coherence in narrative explanations of life events.”

“Habermas and Bluck (2000) illustrate how individuals and particularly adolescents create a meaningful life story by defining four types of global coherence.”

“Habermas and Bluck similarly argued that adolescence and early adulthood are key periods when fragmented experiences integrated into stable identity structures [48].”

“In contrast, narrative features such as coherence and life story relevance require interpretive metacognitive processes that evaluate a memory’s meaning and its integration into broader self-narratives (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Singer & Bluck, 2001).”

“Through storytelling, individuals convey the story of their lives, sharing their sense of self and how it has evolved over time (Habermas & Bluck, 2000).”

“…work and reviews of empirical studies being done in the field of autobiographical memory (Singer et al., 2013; Conway, 2005; Bluck et al., 2005; Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Williams et al., 2007), and in the field of narrative psychology (McAdams, 2006; McAdams & McLean, 2013; Adler et al., 2016;…”

“The ability to make sense of past experiences becomes more sophisticated during adolescence (Habermas & Bluck, 2000).”

“An important aspect of this narrative identity is the use of autobiographical reasoning, or adolescents ’ attempts to link together their past, present, and future into one cohesive and continuous narrative (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McAdams, 2001).”

“Autobiographical reasoning centers on the degree to which a person makes meaning of past events by re fl ecting on them and creating causal links between their personal past, their current self, and their imagined future (Habermas & Bluck, 2000).”

“Autobiographical memories are supposed to follow a stable chronology that underlines the goals of the individual over their life 28 .”

“Bluck ist dabei entscheidend, dass sowohl zeitliche als auch kausale, thematische und biografisch-kulturelle Zusammenhänge hergestellt und wahrgenommen werden [16].”

“Another related notion is the inner or scripted knowledge of the self that appears as an outcome of the sense-making of outside events that are either perceived through nuclear episodes (McAdams, 1988), memorable events (Pillemer, 1998), selfdefining memories (Singer, 1995), or autobiographical memory narratives (Habe…”

“The ARS (Sato, 2015) measures autobiographical reasoning, which is a self-reflective thought or narrative about an individual’s past (Habermas and Bluck, 2000).”

“Their narratives offer insights into how they derive a sense of purpose, unity and coherence from their lives (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McAdams & McLean, 2013), yet it was clear that all were still grappling with issues surrounding the renunciation of gang membership In entering their desistance…”

“Hence, it is not until middle or late adolescence that the narrative self emerges; it is in the teenage years that individuals establish the ability to form a narrative self (Bohn & Berntsen, 2008; Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Habermas & Reese, 2015).”

“Self-reflection of this type, which results in a self-reported sense of understanding, insight, and personal growth6, was identified in many previous studies as one of the most adaptive forms of exploratory processing (e.g. Habermas & Bluck, 2000; LodiSmith, Geise, Roberts, & Robins, 2009).”

“This definition is supported by Habermas and Bluck (2000) who states that people come to understand themselves by telling stories about themselves, relating past stories to present circumstances in a causal and thematic way to establish a sense of self-continuity and self-understanding.”

“…2002); the linking of past experiences to the present; the ability to “own” the changes in one’s own self (McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007); the ability to create a personal timeline and observe an organized manner in creating a personal chronology (Habermas, 2007; Habermas & Bluck, 2000).1”

“…memory; Personality; Self; Self-images Although adolescence is acknowledged as the critical period for the development of self-concept (Habermas & Bluck, 2000) we have relatively little knowledge about how adolescents describe or see themselves or their “self” This is important…”

“Like any other human experience, search experiences consist of four aspects: temporal experiences, cultural concepts of biography, causal experiences, and thematic experiences [31].”

“…capacities, including those that are required for deriving meaning of one’s experiences and constructing a mature identity that bridges together the remembered past and imagined future self into an integrated and coherent experience of the self (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Habermas & deSilveira, 2008).”

“However, children do develop the cognitive skills for telling stories long before mid-adolescence (Habermas & Bluck, 2000), although with limited purpose (McAdams, 1996), and so, more work needs to be done on this unresolved issue (i.e., does early adolescent offending begin in the absence of a…”