The DOI matches its Crossref record; 57 of the 58 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Narrative Identity Processing of Difficult Life Experiences: Pathways of Personality Development and Positive Self‐Transformation in Adulthood
Abstract
Difficult life experiences in adulthood constitute a challenge to the narrative construction of identity. Individual differences in how adults respond to this challenge were conceptualized in terms of two dimensions of narrative identity processing: exploratory narrative processing and coherent positive resolution. These dimensions, coded from narratives of difficult experiences reported by the women of the Mills Longitudinal Study (Helson, 1967) at age 52, were expected to be related to personality traits and to have implications for pathways of personality development and physical health. First, the exploratory narrative processing of difficult experiences mediated the relationship between the trait of coping openness in young adulthood (age 21) and the outcome of maturity in late midlife (age 61). Second, coherent positive resolution predicted increasing ego-resiliency between young adulthood and midlife (age 52), and this pattern of increasing ego-resiliency, in turn, mediated the relationship between coherent positive resolution and life satisfaction in late midlife. Finally, the integration of exploratory narrative processing and coherent positive resolution predicted positive self-transformation within narratives of difficult experiences. In turn, positive self-transformation uniquely predicted optimal development (composite of maturity and life satisfaction) and physical health.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“When it comes to narrative identity , Pals suggested, the unexamined life lacks depth and meaning.”
From The Problem of Meaning in Personality Psychology from the Standpoints of Dispositional Traits, Characteristic Adaptations, and Life Stories (2010) · cites this paper as Pals, 2006
In the citing paper
“In her analysis of longitudinal data from the Mills study , Pals (2006) found that coherent positive resolutions of difficult life events at age 51 predicted life satisfaction at age 61 and were associated with increasing ego resiliency between young adulthood and midlife.”
From The Problem of Meaning in Personality Psychology from the Standpoints of Dispositional Traits, Characteristic Adaptations, and Life Stories (2010) · cites this paper as Pals, 2006
In the citing paper
“In the second step, the narrator articulates and commits the self to a positive resolution of the event.”
From The Problem of Meaning in Personality Psychology from the Standpoints of Dispositional Traits, Characteristic Adaptations, and Life Stories (2010) · cites this paper as Pals, 2006
Citations
Cites
Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1173 · Cited by 91,532
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037//0003-066x.56.3.218 · Cited by 18,025
Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress.
Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.125.2.276 · Cited by 12,910
The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system
Conway, M. A., & Pleydell-Pearce, C. W. (2000) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.107.2.261 · Cited by 4,089
Resilient Individuals Use Positive Emotions to Bounce Back From Negative Emotional Experiences.
Tugade, M. M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2004) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.86.2.320 · Cited by 3,947
(1992) · Cited by 3,325
The Psychology of Life Stories
McAdams, D. P. (2001) · Review of General Psychology · doi:10.1037/1089-2680.5.2.100 · Cited by 2,808 · cited 8×
“Although narrative identity has been described as a distinct level of personality (McAdams, 2001) and an organizing mechanism within the personality system (Singer & Blagov, 2004), little empirical research has explicitly examined connections between traits and narrative (see Bauer et al.”
BackgroundResultInfluentialWriting About Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process
Pennebaker, J. W. (1997) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00403.x · Cited by 2,486
Sex Differences in Coping Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review and an Examination of Relative Coping
Tamres, L. K., Janicki, D., & Helgeson, V. S. (2002) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0601_1 · Cited by 2,044 · cited 1×
“With respect to gender, for example, previous research on coping suggests that women may be more likely than men to engage in the kinds of expressive and openly interpretive coping strategies that would be associated with exploratory narrative processing and positive self-transformation ( Tamres, Janicki, & Helgeson,…”
MethodThe Role of Ego-Control and Ego-Resiliency in the Organization of Behavior
BLOCK, J. H., & Block, J. (1980) · doi:10.4324/9781315803029-7 · Cited by 1,525
Research works printed but not linked: 10
- 10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.218 · DOI · Paper page
- Gough H. G., 1987, California Psychological Inventory administrator's guide
- Haan N., 1977, Coping and defending
- 10.1037/0022-3514.53.3.531 · DOI
- 10.1037/0882-7974.17.4.571 · DOI
- Mc Adams D. P., 1985, Power, intimacy, and the life story
- McAdams D. P., 1981, Religious identity among students at a private college, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 27, 219
- Pals J. L., 2004, The transformed self, Psychological Inquiry, 15, 65
- 10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.110 · DOI
- Singer J. A., 2004, The self and memory. Studies in self and identity, 117
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Park, C. L. (2010) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0018301 · Cited by 3,174
Selves Creating Stories Creating Selves: A Process Model of Self-Development
McLean, K. C., Pasupathi, M., & Pals, J. L. (2007) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1177/1088868307301034 · Cited by 1,065
Self-citationNarrative and the Cultural Psychology of Identity
Hammack, P. L. (2008) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1177/1088868308316892 · Cited by 923
Adler, J. M., Lodi-Smith, J., Philippe, F. L., & Houle, I. (2016) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1177/1088868315585068 · Cited by 618
McLean, K. C., & Pratt, M. W. (2006) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/0012-1649.42.4.714 · Cited by 610
Metadata
- Authors
- Pals, J. L.
- Affiliations
- Northwestern University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Pals, Jennifer L.
- Venue
- Journal of Personality
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2006-05-02
- Volume
- 74
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1079-1110
- ISSN
- 0022-3506 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-6494
- OpenAlex
- W2002490795
- Cited by
- 515
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 26 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 38 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 41 · 2020: 49 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 34 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 31 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 28 · 2012: 23
- FWCI
- 20.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH 43948, R01MH043948)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Identity, Memory, and Therapy
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Resilience and Mental Health
- Keywords
- narrative identity, personality development, ego-resilience, life satisfaction, maturity, physical health, women
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affect, Cognition, Female, Health Status, Humans, Life Change Events, Middle Aged, Personality Development, Surveys and Questionnaires, Self Concept, Social Identification, Narration
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
