TY - JOUR
T1 - Traits and stories
T2 - Links between dispositional and narrative features of personality
AU - McAdams, Dan P.
AU - Anyidoho, Nana Akua
AU - Brown, Chelsea
AU - Huang, Yi Ting
AU - Kaplan, Bonnie
AU - Machado, Mary Anne
PY - 2004/8
Y1 - 2004/8
N2 - Dispositional traits and life narratives represent two different levels of personality that have not previously been empirically linked. The current study tested five hypotheses connecting Big-Five traits to life-narrative indices of emotional tone, theme, and structure. Students (Study 1) and adults (Study 2) completed a self-report measure of the Big-Five traits and provided extended written accounts of either ten (students) or eight (adults) key life-narrative scenes, including life high points, low points, and turning points. Content analysis of the narrative data revealed that for both samples Neuroticism was positively associated with an emotionally negative life-narrative tone, Agreeableness was correlated with narrative themes of communion (e.g., friendship, caring for others), and Openness was strongly associated with the structural complexity of life narrative accounts. Contrary to prediction, however, Conscientiousness was not consistently associated with themes of agency (e.g., achievement, self-mastery) and Extraversion was unrelated to positive narrative tone. The results are discussed in the context of contemporary research and theorizing on the narrative study of lives and the relation of narrative research in personality to more conventional, trait-based approaches.
AB - Dispositional traits and life narratives represent two different levels of personality that have not previously been empirically linked. The current study tested five hypotheses connecting Big-Five traits to life-narrative indices of emotional tone, theme, and structure. Students (Study 1) and adults (Study 2) completed a self-report measure of the Big-Five traits and provided extended written accounts of either ten (students) or eight (adults) key life-narrative scenes, including life high points, low points, and turning points. Content analysis of the narrative data revealed that for both samples Neuroticism was positively associated with an emotionally negative life-narrative tone, Agreeableness was correlated with narrative themes of communion (e.g., friendship, caring for others), and Openness was strongly associated with the structural complexity of life narrative accounts. Contrary to prediction, however, Conscientiousness was not consistently associated with themes of agency (e.g., achievement, self-mastery) and Extraversion was unrelated to positive narrative tone. The results are discussed in the context of contemporary research and theorizing on the narrative study of lives and the relation of narrative research in personality to more conventional, trait-based approaches.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=3142715770&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00279.x
DO - 10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00279.x
M3 - Article
C2 - 15210016
AN - SCOPUS:3142715770
SN - 0022-3506
VL - 72
SP - 761
EP - 784
JO - Journal of Personality
JF - Journal of Personality
IS - 4
ER -