Natalie Merrill

Does making meaning make it better? Narrative meaning-making and well-being in at-risk African-American adolescent females

It has been argued that, for certain people, attempts at making meaning about past life events, especially challenging events, might be detrimental to well-being. In this study we explored the association between narrative indicators of meaning making and psychological well-being, while also considering the role of individual level factors such as life history, personality characteristics, and locus of control, among an at-risk sample of low socioeconomic status inner-city African-American adolescent females with challenging lives. We found that having a more external locus of control and including more cognitive processing language in narratives about a highly negative past experience were associated with increased depressive symptoms. Our findings suggest that certain types of narrative meaning-making language may reflect ongoing and unsuccessful efforts after meaning, and may be more similar to rumination than to resolution. Additionally they support claims that for certain individuals from challenging backgrounds, efforts after meaning might not be psychologically healthy.

An ecological systems approach to family narratives

We propose an ecological systems approach to family narratives that describes three dynamically interacting systems of family narratives: shared family narratives, communicative family narratives, and family history. We review developmental research on family storytelling within each of these levels and describe how they interact to create individual narrative identity, focusing on adolescence.

Emotion, gender, and gender typical identity in autobiographical memory.

ABSTRACT Gender differences in the emotional intensity and content of autobiographical memory (AM) are inconsistent across studies, and may be influenced as much by gender identity as by categorical gender. To explore this question, data were collected from 196 participants (age 18–40), split evenly between men and women. Participants narrated four memories, a neutral event, high point event, low point event, and self-defining memory, completed ratings of emotional intensity for each event, and completed four measures of gender typical identity. For self-reported emotional intensity, gender differences in AM were mediated by identification with stereotypical feminine gender norms. For narrative use of affect terms, both gender and gender typical identity predicted affective expression. The results confirm contextual models of gender identity (e.g., Diamond, 2012. The desire disorder in research on sexual orientation in women: Contributions of dynamical systems theory. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 73–83) and underscore the dynamic interplay between gender and gender identity in the emotional expression of autobiographical memories.

Connecting the self to traumatic and positive events: links to identity and well-being

ABSTRACT Self-event connections in autobiographical narratives help integrate specific episodes from memory into the life story, which has implications for identity and well-being. Previous research has distinguished differential relations between positive and negative self-event connections to psychological well-being but less research has examined identity. In this study, examining self-event connections in emerging adults’ narratives, 225 participants narrated a traumatic and an intensely positive experience and completed questionnaires assessing identity development and well-being. Participants who described more negative connections to self overall had higher psychological distress and identity distress, compared to those who described fewer negative connections. Participants who described positive connections to the self in traumatic events were more likely to have lower psychological distress, higher post-traumatic growth, and higher identity commitment, whereas positive connections in positive events was related to higher identity exploration and marginally higher post-traumatic growth. These findings contribute to a growing body of literature that suggests linking autobiographical memories to self can have differential effects on identity and well-being depending on the valence of the event and the connections made.

Gender Differences in Family Dinnertime Conversations.

Family dinnertime conversations are key settings where children learn behavior regulation, narrative skills, and knowledge about the world. In this context, parents may also model and socialize gender differences in language. The present study quantitatively examines gendered language use across a family dinnertime recorded with 37 broadly middle-class, racially diverse parents, a child between 9 and 12 years old, and their siblings. Conversations were parsed according to topic (behavior regulation, narrative talk, or general knowledge), and utterances were coded as either affiliative or assertive. Overall, mothers contributed more utterances to the conversations, but this effect was moderated by topic. Mothers talked more than fathers in conversations about behavior and narrative, whereas mothers and fathers spoke equally as often about general knowledge, suggesting that differences are modulated by topic in theoretically informative ways. Relations in language use between parents and children were evident for mothers and daughters. Implications are discussed.

Adolescents' Intergenerational Narratives across Cultures.

Adolescents’ intergenerational narratives—the stories they tell about their mothers’ and fathers’ early experiences—are an important component of their identities (Fivush & Merrill, 2016; Merrill & Fivush, 2016). This study explored adolescents’ intergenerational narratives across cultures. Adolescents aged 12 to 21 from 3 cultural groups in New Zealand (Chinese: n = 88; Māori: n = 91; European: n = 91) narrated stories about their mothers’ and fathers’ childhood experiences. In these narratives, New Zealand Chinese and Māori adolescents included more identity connections (statements linking their own identities to their parents’ experiences) than did New Zealand European adolescents, and New Zealand Chinese adolescents’ intergenerational narratives were more coherent than were New Zealand European and Māori adolescents’ narratives. New Zealand Chinese and Māori adolescents were also more likely to report didactic reasons for their mothers’ telling of the narratives, whereas New Zealand European adolescents were more likely to report reasons of sharing family history. Across cultures, but only in their mother narratives, adolescent girls included more references to subjective perspectives (emotions, evaluations, and cognitions) than did adolescent boys. Older adolescents also used more subjective perspective terms than younger adolescents. These findings suggest that intergenerational narratives serve different functions when adolescents across cultures explore their identities. These narratives may be especially important for adolescents growing up in cultures with an interdependent orientation.

The recollective qualities of adolescents’ and adults’ narratives about a long-ago tornado

ABSTRACT The recollective qualities of autobiographical memory are thought to develop over the course of the first two decades of life. We used a 9-year follow-up test of recall of a devastating tornado and of non-tornado-related events from before and after the storm, to compare the recollective qualities of adolescents’ (n = 20, ages 11 years, 11 months to 20 years, 8 months) and adults’ (n = 14) autobiographical memories. At the time of the tornado, half of the adolescents had been younger than age 6. Nine years after the event, all participants provided evidence that they recall the event of the tornado. Adults also had high levels of recall of the non-tornado-related events. Adolescents recalled proportionally fewer non-tornado-related events; adolescents younger than 6 at the time of the events recalled the fewest non-tornado-related events. Relative to adolescents, adults produced longer narratives. With narrative length controlled, there were few differences in the recollective qualities of adolescents’ and adults’ narrative reports, especially in the case of the tornado; the recollective qualities were stronger among adolescents older at the time of the events. Overall, participants in both age groups provided evidence of the qualities of recollection that are characteristic of autobiographical memory.

Developmental changes in consistency of autobiographical memories: adolescents’ and young adults’ repeated recall of recent and distance events

ABSTRACT Autobiographical memories contribute continuity and stability to one’s self yet they also are subject to change: they can be forgotten or be inconsistently remembered and reported. In the present research, we compared the consistency of two reports of recent and distant personal events in adolescents (12- to 14-year-olds) and young adults (18- to 23-year-olds). In line with expectations of greater mnemonic consistency among young adults relative to adolescents, adolescents reported the same events 80% of the time compared with 90% consistency among young adults; the significant difference disappeared after taking into consideration narrative characteristics of individual memories. Neither age group showed high levels of content consistency (30% vs. 36%); young adults were more consistent than adolescents even after controlling for other potential predictors of content consistency. Adolescents and young adults did not differ in consistency of estimating when their past experiences occurred. Multilevel modelling indicated that the level of thematic coherence of the initial memory report and ratings of event valence significantly predicted memory consistency at the level of the event. Thematic coherence was a significant negative predictor of content consistency. The findings suggest a developmental progression in the robustness and stability of personal memories between adolescence and young adulthood.