Tilmann Habermas

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

In the life story, autobiographical remembering and self-understanding are combined to create a coherent account of ones past. A gap is demonstrated between developmental research on the story-organization of autobiographical remembering of events in childhood and of life narratives in adulthood. This gap is bridged by substantiating D.P. McAdamss (1985) claim that the life story develops in adolescence. Two manifestations of the life story, life narratives and autobiographical reasoning, are delineated in terms of 4 types of global coherence (temporal, biographical, causal, and thematic). A review of research shows that the cognitive tools necessary for constructing global coherence in a life story and the social-motivational demands to construct a life story develop during adolescence. The authors delineate the implications of the life story framework for other research areas such as coping, attachment, psychotherapeutic process, and the organization of autobiographical memory.

The development of global coherence in life narratives across adolescence: temporal, causal, and thematic aspects.

Extending the study of autobiographical narratives to entire life narratives, we tested the emergence of globally coherent life narratives in adolescence, as hypothesized by McAdams (1985). Participants were 102 children and young adults (ages 8, 12, 16, and 20 years) who narrated their lives twice. Between narrations, half of each age group participated in tasks designed to train autobiographical reasoning; the other half participated in control tasks. Coherence was measured by the relative frequency of local temporal, causal, and thematic linguistic indicators identified qualitatively at the level of propositions, as well as by quantitative global rating scales measuring the impressions of the listeners. Coherence increased across the age span. Overall, repeated narrating and training did not increase coherence. Crystallized and fluid intelligence, number of negative life events, and frequency of biographical practices and confiding in others did not contribute substantially to the prediction of coherence beyond age. Results are interpreted in the context of adolescent identity development.

The Life Story Schema

Current work on autobiographical memory does not take the term autobiographical seriously enough. Doing so requires taking not just single events, but the whole life and its coherence, into account: Only memories that are linked to self through their emotional or motivational significance over ones life are truly autobiographical. We introduce a new construct, the life story schema, a skeletal mental representation of lifes major components and links. The life story schema provides 5 conceptual extensions to current models of autobiographical memory. The conclusion that results from these extensions is that the life story schema serves to bind autobiographical memory and the self over time. Research needed to substantiate our claims and further questions generated by the life story schema construct are discussed.

Understanding Developmental Regulation in Adolescence: The Use of the Selection, Optimization,and Compensation Model

Scholarship pertinent to the nature of human plasticity and the contemporary theoretical stress on developmental systems theories suggest that the regulation of dynamic person-context relations should be the key focus of inquiry in the study of adolescent development. An exemplar of a theory congruent with this relational conception of adolescent development is the Selection, Optimization, and Compensation (SOC) model offered by Baltes, Baltes, and colleagues. The model may be a value-added contribution to the adolescent literature in several respects: through illustrating the centrality of selection, optimization, and compensation processes in conceptualizing the regulation of the person-context relations that characterize development in adolescence; by integrating key themes within the adolescent development theoretical and empirical literatures; and through suggesting ideas for extending these literatures in new and useful ways, including needed directions for research and applications to policies and programs that are aimed at enhancing adaptive regulation in adolescence. We illustrate these value-added contributions of the SOC model by focusing on theory and research pertinent to arguably the central construct in the study of adolescence, identity. In addition, we discuss the implications of the SOC model for using developmental systems theory to understand the relation between individual development and social constraints or opportunities. The methodological features of research using the SOC model are noted, and its implications for both the development of the person and for the maintenance and perpetuation of civil society are presented.

The making of autobiographical memory: Intersections of culture, narratives and identity

Autobiographical memory is a uniquely human form of memory that integrates individual experiences of self with cultural frames for understanding identities and lives. In this review, we present a theoretical and empirical overview of the sociocultural development of autobiographical memory, detailing the emergence of autobiographical memory during the preschool years and the formation of a life narrative during adolescence. More specifically, we present evidence that individual differences in parental reminiscing style are related to childrens developing autobiographical narratives. Parents who structure more elaborated coherent personal narratives with their young children have children who, by the end of the preschool years, provide more detailed and coherent personal narratives, and show a more differentiated and coherent sense of self. Narrative structuring of autobiographical remembering follows a protracted developmental course through adolescence, as individuals develop social cognitive skills for temporal understanding and causal reasoning that allows autobiographical memories to be integrated into an overarching life narrative that defines emerging identity. In addition, adolescents begin to use culturally available canonical biographical forms, life scripts, and master narratives to construct a life story and inform their own autobiographical narrative identity. This process continues to be socially constructed in local interactions; we present exploratory evidence that parents help adolescents structure life narratives during coconstructed reminiscing and that adolescents use parents and families as a source for their own autobiographical content and structure. Ultimately, we argue that autobiography is a critical developmental skill; narrating our personal past connects us to our selves, our families, our communities, and our cultures.

How to Tell a Life: The Development of the Cultural Concept of Biography

Extending research on age norms in adults, the development of the knowledge of two components of the cultural concept of biography, biographical salience of and age norms for life events was studied from late childhood to early adulthood in Study 1 and across adulthood in Study 2. The largest increase in knowledge was found between ages 8 and 12, with knowledge reaching its maximum at age 16. Across adulthood knowledge was relatively stable, with a small decline in older adults. In addition, across adolescence, personal memories increasingly corresponded to norms of biographical salience, although idiosyncratic events continued to dominate. The acquisition of knowledge of the cultural concept of biography may parallel developments in autobiographical memory, reminiscing, and life narratives.

Extending the study of autobiographical memory: Thinking back about life across the life span.

By combining a life perspective with a life span perspective, the authors present a basic framework for extending the study of autobiographical memory. The life perspective suggests not only the consideration of individual episodes of memory but how they are strung together into a life. The life span perspective takes into account the chronological age and life context of individuals and how these factors might affect abilities and motivations related to the use of autobiographical memory. The authors discuss how these 2 perspectives are combined to yield a useful framework for studying autobiographical memory and present 2 examples of work done using this framework.

The Development of the Temporal Macrostructure of Life Narratives Across Adolescence: Beginnings, Linear Narrative Form, and Endings

The ontogeny of the ability to describe people culminates in adolescence in the development of the life story. An overarching temporal macrostructure and framing by a prehistory and a future-oriented global evaluation of life helps integrate disparate autobiographical memories into a coherent story. Two life narratives each of 8-, 12-, 16-, and 20-year-olds (N=102) were analyzed in terms of how well-formed their beginnings and endings are and how much they follow a linear temporal order. By age 12, the majority of life narratives began with birth, ended in the present, and followed a chronological order. In late adolescence and early adulthood, more elaborate birth narratives and retrospective evaluations of life and outlooks into the future were added. These formal characteristics were related to biographical practices, biographical knowledge, and fluid intelligence. Text-analytical methods are proposed as a method for the analysis of biographical and autobiographical reasoning and understanding.

Autobiographical Reasoning: Arguing and Narrating from a Biographical Perspective

Autobiographical reasoning is the activity of creating relations between different parts of ones past, present, and future life and ones personality and development. It embeds personal memories in a culturally, temporally, causally, and thematically coherent life story. Prototypical autobiographical arguments are presented. Culture and socializing interactions shape the development of autobiographical reasoning especially in late childhood and adolescence. Situated at the intersection of cognitive and narrative development and autobiographical memory, autobiographical reasoning contributes to the development of personality and identity, is instrumental in efforts to cope with life events, and helps to create a shared history.

Factor structure of overall autobiographical memory usage: The directive, self and social functions revisited

According to theory, autobiographical memory serves three broad functions of overall usage: directive, self, and social. However, there is evidence to suggest that the tripartite model may be better conceptualised in terms of a four-factor model with two social functions. In the present study we examined the two models in Danish and German samples, using the Thinking About Life Experiences Questionnaire (TALE; Bluck, Alea, Habermas, & Rubin, 2005), which measures the overall usage of the three functions generalised across concrete memories. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the four-factor model and rejected the theoretical three-factor model in both samples. The results are discussed in relation to cultural differences in overall autobiographical memory usage as well as sharing versus non-sharing aspects of social remembering.