Personal and Intergenerational Narratives: Narrative Coherence and Adolescent Well-being Open Access

Abstract

Personal stories and intergenerational narratives about previous generations may be beneficial to adolescents as they develop their adult identities. However, virtually no research exists exploring the relationship between intergenerational and personal stories and well-being. Sixty-four 13 to 16-year-old middle-class, racially diverse adolescents narrated four personal stories and two stories about each parent's childhood. In addition, mothers and adolescents completed well-being measures. Narratives were coded for narrative coherence (theme, context, and chronology). Theme was affected by narrative type as adolescents told more thematically coherent personal narratives than intergenerational narratives and more thematically coherent maternal than paternal intergenerational stories. Females were more contextually coherent than males. Furthermore, coherence dimensions varied together within the personal and paternal intergenerational narratives as adolescents high on chronology were also high on theme and context. High narrative coherence in personal and maternal intergenerational narratives correlated with lower internalizing and externalizing behavior for mother-reported well-being scores. These results indicate it does matter how adolescents structure their narratives.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………….....................…1 II. Method…………………………………………………………………………….........................12 III. Results…………………………………………….………………………………........................17 IV. Discussion……………………………………………………………………….........................22

IV. References………………...……………………………………………………....….................31

V. Appendices………..………………………………………………………………......................35

VI. Tables………………………..……………………………………………………........................42

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Psychology
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, Developmental
Keyword	Narrative Coherence Adolescent Well-being Intergenerational Narratives
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Fivush, Robyn, Emory University
Committee Members	Moore, Judy Raggi, Emory University Duke, Marshall, Emory University

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