Narratives of Personal and Parental Transgressions Open Access

Abstract

Transgressions are particularly difficult events for individuals to process and reconcile with their identities, as they can challenge positive self-perception. Research has identified narrative as the channel for meaning-making in efforts to resolve this inner tension. Parental narratives of transgression help provide adolescents with ways of understanding their personal transgressions as well as the moral code and values of their families. Thus, narratives of both personal and parental transgressions contribute to moral identity development in adolescents. Eighty-three (mean age= 18.97; 41 females and 42 males) college-enrolled, racially diverse adolescents were asked to write 3 narratives of transgression (1 personal, 1 mother's, and 1 father's experience). Narratives were coded for internal state content (emotions and cognitions) and for moral evaluations. Females used more emotion and moral evaluations across all narrative types than did males. Further, they used more cognitions than did males in telling their personal narratives but did not differ from males in frequency of cognition used to tell both parents' stories. We analyzed moral evaluation for agency of the evaluations and found that evaluations being made by the self are predominantly by females and that those made by parents are overwhelmingly being made by mothers. Our results suggest that both personal and intergenerational narratives of transgression facilitate moral reasoning and are both gendered.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction................................................................ 1

II. Method...................................................................... 12

III. Results..................................................................... 16

IV. Discussion................................................................. 19

V. References.................................................................. 27

VI. Figures...................................................................... 30

Figure 1. Mean emotion language....................................... 30

Figure 2: Mean moral emotion language.............................. 31

Figure 3: Mean cognitive language...................................... 32

Figure 4: Mean moral cognitive language............................. 33

Figure 5: Mean moral evaluative language........................... 34

Figure 6: Mean moral evaluative language by 'Self'............... 35

Figure 7: Mean moral evaluative language by 'Parent'........... 36

Figure 8: Mean moral evaluative language by 'Other'............ 37

VII. Appendices............................................................... 38

Appendix A: Personal Narrative by Female.......................... 38

Appendix B: Personal Narrative by Male.............................. 40

Appendix C: Narrative of Mother's Transgression.................. 41

Appendix D: Narrative of Father's Transgression.................. 43

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Psychology
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, General Psychology, Developmental
Keyword	gender perspective taking transgression identity narrative morality meaning making
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Fivush, Robyn, Emory University
Committee Members	Del Rey, Patricia , Oxford College of Emory University Duke, Marshall P, Emory University

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