Awareness of narrative identity and selected aspects of narrative activity and meaning-making. Preliminary results

Abstract: Narrative identity allows us to integrate various experiences and incorporate them into the concept of the self. Recent studies indicate that being aware of developing the story about the self that brings cohesion and meaning may be adaptive. This paper presents preliminary findings across three studies (two quantitative and one mixed methods) aimed at exploring the phenomenon of awareness of narrative identity in terms of its relations to other aspects of narrative identity and meaning-making (meaning in life, self-esteem, and post-traumatic growth). The total number of participants in all studies was 840 (N1 = 254; N2 = 424; N3 = 162). Results indicate that stronger awareness of narrative identity is related to higher self-narrative inclination and reflexivity, and may be adaptive in terms of meaning-making and coping with traumatic events. People that were more aware of a narrative identity produced more elaborated and coherent self-narrations about an important past relationship. What is more, they had a stronger tendency to integrate these past experiences with a sense of self identity. Surprisingly, awareness of narrative identity was not related to self-esteem. These findings have been discussed referring in terms of narrative identity literature. Moreover, possible directions for further studies to expand our understanding of awareness of narrative identity are proposed.