The Challenges of the Experimental Paradigm in Narrative Identity Research

The data from two experimental studies suggest that how people narrate may be coupled with why they narrate, as well as what they are narrating. This may constrain narrative flexibility. Such constraints would have implications for narrative research on the good life. We present a model based on event affordances and memory consolidation to explain links between what is being narrated (the narrative’s subject), why it is being narrated (one’s motivation for narrating a given event in a given moment), and how it is being narrated (the features of the narrative itself such as whether it is told with a redemptive structure). Discussion revolves around implications of these links.