Audience tailoring: implications for narrative identity

In the present study, I examined the extent and effect of audience tailoring in a sample of college-going emerging adults (n = 106). Participants reported four narratives for the researcher, and then edited them for mothers and friends, producing eight edited narratives each (n = 848 narratives) in response to prompts for specific life events (nadir experience, transgression, turning point, peak experience). Narratives were coded for type (insertion, deletion, replacement, minor, other) and effect on the narrative (more factual, more interpretive, other). In general, participants made more edits for mothers than friends, and the types of edits suggest that they are more elaborative with friends. Gender differences were also explored, with results suggesting that males make fewer edits for all audiences than females. Implications for narrative identity formation are discussed.

AUDIENCE TAILORING: IMPLICATIONS FOR NARRATIVE IDENTITY by William Hynes A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The University of Utah In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Degree in Bachelor of Science In Psychology Approved: ______________________________ Dr. Monisha Pasupathi Thesis Faculty Supervisor _____________________________ Dr. Lisa Aspinwall Chair, Department of Psychology _______________________________ Dr. Jeanine Stefanucci Honors Faculty Advisor _____________________________ Dr. Sylvia D. Torti Dean, Honors College April 2017 Copyright © 2017 All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT In the present study, I examined the extent and effect of audience tailoring in a sample of college-going emerging adults (n = 106). Participants reported four narratives for the researcher, and then edited them for mothers and friends, producing eight edited narratives each (n = 848 narratives) in response to prompts for specific life events (nadir experience, transgression, turning point, peak experience). Narratives were coded for type (insertion, deletion, replacement, minor, other) and effect on the narrative (more factual, more interpretive, other). In general, participants made more edits for mothers than friends, and the types of edits suggest that they are more elaborative with friends. Gender differences were also explored, with results suggesting that males make fewer edits for all audiences than females. Implications for narrative identity formation are discussed. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii INTRODUCTION 1 METHODS 6 RESULTS 13 DISCUSSION 18 REFERENCES 24 iii 1 INTRODUCTION Narrative Identity Development What do we mean when we speak of the self, or identity? In philosophy, the self is usually defined as a person’s essential being – that part of themselves that distinguishes them from others. Similarly, identity can be defined as the fact of being who a person is. Still, these definitions seem somewhat vague. How do we know what distinguishes someone from all others? What does it mean to be who a person is? Erik Erikson (1963) attempted to answer this question with the developmental concept of ego identity. The fifth of his eight stages of development, ego identity occurs in late adolescence and attempts to solve the conflict of identity versus role confusion. In brief, ego identity is an attempt to unify and explain the disparate selves we may experience in the present, the selves we have been in the past, and the selves we project ourselves to be in the future. We achieve this by constructing a story, or what Singer (2004) called a narrative identity. Narrative identity is a person’s internalized and evolving life story, integrating the reconstructed past and imagined future to provide life with some degree of unity and purpose (McAdams & McLean, 2013). Simply put, our identity is a culturally meaningful story that explains how one has come to be the person one currently is (McAdams, 2001; Pasupathi, Mansour, & Brubaker, 2007). Audiences These stories are not told in isolation. We tell our stories to others, and so they are social phenomena, told in accord with societal expectations and norms (McAdams, 2008). The listener we are narrating to can have quite an effect on our memory (Pasupathi & Hoyt, 2010) and integration (Pasupathi, Stallworth, & Murdoch, 1998) of the stories 2 we share with them. Speakers who narrate to a distracted or inattentive listener tell shorter and less elaborative stories than those speaking to attentive listeners (Pasupathi et al., 1998). Importantly, Fivush (2007) advances the idea that one’s place and power – both in society and culture in general, and in relation to the listener – influence how stories are told, and who is allowed to tell them. Clearly, narrative identity is socially constructed: it is dependent on the nature of the relationship itself, the relationship quality between speaker and listener, and the attentiveness of the listener. Who we choose to tell our stories to - and how they respond - strongly influences how our life story evolves. Audience Tailoring If we accept the premise that we construct a narrative identity in an attempt to explain to ourselves and others just who we are and how we got here, it should be immediately evident that these narrative explanations of our life circumstances must change and grow to accommodate new and varied experiences and changes in our thinking. Likewise, narratives as told to others are usually not the true re-telling of the event or memory. Just as we pick and choose who to tell certain stories to, we also pick and choose how those stories are told -- adding things for some, leaving things out for others. This is driven by some of same factors related to listeners (such as the nature and quality of the relationship), but it is also dependent on the motivations the speaker has for telling the story in various situations (e.g., Morling & Epstein, 1997; see also Charles & Pasupathi, 2003), and which facet of the self the narrator wishes to highlight for the listener. This concept is known as audience tailoring. Tailoring our message for different audiences can take many forms. In some instances, it may inspire us to elaborative about the event we are narrating - adding 3 emotional color, subjective judgments, drawing inferences, and making meaning. In other cases, it may move us to provide more factual details. We may expand the story, or we may pare it down. The tailoring could be rather extensive, or quite minimal. Some of these variations in tailoring may depend on who the story is being told to. Mothers and Friends In adolescence, where narrative identity construction is developing, two groups of listeners dominate the landscape – mothers and friends. Ideally, we would expect that mothers and friends would differ as audiences in predictable ways. Adolescents generally have attachment relationships with parents (Bowlby, 1969), while they describe their relationships with friends as more affiliative (Weiss, 1986). Peer relationships are described as more companionable, intimate, and egalitarian, while simultaneously being less affectionate and reliable (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985). Adolescents are also managing different identities with mothers and friends. With mothers, adolescents are managing a fixed identity - mothers have a relatively stable sense of who their child is in the context of a long-term established relationship (Habermas, Negele, & Mayer, 2010). With friends, adolescents are managing a generational identity, defined as an individual’s awareness of his or her membership in a generational group and the significance of this group to the individual (Urick, 2012). Additionally, friendships can be a place to explore possible identities that do not fit well with the existing mother-child relationship, especially when parents, friends, and other groups may have different or conflicting standards (Steinberg & Silk, 2002). There is also a developmental change going on. In early childhood, the child is learning the essential skills for developing their narrative identity by having 4 conversations about past events with their mothers. The mother scaffolds this process, helping the children to organize and make sense of past events by elaborating on the stories with them, and supporting their children’s views (Fivush, Reese, & Haden, 2006). Given that the development of a narrative identity is often situated within relationship contexts, this may change as adolescents become more intimate with friends, and begin to see themselves in contexts outside the family (McLean & Jennings, 2012). Friends provide a safe space where important memories are first shared outside of the family. Additionally, friends at this stage provide a different type of scaffolding - one of selfpresentation. Friends listen to the stories that adolescents tell, and their responses convey necessary feedback regarding the social acceptability of the both the story and how it is told (McLean & Jennings, 2013). Given these parameters, we might expect to see the pattern of edits for these audiences to differ in predictable ways. If mothers are the secure base from which to explore, the safe space to return to, and help to scaffold adolescents’ attempts at meaningmaking, we might expect to see more disclosure and exploration - and thus, less editing for mothers. Friendships are not secure - they are conditional, they are transitory, and they can end. Considering this, adolescents may tailor more of their narratives to conform to the norms and expectations of friends. Conversely, if mothers are seen more as a moral judge, or a fixed identity that the adolescent is attempting to evolve away from, we may see more edits for mothers as they attempt to fit their stories into forms acceptable for this audience. In this case, adolescents may feel more comfortable exploring new identities with friends, who are likely doing the same thing with them. This may present as less edits for friends, but more elaboration. 5 Gender Differences Gender differences in reminiscing emerge very early in development and seem to be socialized in family reminiscing contexts (Fivush & Nelson, 2004; Fivush & Zaman, 2014), thus some of the variation in tailoring may be accounted for by differences in gendered socialization. Past studies have indicated that parents display different styles while reminiscing with their children (Fivush & Fromhoff, 1988). In turn, parents socialize different ideas about what events should be discussed, and how they should be discussed. Parents are more elaborative with female children (Reese & Fivush, 1993); in turn, females generate more complex narratives than boys do in late adolescence (McLean, 2008) while boys report less discussion of their internal states and emotions in their narratives (McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007). Overall, as adults, female participants narrate more elaborated, emotionally expressive and relationally oriented autobiographical narratives than do male participants (Grysman & Hudson, 2013). Given these socialization arguments, we might expect the pattern of edits to proceed in predictable ways when analyzed by gender. Males may be less self-reflective in general, leading to less detailed narratives, which need less editing overall. We may also expect that females will be more elaborative than males, and that this will be reflected in more edits that reflect this. The Present Study That we adjust both the selection of our stories and the editing we do to them for different audiences seems well established. Previous studies have explored the influences that mothers and friends employ in the social construction of these identities; however, little attention has been paid to the specific kinds of changes that individuals make for 6 these different audiences. When telling the same story to different audiences, the tailoring may be the kinds and character of the edits made by the narrator. This may be additional information added, information deleted, or in the interpretive connections that are made within the story. These self-event connections are revelatory of the kind of self a speaker is attempting to present to the listener (Pasupathi, et al., 2007), and thus is a form of identity management. While several studies have tracked how narratives of significant life events change over subsequent disclosures, and a small set of primarily qualitative projects have addressed how narratives of similar events are differently told to different audiences (Weeks & Pasupathi, 2010; McLean, 2016), I am unaware of any that have examined intentional changes of those stories with an audience in mind. In this study, participants were first asked to write narratives of four types of life events: a nadir (low) point, a transgression, a turning point, and a high point using standard prompts from the narrative literature. Then, from the original narrative, they were asked to edit the stories as they would for their mother and for a friend, and I tracked their changes using the editing functions of Microsoft Word. This study design allows me to examine whether participants engaged in more or different editing of their narratives for mothers, as compared to friends. In addition, I was able to examine whether there were gender differences in the extent or nature of edits of narratives. METHOD The data on which this study is based are part of a larger study on narrative identity content that was conducted at Western Washington University. 7 Participants Participants were 124 American college students, of which 106 (mean age = 19.76, SD = 3.243; 66% female, 78.3% White) were included in the final data analysis. Some participants had to be removed for various reasons: six were removed because their demographic information was missing, five because narratives were missing for one of the conditions, and seven because of technological problems with the software. 42.3% of participants identified themselves as freshman, followed by 28.8% as juniors, 22.1% as sophomores, and 6.7% as seniors. Participants were recruited from undergraduate psychology courses at Western Washington University. These courses serve a variety of students for general education requirements, as well as those who are, or who are working towards declaring as, psychology majors. After providing informed consent, participants wrote narratives in a room alone (written with Empirisoft, 2008; Media Lab, v2008; Microsoft Word 2010). Once finished, participants were debriefed, thanked, and given course credit for participation, which generally took an average of 1.5 - 2 hours. Measures Narrative Prompts. Participants, blind to the study’s purpose, completed four narrative prompts for the initial condition. Prompts were modeled on McAdams (2007) life story interview. The prompts are stated below, and were always given in the order shown: Nadir Experience Prompt: A "nadir" is a low point. A nadir experience, therefore, is the opposite of a peak experience. Please think about your entire life. Try to remember a specific experience in which you felt extremely negative emotions, such as despair, 8 disillusionment, terror, profound guilt, shame, etc. You should consider this experience to represent one of the "low points" in your life story. Even though this memory is unpleasant, we would still appreciate an attempt on your part to be honest and straightforward and to provide us with as much detail as possible. Please remember to be specific. We would like to know what happened, when it happened, who was involved, what you were thinking and feeling, why the event is significant, and what the event says about you and your personality. Transgression Prompt: A transgression is an action that results in in physical or psychological harm and it may have made you feel guilt or shame or other psychological distress. Basically, the event that you recall should be one in which you violated your code of ethics or simply did the wrong thing. We are interested in a highly significant transgression experience – one that would be part of your life story – one of the worst things you have ever done. Even though this memory is unpleasant, we would still appreciate an attempt on your part to be honest and straightforward and to provide us with as much detail as possible. Please remember to be specific. We would like to know what happened, when it happened, who was involved, what you were thinking and feeling, why the event is significant, and what the event says about you and your personality. Turning Point Prompt: In looking back on one’s life, it is often possible to identify certain key "turning points," or episodes through which a person undergoes substantial change. Turning points can occur in many different spheres of a person’s life, including relationships with other people, in work and school, and in outside interests. We are especially interested in a turning point in your understanding of yourself. Please 9 identify a particular episode in your life story in which you underwent an important transition or change with respect to your understanding of yourself. It is not necessary that you consciously saw the event as a turning point when it actually happened. Rather, what is important is that you now see this particular event as a turning point in your life. If you feel that you have experienced no dramatic turning points in your life, then describe a particular episode in your life that comes closer than any other to qualifying as a turning point. Please describe what happened, when it happened, who was involved, what you were thinking and feeling, why this experience is significant, and what it may say about you and your personality. Peak Experience Prompt: Many people report occasional "peak experiences." These are generally moments or episodes in a person’s life in which he or she feels a sense of great uplifting, joy, excitement, contentment, or some other highly positive emotional experience. Indeed, these experiences vary widely. Some people report them to be associated with religious or mystical experience. Others find great joy or excitement in vigorous athletics, reading a good novel, artistic expression, or in love or friendship. A peak experience may be seen as a "high point" in your life story or a particular experience that stands out in your memory as something that is extremely positive. Please describe below in some detail a peak experience that you have experienced sometime in your life. Make sure that this is a particular and specific incident (e.g., happened at a particular time and in a particular place) rather than a general "time" or "period" in your life. Please write about exactly what happened, when it happened, who was involved, what you were thinking and feeling, why this event is significant, and what this event says about you and your personality. 10 After each prompt, participants answered 15 Likert-type items about the event. This data was not examined in the present study. The narratives were then saved in their original form with their participant ID. Participants were then given the narratives back, and presented with a new prompt, asking them to edit their narratives for their mother and a close friend. The changes to the document were saved by turning on the “Track Changes” feature in Microsoft Word 2010. Participants started from the original document for mothers and for close friends. This section was counterbalanced, such that one version starts with editing for mother first and one starts with editing for close friend first. Edit Prompt 1: Thank you for writing about these parts of your life. Some people share parts of their life stories with other people, and for many reasons. People may share those stories differently or similarly for different people. In this study, we are interested in how you might share the experiences you have written about with your (mother or close friend, depending on counterbalanced version). We are going to give you a copy of the experiences as you just wrote about them, and invite you to edit that copy so that it reflects the way you would tell the story to your (mother or friend, version dependent). You can edit the copy in any way that makes sense to you – making as few or as many changes as seem necessary. You can change the entire story by choosing a different event, or you can simply change particular pieces of the story. You can delete information or add information. There is no right or wrong answer here. We are really interested in the story you would tell your mother, regardless of whether and how you change it from the story you initially wrote. 11 Please edit this story as much or as little to show how you would tell this story to your (mother or friend, version dependent). Edit Prompt 2: Now we are interested in how you might share the experiences you have written about with (mother or close friend, version dependent). We are going to give you a copy of the experiences as you first wrote about them, and invite you to edit that copy so that it reflects the way you would tell the story to (mother or close friend, version dependent). You can edit the copy in any way that makes sense to you – making as few or as many changes as seem necessary. You can change the entire story by choosing a different event, or you can simply change particular pieces of the story. You can delete information or add information. There is no right or wrong answer here. We are really interested in the story you would tell (mother or close friend, version dependent), regardless of whether and how you change it from the story you initially wrote. When participants were finished editing all narratives for the first audience, they were saved with either “Friend” or “Mom” appended to their participant ID. They were then presented with the second edit prompt. When they finished editing all narratives for the second audience, they were saved in the same fashion. Participants then answered 10 Likert-type items regarding comfort levels with sharing memories in general, along with surveys assessing personality traits, well-being, and quality of relationships. These data were not considered for this study. Finally, participants answered demographics questions. 12 Narrative Coding The author and a research assistant (who was blind to the study’s aims) coded the edited narratives for major type of edits and subtypes of edits. The author and the research assistant completed reliability on 30% of the narratives, and checked 20% of the remaining codes with each other to prevent coder drift. There was strong agreement between the coders on both types of edits (n = 284, K = .959) and sub-types of edits (n = 284, K = .899). Difficult cases were discussed to reach a consensus. Edits were identified by opening the edited narratives in word, and turning on the track changes option. Major types of edits. The author conducted a review of the edited narratives to develop a coding system to identify the different types of edits made by the participants. Edits were identified as insertions, in which the participant added new information into the original text without removing something else; deletions, in which the participant removed information from the original text without adding anything in its place; replacements, in which the participant removed something from the original text and substituted different information; minor, in which the participant made a correction such as spelling, grammar, capitalization, or punctuation; and other, in which the edit did not fit any of the other categories. The choice of major categories of edits proved to be exhaustive, as no edits were classified as other. Major subtypes of edits. Using an established coding scheme (Mansfield & Pasupathi, unpublished), each edit was identified for its effect on the narrative. Edits were identified as factual, in which the effect of the edit was to make the narrative more factual; interpretive, in which the effect of the edit was to make the narrative more interpretive, and other, in which the edit did not fall into either category. As coding 13 proceeded, it became clear the “other” category contained some distinct categories of its own, which were coded and examined. Types of other subtype edits. Review of the other subtype category revealed additional categories which were coded as audience directed, in which the participant made edits that acknowledged the anticipated audience directly (e.g., “My mother disliked that.” was changed to, “I know how you hate that.”); entire replacement, in which the participant removed the whole narrative and wrote a different narrative for the anticipated audience (e.g.; a narrative about a sexual encounter is replaced with a narrative about a sports achievement); entire deletions, in which the participant deletes the whole narrative for the anticipated audience (though sometimes adding a short note e.g., “You don’t get to see this, Mom.”); no factual/interpretive difference, in which the edit didn’t change the tone of the narrative (e.g., “I was mad” becomes, “I was angry”); and fourth wall, in which the participant breaks the proverbial “fourth wall” by addressing the researcher directly (e.g., giving the researcher an explanation of the edits they are making). RESULTS Preliminary Analysis Descriptive statistics for all narrative variables can be found in Table 1. These data indicate that most participants are engaging in some form of content editing for their intended audiences, although there was a lot of variation in the extent and nature of the editing. Although no adjustments were done for the number of tests performed, the publication draft will do multivariate analyses of this data. 14 Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for Audience Tailoring Variables. At Variable M SD Min. Max. Least One Edits 18.11 21.85 0 115 95.3% Insertions 4.05 5.35 0 24 66% Deletions 4.37 6.26 0 46 71.7% Replacements 7.54 11.81 0 72 66% Minor 2.19 4.05 0 23 51.9% Factual 5.86 10.16 0 65 71.7% Interpretive 4.73 6.21 0 29 77.4% Other 5.35 7.98 0 48 68.9% Number of Edits for Mothers vs. Friends. A paired-samples t-test indicated that the score for the mean number of edits made for mothers (M = 10.36, SD = 12.68) was significantly higher than the score for friends (M = 7.75, SD = 10.61); t(105) = 3.22, p = .002; d = .31. This suggests that participants made more edits for their mothers than they did for their friends. Major Types of Edits for Mothers vs. Friends. Paired-samples t-tests indicated that scores were significantly lower for the mean number of insertions for mothers (M = 1.75, SD = 2.71) than for friends (M = 2.30, SD = 3.17); t(105) = -2.32, p = .022; d = .23. Scores for the mean number of deletions for mothers (M = 2.70, SD = 4.06) were 15 significantly higher than for friends (M = 1.67, SD = 2.78); t(105) = 3.478, p = .001; d = .34. Scores for the mean number of replacements for mothers (M = 4.74, SD = 7.68) were also significantly higher than for friends (M = 2.80, SD = 5.35); t(105) = 3.33, p = .001; d = .32. There was no significant difference in the mean number of minor edits for mothers (M = 1.18, SD = 2.37) and the mean number of minor edits for friends (M = 1.01, SD = 2.18); t(105) = .834, p =.406. These results suggest that participants employ different editing strategies for mothers and friends, with friends eliciting more inserted material, and mothers eliciting more deletions of material and replacements of some material with different material. Sub-types of Edits for Mothers vs. Friends. Paired-samples t-tests showed no significant difference in the scores for the mean number of factual edits for mothers (M = 3.03, SD = 5.39) and the mean number of factual edits for friends (M = 2.83, SD = 5.25); t(105) = .648, p = .518. Similarly, there was no significant difference in the scores for the mean number of interpretive edits for mothers (M = 2.14, SD = 3.26) and the mean number interpretive edits for friends (M = 2.58, SD = 2.43); t(105) = -1.50, p = .137. Scores were significantly higher for the mean number edits coded as other for mothers (M = 3.99, SD = 6.74) than for friends (M = 1.36, SD = 2.43); t(105) = 4.344, p < .00; d = .42. These results suggest that participants did not make more factual or interpretive edits for either audience. They did, however, make more edits coded as other for mothers. Summary test results by audience can be found in Table 2. 16 Table 2 Means Comparisons by Audience Using Paired Samples t-test. Edits Variable Insertions Deletions Moms Friends Moms Friends M 10.36 7.75 1.75 2.30 SD 12.68 10.61 2.71 3.17 t p 3.22 .002* -2.32 .022* 3.48 .001* Moms 2.70 4.06 Friends 1.67 2.78 Replacements 3.33 Moms 4.74 7.68 Friends 2.80 5.35 Minor .83 Mothers 1.18 2.37 Friends 1.01 2.18 Factual .65 Mothers 3.03 5.39 Friends 2.83 5.25 Interpretive -1.50 Mothers 2.14 3.26 Friends 2.58 3.64 Other 4.344 Mothers 3.99 6.74 Friends 1.36 2.43 Note: N=106 for all variables. * = Significant at the p<.05 level. .001* .406 .518 .137 <.001* Number of edits by Males vs. Females. An independent-samples t-test indicated that scores were significantly lower for the mean number of edits made by males (M = 11.83, SD = 13.81) than by females (M = 21.34, SD = 24.46); t(103) = -2.555, p = .012; d = .50. Levene’s test indicated unequal variances (F = 5.91, p = .017), so degrees of freedom were adjusted from 105 to 103. These results indicate that males do less editing than females. 17 Major Types of Edits by Males vs. Females. Independent-samples t-tests indicated that scores were significantly lower for the mean number of insertions made by males (M = 11.83, SD = 13.8) than by females (M = 4.83, SD = 5.98); t(103) = 2.52, p = .013; d = .42. Levene’s test indicated unequal variances (F = 8.80, p = .004), so degrees of freedom were adjusted from 104 to 103. Similarly, scores for mean number of replacements was lower for males (M = 4.47, SD = 6.92) than for females (M = 9.11, SD = 13.43); t(104) = -2.35, p = .021; d = .46. Levene’s test indicated unequal variances (F = 5.88, p = .017), so degrees of freedom were adjusted from 104 to 103.99. No significant difference was found in the scores for mean number of deletions made by males (M = 3.36, SD = 5.37) and females (M = 4.879, SD - 6.64); t(104) = -1.19, p = .206, or in the scores for mean number of minor edits made by males (M = 1.47, SD = 2.67) and females (M = 2.56, SD = 4.57); t(104) = -1.311, p = .193. These results suggest that males made fewer insertions and replacements when editing their narratives than females did. Sub-types of Edits by Males vs. Females. Independent-samples t-tests indicated that scores were significantly lower for the mean number of interpretive edits made by males (M = 2.61, SD = 4.251) than for females (M = 5.81, SD = 6.77); t(100) = -2.98, p = .004; d = .52. Levene’s test indicated unequal variances (F = 7.00, p = .009), so degrees of freedom were adjusted from 104 to 100. Similarly, scores for mean number edits coded as other were lower for males (M = 3.42, SD = 5.07) than for females (M = 6.34, SD = 8.99); t(103) = -2.14, p = .035; d = .42. Levene’s test indicated unequal variances (F = 5.71, p = .019), so degrees of freedom were adjusted from 104 to 103. No significant difference was found in the scores for mean number of factual edits made by males (M = 4.33, SD = 6.83) and females (M = 6.64, SD = 11.47); t(104) = -1.11, p = .270. These 18 results suggest that made fewer interpretive and other edits than females did. Summary of test results by gender can be found in Table 3. Table 3 Means Comparisons by Gender using Independent Samples t-test Edits Variable Insertions Deletions Males Females Males Females N M SD 36 70 11.83 21.34 13.81 24.64 36 70 2.53 4.83 3.41 5.98 t p -2.56* .012** -2.52* .035** -1.19 .237 Males 36 3.36 5.37 Females 70 4.89 6.64 Replacements -2.35* .021** Males 36 4.47 6.92 Females 70 9.11 13.43 Minor -1.31 .193 Males 36 1.47 2.69 Females 70 2.56 4.57 Factual -1.11 .270 Males 36 4.33 6.83 Females 70 6.64 11.47 Interpretive -2.98* .004** Males 36 2.61 4.25 Females 70 5.81 6.77 Other -2.14* .035** Males 36 3.42 5.07 Females 70 6.34 8.99 Note: * = Equal variances not assumed. ** = Significant at the p<0.05 level. DISCUSSION Mothers and Friends The pattern of edits for mothers and friends seem to suggest that adolescents are indeed managing different identities for the two audiences. Participants edited their stories more for mothers than they did for friends, and they made more deletions and 19 replacements for them as well. In contrast to this, friends received fewer edits, but they received more insertions. This pattern suggests that the participants were less comfortable sharing the information in their stories with their mothers than with their friends, but that participants needed to do more explaining to their friends. The pattern of edits for mothers suggests that participants are uncomfortable with sharing the content of the stories they had originally written with mothers. Deletions are removing information completely, a seemingly clear indication that the information is not for this audience. Replacements are removing some information and substituting other information in its place, which still suggests that the information in its original for is not for this audience. One possible explanation here is that mothers have a different agenda in narrative interactions with their children than friends do (Weeks & Pasupathi, 2010). Consider the types of narratives that the participants wrote on. Nadir experiences are low points (and thus may often cast the self or decisions in a negative light), transgressions are obvious indications of wrong-doing, and even turning points often need to start with some negativity to “turn” from. Adolescents at the mean age of this sample (M = 19.76) are fully engaged in identity construction, but they are also college students developing a sense of autonomy. At this stage of development, they are interested in narrating these events to connect them to their evolving self. The connections they are trying to make are about the person they feel they are becoming. Mothers listening to stories of this type may be more interested in continuing to contest their children’s interpretations, or to silence it altogether with moral concerns. This is consistent with previous research (McLean & Jennings, 2012; Weeks & Pasupathi 2010) that once a certain level of 20 autonomy is reached, mothers’ attempts at scaffolding may actually function to silence the child’s voice. The participants may resist this, even in the form of a story that is only hypothetically for their mother. The pattern of edits for friends suggests that participants are comfortable with the content of the stories they have written, but that those stories need more elaboration to be fully understood by this audience. Insertions are adding information to a story, making it richer, clearer, or more detailed. This implies a willingness to open up a story for further exploration. What seems to be happening here is that the participants feel freer to explore the self-event connections in their stories, and the implications those connections have for their emerging identities, because the power dynamics inherent in the relationships are different. The idea that “you’ll always be my little boy/girl” is particularly salient here, in that parents may still view the participants as in need of moral education. Friends, on the other hand, are more willing to accept the identity the participant is presenting and to be supportive of the meanings they are creating from the event. This is not to say that mothers do not do this as well, but since the participant is negotiating a generational identity with the friend (rather than the fixed one with the mother), the participant may feel more common ground on meanings with friends than mothers. The results on sub-types of edits were surprising. I had expected that, in tandem with types of edits, there would be a significant difference in the factual and interpretive edits for mothers and friends, but I was unable to find a significant difference. One possible explanation is that the sample was 66% female, and females tend to be more elaborative than males (McLean, 2008). It may be that even after editing, the presence of 21 more elaboration overall may have skewed the results. Some support for this interpretation is found in the results for gender differences. Gender Differences The pattern of edits for males and females suggest that males are not as engaged in identity management. Males made significantly fewer edits overall, fewer insertions, and fewer replacements for all audiences. Males also made significantly fewer interpretive edits for all audiences. The lack of insertions, replacements, and interpretive edits indicate that when males are offered the opportunity to tailor an autobiographical memory for a specific audience, they decline to do so much more often than females do. What we may be seeing here is the effect of gendered socialization of the participants. Numerous studies have suggested that males may position themselves in narratives in more autonomous and agentic ways than females, who tend to narrate in more emotional and relational tones (Chodorow, 1978; Fivush & Buckner, 2003; Gilligan, 1982; Grysman & Fivush, 2016). Given this, it seems reasonable to assume that if the original narrative was told with a motivation towards presenting oneself as agentic and autonomous, there would be little incentive to tailor that story for another’s acceptance. Females, operating from a relational and emotional standpoint, seem more likely to adapt a story in consideration of an audience. Conclusions and Future Directions It seems clear that we edit our narratives differently for mothers and friends. I suggest that the difference we see in this sample is largely due to the age group we are sampling. Mothers have a greater knowledge of the children’s life history - consequently, they need less elaboration or explanation when imparting these stories to them. In 22 contrast, friendships are developing relationships. Conversations about past events with friends may often be about getting to know each other (McLean & Jennings, 2012), and using these stories to paint a picture of who we are -- or who we are becoming -- to our friends. This necessarily entails more elaboration and meaning-making with friends than it does with mothers. One future direction may be to conduct a similar study with mothers and long term friends, or friends and spouses, on older participants. Still, I think some of this is a shift in identity work. At this developmental period, adolescents are often focused on autonomy and achievement aspects of their identity, especially among college students from western industrialized cultures (Arnett, 2016; Kroger, 2003). Given this, it seems reasonable to assume that adolescents are more involved with working out their own self-event connections with like-minded peers, than looking for parental guidance on how these events should be interpreted. If this were the case, we would expect the type of editing pattern we saw here: more deletions and replacements for mothers (as participants attempt to avoid the moral judgements), and more insertions for friends (as they add explanatory connections to make the selfpresentation clearer). It may be worthwhile to conduct a similar study on older age groups to see if this difference continues in adults. The information on gender differences, though more polarized and more statistically significant, is less clear. While the data seems to confirm some stereotypical behavior for males and females, gender is a complex biosocial-cultural complex that is far more nuanced than the binary categories we can explore here. It may be more useful to examine narrative identity and autobiographical memory differences from a gender identity standpoint, rather than a categorical one (see Grysman & Fivush, 2016 for a 23 review). It may also be informative to examine the differences in edits by type of narrative, as well as look at the gendered differences in how we participants edited for mothers and friends. In concluding, I note limitations, which are primarily in sample demographics and size. My procedures and sample size precluded me from examining some variables which may have been confounding or mediating, such as relationship quality, length of friendship, and attachment style. In terms of demographics, my sample was not ideal for examine gender differences, and although we provided a range of gender choices, all participants selected either male or female. My sample was self-selected, which excludes those who do not participate in such studies for various reasons. 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