| Description |
Autobiographical narratives can reveal how individuals make sense of their experiences and integrate them into their sense of self. Research into autobiographical narrative has sought to identify key narrative themes and their roles in psychological health and well-being. Across studies, researchers have repeatedly identified agency as a major narrative theme. Agency is an individual's ability to initiate change in their lives and exert some degree of control over their experiences. As it pertains to autobiographical narrative, agency is a measure of the extent to which a narrator depicts their self as an autonomous actor or passive recipient of the events narrated. Higher levels of narrative agency have been strongly associated with psychological well-being in adults; however, this is not necessarily the case for children. In fact, prior research has found that some of the same narrative features linked to favorable emotional outcomes in adults may be associated with worse emotional outcomes in children. The nature of the association between narrative agency and well-being in children remains unknown. The objective of this study is to test whether narrative agency, as manifested in the autobiographical narratives of children between 8 and 17 years old, is associated with their ability to cope with distressing memories, as measured by reductions in distress. To test this hypothesis, I will analyze transcribed narratives collected from a subgroup of participants in Wainryb et. al. 's 2018 study: Stories for All Ages: Narrating Anger Reduces iii Distress Across Childhood and Adolescence. In Wainryb et. al. 's study, participants were asked to recall a recent specific event in their lives when they felt really angry at someone. Participants were asked to rate their emotions (anger, sadness, fear, guilt, and shame) prior to elicitation of the anger experience and then at three additional times: after first recalling the anger experience, after narrating their angry memory to a trained research assistant, and immediately upon recalling the event. To determine if an association exists between participants' degree of agency and any changes in their distress after narration, I will code for agency using an adaptation of the coding system for narrative agency developed by Adler et al. (2008). I will measure changes in distress by calculating differences between participants' emotion ratings before and after the narrative intervention. Results of this study could greatly impact methodologies to improve youths' coping capacities. Do youths benefit from portraying themselves as "in control" of events in their negative memories as do adults? Youths who have a feeling of greater agency may use their negative experiences constructively and move on. However, my study results may suggest otherwise: it may be that youths who feel that they have greater agency will more often incorrectly blame themselves for events that were in reality out of their control such as, for example, a parental divorce. Compared to adults, children are not as able to meaningfully exert control over their lives. Consequently, a greater sense of control may be maladaptive. Results from this study will yield valuable insights for developing strategies to help youths struggling with negative experiences in their past. |
