Narrative Means to Manage Responsibility in Life Narratives Across Adolescence

ABSTRACT

Adolescence is a passage from dependence to adult responsibility. Alongside identity development, social-cognitive development, and the ability to construct a life story, adolescents become increasingly aware of both their potential responsibility in an expanded sphere of life and of complex, contextual influences on their lives. This was partially tested in a cross-sectional study, both in terms of linguistic means and content expressed in life narratives. Indicators were defined for narrative agency, grading of responsibility, serendipity, and turning points, and tested for age differences in relative frequencies in 102 life narratives from age groups of 8, 12, 16, and 20 years, balanced for gender. Narrative grading of responsibility, serendipity, and turning points increased throughout adolescence. The relative frequency of narrative agency, in contrast, remained constant across age groups. Results are interpreted in the context of adolescent development of narrative identity.

Keywords:

• adolescence
• narrative grading of responsibility
• narrative identity development
• narrative responsibility

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The data were part of a study on the development of life narratives, which was supported by the German Research Council (DFG), grant HA 2077. The authors wish to thank the children and adolescents who participated and Verena Diel and Martha Havenith, who collected the data with Cebèle (de Silveira). Thanks also go to Angela de Silveira, Charles Stewart, and Anna Kenney for helpful suggestions on the article.