Relationships among Personal Life Stories, Vicarious Life Stories about Mothers and Fathers, and Well-being

ABSTRACT

We examined whether vicarious life stories about mothers and fathers differed in their relationships with personal life stories and well-being. Seventy-six emerging adults completed scales measuring well-being and described three chapters in their personal, mothers’, and fathers’ life stories. Chapters were self-rated and content coded for emotional tone and positive/negative person change. Characteristics of personal life stories were positively correlated with characteristics of vicarious life stories for mothers and fathers. Personal life stories were higher on positive person change than vicarious life stories about mothers and fathers. Higher well-being was related to rating all three life stories as more positive, but results for content coding were more mixed. The results indicate that vicarious life stories for mothers and fathers are related in similar ways to personal life stories and well-being.

KEYWORDS:

• Vicarious life stories
• intergenerational stories
• self-rating
• well-being
• narrative identity

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Henrik Marschall for content coding the narratives. The study was supported by a grant from the VELUX foundation (VELUX33266) to the first author. The first author is affiliated with CON AMORE, which is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF89).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Velux Fonden [VELUX33266].