Autobiographical Memory and the Construction of A Narrative Self

Developmental and Cultural Perspectives

Robyn Fivush, Catherine A. Haden

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781135651855
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría en psicología

It is a truism in psychology that self and autobiographical memory are linked, yet we still know surprisingly little about the nature of this relation. Scholars from multiple disciplines, including cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, anthropology, and philosophy have begun theorizing and writing about the ways in which autobiographical memory is organized, the role that narratives play in the development of autobiographical memory, and the relations between autobiographical memory, narrative, and self concept. If narratives are a critical link between memory and self, then it becomes apparent that the roles of language and social interaction are paramount. These are the issues addressed in this volume. Although individual authors offer their own unique perspectives in illuminating the nature of the link between self and memory, the contributors share a perspective that both memory and self are constructed through specific forms of social interactions and/or cultural frameworks that lead to the formation of an autobiographical narrative. Taken together, the chapters weave a coherent story about how each of us creates a life narrative embedded in social-cultural frameworks that define what is appropriate to remember, how to remember it, and what it means to be a self with an autobiographical past.

III
The Construction of Gender and Identity Concepts in Developmental and Situational Contexts

Chapter 7
Creating Gender and Identity Through Autobiographical Narratives

Robyn Fivush
Emory University

Janine P. Buckner
Seton Hall University

We each author our own life story; in constructing and recounting our past, we are simultaneously constructing and reconstructing our selves. Who we are is very much created through autobiographical narratives. In the words of Rosenwald and Ochberg (1992):

How individuals recount their histories—what they emphasize and omit, their stance as protagonists or victims, the relationship the story establishes between teller and audience—all shape what individuals can claim of their own lives. Personal stories are not merely a way of telling someone (or oneself) about one’s life; they are the means by which identities may be fashioned.”(p. 1)

Through examining autobiographical narratives, we gain access to individuals’ construction of their own identity.What individuals choose to tell, what information they select to report, provides converging evidence of how individuals conceptualize their selves. But importantly, these narratives are not static entities; autobiographical narratives and self-identity are fluid and dynamic, changing both developmentally as well as situationally. Those aspects of identity that are highlighted in specific retellings of the past reflect those aspects of identity that are deemed important in specific situations, with specific others, for specific goals.

In this chapter, we explore one critical aspect of identity, namely gender. Whereas many theorists have conceptualized gender as a foundational construct, setting the stage for an understanding of self (e.g., Chodorow, 1978; Gilligan, 1982), we argue instead that gender and identity are defined dialectically in the process of interacting with others (e.g., Deaux & Major, 1987). Most important, from a developmental perspective, we argue that both gender and identity must be viewed as evolving concepts that change as a function of the specific developmental tasks individuals face as well as the specific contexts in which particular aspects of gender and identity are privileged over others; there are some developmental and situational contexts in which gender will be foregrounded and differences between females and males maximized, whereas there are other developmental and situational contexts in which gender will be backgrounded, leading to few differences between females and males. From this perspective, gender cannot be conceptualized in terms of the ways in which females and males are different, but rather must be contextual-ized in terms of situations in which aspects of male and female identity are more or less likely to be highlighted.We first present evidence for this assertion and then try to provide a developmental contextual model for understanding when and why gender may or may not be a critical aspect of identity.

GENDER, IDENTITY, AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Scattered throughout the literature on autobiographical memory, a number of studies demonstrate differences in male and female life stories (see Buck-ner, 2000, and Fivush & Buckner, 2000, for reviews). Stemming from postmodern and feminist theories of gender identity, researchers have focused on explanations of these differences as emanating from the ways in which females and males characterize their relationships to and with others in recounting their past experiences (e.g.,Cross & Madson, 1997; Gergen, 1992). Females are hypothesized to be relationally oriented and thus perceive themselves as being situated in a rich web of interconnections with others, and portray themselves as socially and emotionally entwined with those around them. Males, in contrast, are thought to be more autonomous in their orientation, presenting themselves as independent of others, focusing on individual goals and achievements. These differences are often assumed to be rooted in basic developmental experiences (Chodorow, 1978; Gilligan, 1982). According to Chodorow (1978), our first intimate interactions are with our mothers and our identities depend on how we negotiate that relationship. Males must break away from the mother in order to establish a masculine identity; thus they come to view themselves as unconnected, autonomous beings. Females, on the other hand, remain identified with the mother, and thus their identity is based on maintaining connections. This difference is expressed as ways of being in the world, with males continuously carving out a separate space for themselves, apart from others, and females creating interpersonal networks, connected with others.

Indeed, many of the gender differences documented in standard laboratory assessments of autobiographical narratives conform to this distinction. Females tend to tell life stories that focus on people and relationships, as well as the emotions of both themselves and others. Males’ narratives are more likely to highlight self and individual achievement, containing fewer references to others or to emotions (Davis, 1990; Merriman & Cross, 1982; Schwartz, 1984; Sehulster, 1996; Thorne, 1995). Based on these kinds of find-ings, gender has been conceptualized as a stable variable that plays an explanatory role in individual differences in autobiography. Males and females have fundamentally different orientations to the world and, because of this, they construct life stories focused on different aspects of experience and identity (e.g., Gilligan, 1982;Markus & Oyserman, 1989).

Yet we must be cautious in drawing firm conclusions. The ways in which identity develops and the specific issues individuals face at different developmental points can be assumed to play a role in how gender is understood and expressed as part of one’s identity. Moreover, telling one’s life story to an unfamiliar adult in an experimental context may only allow individuals to express particular aspects of identity. In more varied interactions with a variety of others, individuals may display more nuanced and less rigid definitions of self and gender. From this perspective, gender is not conceptualized as a stable aspect of identity, but rather is viewed as emerging from specific contextual factors. Although individuals clearly remain female or male across situations and development, the way in which gender identity is understood, and how salient gender is as an aspect of identity, will vary both situationally and developmentally. Over the past several years, we have been exploring the ways in which self and gender are expressed in autobiographical narratives in a variety of contexts. As we shall see, the pattern of results presents a far more subtle picture of gender and identity.

DEVELOPMENTAL DIFFERENCES IN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES

The first set of studies we describe examines gender differences in autobiographical narratives across childhood. Somewhat surprisingly, as early as age 3, we already see differences in the ways in which girls and boys describe their experiences. In a longitudinal study, we interviewed children four times across the preschool years about novel past experiences (Fivush, Haden, & Adam, 1995). Even at 40 months of age, girls’ narratives were longer and more detailed than were boys’. Girls also included more internal state language, commenting on emotions and cognitions, to a greater extent than did boys. Moreover, these differences remained stable through 6 years of age. At age 8, we reinterviewed some of these children and included a new group of same-age peers as well (Buckner & Fivush, 1997). Girls’ narratives remained longer and more detailed than boys’ narratives at this age. In addition, girls referred to more people and more relationships in their narratives and included more emotional information than did boys. For example, one young girl, when asked to tell about a time that she felt left out or alone, responded (remarks in parentheses are the interviewer’s comments and questions):

Well, I have a best friend at school and her name is Christina, and she has a nice friend that I like a lot. She was just coming over for like two or three months. Her name is Camille and she is from France. And one time I felt really left out because she was only going up to Camille and not me. (Oh really?) I felt left out. (What else about that?) Um, but then we tried to get her to talk to me, and I got to play with them.

In this excerpt, we see that this child is strongly connected to her peers. She begins by introducing her best friend, explicitly marking an important relationship, and goes on to talk about how that relationship was threatened by another child. Moreover, her feelings of loneliness were directly caused by being excluded from social interaction. Interestingly, she ends her narrative by resolving the interpersonal problem caused by the appearance of Camille, with all three of them becoming friends. This is clearly a narrative based in interpersonal connection, and these connections are primary in this child’s presentation of self. In contrast, a young boy asked the same question responded:

My friends at school wouldn’t let me play a game since there were too much people. (Oh, tell me about that.) I think it was, ummm, I don’t know what the game was since they wouldn’t tell me and I think David, yeah, David was in it and Michael. They wouldn’t let me play. And some other people. I don’t know their names though. But they wouldn’t let me play since there were lots of people in it. There were about ten people and that was enough for the game.

Note that in this narrative, the focus is on being excluded from participation in a game, not from social interaction per se.Moreover, although people are mentioned (David, Michael), their relationships to the teller are not explicitly marked. The identity presented here is one of a member of a group to be sure, but it is not a group that engages in social and emotional interactions. The presented self is one based in activities rather than relationships.

Thus, from an early age on, it seems that girls are constructing their past experiences differently than are boys. That girls mention more people, more relationships, and more emotions in their autobiographical narratives suggests that females are more relationally oriented in their presentation of self than are boys, and that this is a fundamental aspect of self-construal even very early in development. Yet, when we turn to college students, a somewhat different picture emerges. Buckner (2000) asked male and female college students to narrate four specific experiences of: (a) feeling connected to other people; (b) achieving a desired goal; (c) being cautious or planful; and (d) feeling stressed out or tense.¹ Only when narrating stressful experiences were gender differences found. For these events, males talked more than females, made more references to self, and mentioned more internal states than did females. For the other three types of experiences, no gender differences were observed, suggesting that male and female college students narrate these experiences similarly, mentioning others, relationships, and emotions at equal rates.Why would we see a decrease in gender differences from middle childhood to young adulthood? Why is gender not a salient aspect of identity, at least as presented in autobiographical narratives, for these college students?

An answer may lie in the developmental tasks that college students face. College is a challenging time, to say the least, especially in terms of identity. Individuals are living away from home for the first time, surrounded by others of similar age and goals, and facing the fundamental developmental challenge of creating a self-identity. As Erikson (1968) so cogently argued, this developmental period is rife with doubts about who one is, what one believes, and how one should live one’s life. In essence, it is the developmental period of the “identity crisis.” In this study, Buckner (2000) also assessed participants’ identity status, using the Ego Identity Scale (EIS; Tan, Kendis, Fine, & Porac, 1977), which measures the extent to which the individual is in identity crisis or has resolved this crisis and formed a committed identity. Although individuals’ identity status was not strongly related to the content of their autobiographical narratives, it was found that the majority of these students scored in the middle of the EIS scale, indicating issues concerning identity.

Thus we may see gender and identity weaving together and breaking apart as a function of developmental issues. During the preschool years, as gender is emerging as a stable category (Kohlberg, 1966), children may use gender as an important differentiating variable. Certainly, as children develop gender constancy, acknowledging that they are of a particular gender, they also begin to value their own gender and disparage the other gender (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1989). During middle childhood, when gender segregation reaches its peak (Maccoby, 1988), gender may become a critically important feature of identity. Being female or male, and identified as such, may be a core basis of identity during this developmental period...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• INTRODUCTION: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY, NARRATIVE AND SELF
• LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
• I: THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY AND SELF-UNDERSTANDING
• II: CROSS-CULTURAL VARIATION IN NARRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS AND SELF-CONSTRUAL
• III THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER AND IDENTITY CONCEPTS IN DEVELOPMENTAL AND SITUATIONAL CONTEXTS