Lind Majse, Ture Sebnem, McAdams Dan P, Cowan Henry R
Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University.
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University.
Psychol Sci. 2024 Dec;35(12):1325-1339. doi: 10.1177/09567976241296512. Epub 2024 Nov 21.
Mental health and well-being tend to improve with age, and personality differences affect these trajectories. Although it is well established that dispositional traits, such as extraversion and neuroticism, relate to well-being, the incremental validity of other important personality constructs, such as narrative identity, remains unknown. Across 9 years, 157 late-midlife adults ( = 56.4 years, = 0.96) self-reported their well-being and symptoms of depression each year and wrote an annual narrative account describing their greatest life challenge ( = 1,211). The narrative accounts were content-coded for themes of agency and communion. Results showed that themes of agency and communion in narrative identity were significantly and uniquely associated with well-being and depression across time, over and above the effects of traits. The benefits of considering both narrative identity and dispositional personality traits as they jointly apply to mental health are discussed.
心理健康和幸福感往往会随着年龄的增长而改善，人格差异会影响这些轨迹。虽然外向性和神经质等性格特质与幸福感之间的关系已得到充分证实，但叙事身份等其他重要人格结构的增量效度仍不明确。在9年的时间里，157名中老年晚期成年人（平均年龄 = 56.4岁，标准差 = 0.96）每年自我报告他们的幸福感和抑郁症状，并撰写一份年度叙事描述他们最大的生活挑战（共1211份）。叙事描述根据能动性和共融性主题进行内容编码。结果表明，叙事身份中的能动性和共融性主题在整个时间段内与幸福感和抑郁显著且独特相关，超越了特质的影响。本文讨论了将叙事身份和性格特质共同应用于心理健康时的益处。
