What He Said to Me Stuck: Adolescents’ Narratives of Grandparents and Their Identity Development in Emerging Adulthood. In: Mclean KC, Pasupathi M, editors. Narrative Development in Adolescence. Boston: Springer US; 2010. pp. 93-112. [DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-89825-4_5]

Continuity in Socialization Styles: Typologies of Socialization in the Different Life Stages of Older People

The purpose of this research was to identify the socialization styles of the older person (such as authoritative, indulgent, authoritarian, and negligent) in three different roles: (1) nowadays as a grandparent, (2) considering the style used to educate their own children in the past; and (3), considering the socialization style they received when they were children. The sample (317 people over 65 years old with at least one grandchild aged up to 16 years old participated) received the questionnaire on socialization styles in those roles. The results showed the predominance of the indulgent style in their role as grandparents. Almost 80% showed intergenerational continuity between at least two roles, with the exception of those with a neglectful style. Continuity in socialization style is crucial to understanding the dynamics within family relationships, which have highly durable intergenerational ties.

You Hear Stories About What They Did and It Makes You Go “Wow”: Adolescents Narrate and Interpret Caregiver Stories About a Difficult Time

This study examined how adolescents recall and interpret caregivers’ personal stories about a difficult time. Respondents were 49 ethnically diverse adolescents ( M = 15.76 years; 63% girls; 53% from immigrant families). Analyses examined story features (topic, narrator, elaboration, and meaning) and variations due to gender, age, and immigrant background. Four overarching topic categories were identified: family hardship (39.5%), caregiver’s personal problems (25.6%), family interactions and dynamics (20.9%), and interpersonal situations outside family (14%). Youth extracted a variety of personal lessons from caregiver stories, with meanings differing across some topic categories (e.g., stories about family hardship typically emphasized that youth should persevere/work hard). Story features differed based on characteristics of storyteller and listener, particularly gender and immigrant background. For example, adolescents (particularly girls) were most likely to narrate a story heard from their mother, and more boys than girls retold stories emphasizing perseverance and hard work. Adolescents from immigrant families told stories that were more elaborated than those told by nonimmigrant youth, and stories told by caregivers reflected unique life experiences and goals. Findings contribute to the literature on family storytelling and have implications for future research and practice with diverse populations.

The Psychological Self as Actor, Agent, and Author

The psychological self may be construed as a reflexive arrangement of the subjective “I” and the constructed “Me,” evolving and expanding over the human life course. The psychological self begins life as a social actor, construed in terms of performance traits and social roles. By the end of childhood, the self has become a motivated agent, too, as personal goals, motives, values, and envisioned projects for the future become central features of how the I conceives of the Me. A third layer of selfhood begins to form in the adolescent and emerging adulthood years, when the self as autobiographical author aims to construct a story of the Me, to provide adult life with broad purpose and a dynamic sense of temporal continuity. An integrative theory that envisions the psychological self as a developing I–Me configuration of actor, agent, and author helps to synthesize a wide range of conceptions and findings on the self from social, personality, cognitive, cultural, and developmental psychology and from sociology and other social sciences. The actor–agent–author framework also sheds new light on studies of self-regulation, self-esteem, self-continuity, and the relationship between self and culture.