Telling losses: Personality correlates and functions of bereavement narratives

Narrating Final Memories From Spousal Loss: The Role of Place and Quality of Death

Objective: Personal memories of the death of a spouse can guide bereavement adjustment. Place of death and quality of death are end-of-life factors that are likely to influence death experiences and formation of subsequent personal memories. The current study employs narrative content-analysis to examine how place and quality of death relate to affective sequences present in older adults' final memories from the death of their spouse. Method: Based on power analyses, 53 older adults were recruited and completed a Final Memory Interview. They also reported place of spouse's death (ie, in hospital, out of hospital) and quality of death across four subscales. Final memory narratives were reliably content-analyzed (interrater agreements >.70), revealing positive and negative affective sequences, including: redemption, contamination, positive stability, and negative stability. Findings: Experiencing the death of a spouse in hospital was related to narrating final memories with contamination. In terms of quality of death, reporting a less comforting social environment at time of death was related to the presence of redemption in final memories. Reporting that one's spouse received appropriate medical care related to narrating memories that showed positive stability. Conclusions: Final memories are carried with the bereaved long after their loss. Positive final memories appear to stem from witnessing a comfortable, medically appropriate death outside of a hospital setting. End-of-life 'that is' between care and aligned with patients' values for place and treatment may be critical for spouses' formation of constructive final memories and bereavement adjustment.

World Trade Center responders in their own words: predicting PTSD symptom trajectories with AI-based language analyses of interviews

BACKGROUND

Oral histories from 9/11 responders to the World Trade Center (WTC) attacks provide rich narratives about distress and resilience. Artificial Intelligence (AI) models promise to detect psychopathology in natural language, but they have been evaluated primarily in non-clinical settings using social media. This study sought to test the ability of AI-based language assessments to predict PTSD symptom trajectories among responders.

METHODS

Participants were 124 responders whose health was monitored at the Stony Brook WTC Health and Wellness Program who completed oral history interviews about their initial WTC experiences. PTSD symptom severity was measured longitudinally using the PTSD Checklist (PCL) for up to 7 years post-interview. AI-based indicators were computed for depression, anxiety, neuroticism, and extraversion along with dictionary-based measures of linguistic and interpersonal style. Linear regression and multilevel models estimated associations of AI indicators with concurrent and subsequent PTSD symptom severity (significance adjusted by false discovery rate).

RESULTS

Cross-sectionally, greater depressive language (β = 0.32; p = 0.049) and first-person singular usage (β = 0.31; p = 0.049) were associated with increased symptom severity. Longitudinally, anxious language predicted future worsening in PCL scores (β = 0.30; p = 0.049), whereas first-person plural usage (β = -0.36; p = 0.014) and longer words usage (β = -0.35; p = 0.014) predicted improvement.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first study to demonstrate the value of AI in understanding PTSD in a vulnerable population. Future studies should extend this application to other trauma exposures and to other demographic groups, especially under-represented minorities.

Remembering the Positive and Negative: Affective Themes as Predictors of Psychological Well-Being Across Adulthood

The current study explored the link between psychological well-being (PWB; self-acceptance, personal growth, and purpose in life) and affective themes, including redemption (positive endings for negative events), contamination (negative endings for positive events), and positive and negative affect (no change in affect) in the life stories of Caribbean adults ranging in age from 19 to 78 (N = 105). How often the memory narrative was rehearsed, and whether or not the theme emerged after being cued in content-coded life story low, high, and turning point scenes were also considered. Affective theme alone did not predict PWB; however, when considering age, rehearsal, and cue, redemption and positive affect predicted personal growth. More work should cue meaning-making in specific ways for different age groups in order to understand why there were no associations for middle-aged adults. Efforts should also be made to understand cross-cultural differences in life stories and PWB.

Narrating ambiguous loss: Deficiencies in narrative processing and negative appraisal of consequences

OBJECTIVE

To compare narrative coping with physical and psychological ambiguous loss (AL) and definite loss in terms of distancing (vs. narrative immersion), meaning-making, and subjective biographical consequences.

METHODS

Thirty adults who had lost a parent to death, to going missing, or to Alzheimer disease (N = 90, 67 females; mean age 36.73 years, SD = 7.27; mean time since loss 9.0 years) narrated two loss-related and three control memories.

RESULTS

Individuals with AL were not more immersed in the loss experience, but less successful in finding meaning and in evaluating the loss and its consequences positively compared to those with a definite loss. These group differences were not due to differences in depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and protracted grief.

CONCLUSIONS

Ambiguity of loss renders meaning-making and coherently narrating loss more difficult, leading to more negative affect, suggesting interventions that help narrating loss coherently in a self-accepting way.

A Cross-Cultural Study of Self-Defining Memories in Chinese and American College Students

Self-defining memories (SDMs) are touchstones in individuals’ narrative identity. This is the first SDM study to compare college students from the mainland People’s Republic of China (PRC) to American college students. It examined SDMs, Big Five personality traits, and memory function in 60 students from each country (n = 120). Participants rated their memories for affect, recall frequency, and importance. Chinese students recalled their most positively rated memories more frequently and with greater importance, while American students did not show this pattern. American students who scored higher in Openness were more likely to recall negative memories. Memory content coding revealed that Chinese students recalled significantly more guilt/shame events than American students. Further analysis indicated that these memories were particularly focused on academic performance and parental expectations. The discussion suggests that follow-up studies look at differing emotion regulation strategies in the two countries, as well as at how the two different educational systems are affecting late adolescent identity formation processes.

Dyadic Model of Adaptation to Life-Limiting Illness

Context: We previously developed the reintegration model to describe the adjustment process for individuals at the end of life. However, caregivers and loved ones also require significant support and must work to reimagine their relationship with one another. Objectives: We sought to develop a dyadic version of the reintegration model that delineates key parts of the adjustment process that occur between the patient and another significant person rather than as two separate individuals. Methods: We refined an initial conceptual model of this dyadic process with findings from a narrative literature review on spousal dyadic mutuality. We assessed emergent themes regarding dyadic adjustment from the literature for their fit with our original reintegration model and through consensus discussion, applied the findings to a final proposed conceptual model of dyadic reintegration at the end of life. Results: Examples of dyadic adjustment in the literature relate to the comprehension, creative adaptation, and reintegration processes described in the original reintegration model. Evidence also supported three substantive additions in the new dyadic model: (1) shared understanding that the harmony of the dyad is interrupted; (2) consideration of the "we" (the dyad) and the "I" (the individual) in mutual reflection to create a shared narrative; and (3) emphasis on relationship as a factor impacting adjustment processes. Conclusions: Available evidence supports interdependent relationships between members of dyads for the three adaptation processes of comprehension, creative adaptation, and reintegration in the model. This dyadic reintegration model can be useful in clinical practice to support dyads facing life-limiting illness.

A linguistic study of Chinese Weibo users who lost their only child

The loss of an only child is one of the most painful life events and creates tremendous change in its parents' lives. Analyzing parents' online language use may help to better understand their loss, especially their psychological process. This study compared the online word use of 228 lost-only-child (LOC) parents to that of their peers. We also tracked the change in word use for a subset of these parents (n = 36) quarterly during the first 2 years following their bereavement. The implications of the word use of Chinese LOC parents for mood, parent-child bond, and lifestyle are then discussed.

Autobiographical Memory, Personality, and Facebook Mementos

The present study analyzed the relationships between directive, self and social functions of autobiographical memory, personality traits, as defined by the Five Factor model, and the Facebook mementos. We defined Facebook mementos as objective measures of the textual (i.e., Facebook Status Updating) and visual (i.e., Photos uploading) information people record on their Facebook profiles. Questionnaires gathered data from a sample of 193 Italian Facebook users (148 female; 45 male; age M = 22.8, SD = 6.8). Results at path analysis using AMOS showed direct significant positive associations between personality traits related to extraversion, openness, neuroticism, conscientiousness and Facebook mementos. Extraversion and openness were positive precursors of the directive, self and social functions of autobiographical memory, whereas neuroticism predicted directive and self-functions, and conscientiousness was a positive precursor of the directive function of autobiographical memory. As well, indirect significant positive paths among extraversion, neuroticism, openness and the frequency of photos uploaded on Facebook for collecting life events have emerged via the mediation of the self-continuity function of autobiographical memory. In sum, the present study highlights how individual differences in motivations for using autobiographical memory for directive-behavior, self-continuity or social-bonding purposes deeply related with the personal experience of using social media as a repository tool for textual or visual information.

Examining the factor structure of narrative meaning-making for stressful events and relations with psychological distress

This study examined the underlying factor structure of 15 narrative meaning-making indices for narratives of stressful events, and explored the incremental validity of the narrative factor solution over and above general personality traits in predicting various indices of psychological well-being. Two-hundred and twenty four undergraduates (M_age = 19.2 years, SD_age = 2.1; 114 males and 110 females; 67.6% Caucasian, 12.0% East Asian, 7.6% African-American, 4.0% South Asian, 2.2% Hispanic, and 6.7% as mixed or Other origin) wrote about the most traumatic experience in their life, and completed a series of psychological questionnaires. The narratives were coded in 15 ways theoretically derived from the narrative meaning-making literature. A series of exploratory structural equation models indicated that a four-factor solution best approximated the data. The four factors were: positive processing, negative processing, integrative meaning, and structure. All four factors related differentially to indices of well-being over and above traits. There appear to be four distinct, but related, factors of narrative meaning-making for memories of stressful events, which shed light on the nuanced relations with well-being.

Functions of Autobiographical Memory in Younger and Older Adults

Functional approach to autobiographical memory (AM) posits its three broad functions: directive, self, and social. Although these functions are probably universal, life stage and gender variations are expected. This research builds on previous studies investigating the validity of Thinking About Life Experiences Questionnaire (TALE; Bluck and Alea, 2011). A sample of 365 adults (56% female, mean age 43.3 years), divided in 2 age cohorts (young: 18–45 years, old: 46–90 years), used TALE, to rate their tendency of using AM for three different purposes, and measures of self-concept clarity, attachment in close relationships and time perspective. Confirmatory factor analysis of TALE confirmed the tripartite model of AM functions and further analysis showed partial factorial equivalence across age and gender groups. Young tend to use AM more for directing future behavior and social-bonding, while no age differences were found in the use of AM to serve self-function. As for gender variations, women tend to use AM more for directing their behavior, while no other gender differences in the use of AM were found. TALE showed good internal consistency and convergent validity of the three subscales. The theory-driven hypotheses that individuals with low self-concept clarity would use AM more often to serve a self-function, those with higher levels of attachment anxiety would use AM more often to serve a social function, and those past-oriented would use memory more often for directive purpose, were all confirmed. Also confirmed was the notion of Past Negative Orientation to be more related to the directive use of AM than Past Positive Time Orientation. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Risk and Resilience Factors Related to Parental Bereavement Following the Death of a Child with a Life-Limiting Condition

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on risk and resilience factors impacting on parental bereavement outcomes following the death of a child with a life-limiting condition. Over the past few decades, bereavement research has focussed primarily on a risk-based approach. In light of advances in the literature on resilience, the authors propose a Risk and Resilience Model of Parental Bereavement, thus endeavouring to give more holistic consideration to a range of potential influences on parental bereavement outcomes. The literature will be reviewed with regard to the role of: (i) loss-oriented stressors (e.g., circumstances surrounding the death and multiple losses); (ii) inter-personal factors (e.g., marital factors, social support, and religious practices); (iii) intra-personal factors (e.g., neuroticism, trait optimism, psychological flexibility, attachment style, and gender); and (iv) coping and appraisal, on parental bereavement outcomes. Challenges facing this area of research are discussed, and research and clinical implications considered.

Adjusting to a Diagnosis of Cancer: Processes for Building Patient Capacity for Decision-Making

This short report contributes to the expanding body of qualitative research literature about the cognitive processes of newly diagnosed cancer patients as they adjust to a diagnosis of cancer. The study is based on secondary qualitative analysis of audio records collected as part of a larger NIH study (RO1D: An Interdisciplinary Perspective: A Social Science Examination of Oncofertility RL1 HD058296). Core categories illustrate the processes of "naming it," "dealing with dealing with it," and finding the "new norm" and were based on nine patient experiences. We observe that our substantive conceptual categories have equivalents in bereavement and grief literature where researchers have posited the theory that processing the diagnosis of a terminal illness is the equivalent to adjusting to a bereavement. These findings emphasize the importance of understanding real-time patient thoughts and feelings as soon after diagnosis as was possible with full patient consent.

Parents' traces in life: When and how parents are presented in spontaneous life narratives

OBJECTIVE

Although parents are acknowledged to be a part of their children's personality and narrative identity and to remain important across the life span, narrative personality research has not yet explored the spontaneous presentation of parents in life stories. Therefore, this study examined longitudinally the place given to parents when crafting one's life narrative and how this changes with age. Furthermore, in contrast to prior studies, we focused on spontaneous mentions of parents.

METHOD

We investigated how often parents are mentioned in life narratives of six age groups spanning from age 8 to 69, how the parental relationship is evaluated, whether narrators express understanding of their parents, and whether they respond to parental values.

RESULTS

People of all ages dedicated a substantial part of their life narratives to their parents and evaluated their relationship with them in an increasingly differentiated manner. Parents were increasingly perceived as individuals beyond their parental nurturing role. Until late in life, individuals reflect on values and opinions that were transferred to them by their parents.

CONCLUSIONS

Parents hold a consistent place in life narratives, emphasizing their importance for narrative identity. Results are discussed in terms of lifelong child-parent relationships. Directions for future research are outlined.

Personality, negative social exchanges, and physical health among bereaved adults

While much research has investigated the association between personality and health, little research has done so using a bereaved sample. Additionally, little research has investigated how personality influences the frequency of negative social exchanges bereaved individuals receive. This study utilized a structural equation model to investigate the associations among age, gender, personality, negative social exchanges, length of bereavement, and self-reported physical health in a sample of bereaved adults. Results indicated that personality was associated with negative social exchanges and physical health. Therefore, these variables are important and should be studied further in this context.

The Autobiographical Author Through Time

We examined continuity and change in the tendencies to construct a life story (i.e., narrative identity) that was redemptive or contaminated in nature. In Study 1, college freshmen and seniors wrote accounts of several autobiographical key scenes pertinent to narrative identity twice over a 3-year period. In Study 2, midlife adults provided, via a semistructured interview, key scenes twice over a 5-year period and also indicated whether their employment status had changed between assessments. Across studies, the rank-order consistency of redemptive and contaminated stories was moderate and low to moderate, respectively. In Study 1, the frequency of redemptive and contaminated stories increased throughout college. Furthermore, the frequency of contaminated stories decreased following graduation. In Study 2, changes in employment status corresponded with reduced redemptive imagery. These results suggest a possible narrative acculturation of young adults as well as a correspondence between changes in life circumstances and narrative identity.

Going global: functions of autobiographical remembering world tour

This special issue showcases research from around the world that takes a functional approach to autobiographical remembering. In doing so, it inspires researchers to reach out to new populations. This commentary begins with a brief history of the functional approach. Person-environment interactions, in this case how individuals use memory in their current cultural context, are at the core of that approach. Based on current theoretical thinking in this area, I review the papers in this issue with the aim of exploring: (1) where culture and function might fit in current conceptualisations of autobiographical memory, (2) the relation of culture to socio-structural variables such as gender and life phase in shaping the functions of memory and (3) differences in cultural tendencies to use autobiographical memory as a resource to fulfil universal human needs.

Online Grief Support Communities

Online grief support communities have become popular in recent years for those seeking information and empathetic others following the death of someone close to them. Hundreds of Facebook pages and Web sites are now devoted to bereavement—and health-care professionals need to assess what therapeutic benefits virtual communities might offer to help people manage grief and integrate death into their lives. In the current study of online grief support networks ( N = 185), individuals report less psychological distress as a result of joining these groups—and this psychosocial benefit increased over time. Individuals who were members for a year or more characterized their grief as less severe compared with those who had a shorter tenure in the community. Additional findings and implications are discussed.

Function in context: why American and Trinidadian young and older adults remember the personal past

Multiple and interacting contextual (culture, life phase) and person-specific predictors (i.e., personality, tendency to think-talk about the past) of the functions of autobiographical memory were examined using the Thinking about Life Experiences Scale. American (N = 174) and Trinidadian (N = 182) young and older adults self-reported how frequently they remembered the personal past to serve self, social and directive functions, how often they thought and talked about their past overall, and completed a measure of trait personality. Independent contextual and person-specific predictors were found for using memory to serve a social-bonding function: Americans, young adults, those higher in extraversion, lower in conscientiousness and individuals who frequently think and talk about the past more often use autobiographical memory for social bonding. Across cultures, younger adults report more frequently using memory to serve all three functions, whereas Trinidadians who think more often about the past compared with those who reflect less often are more likely to use it for self and directive functions. Findings are discussed in terms of the individual's embeddedness in cultural and life phase contexts when remembering.

Selective disclosure in a first conversation about a family death in James Agee's novel A Death in the Family

The first conversation of a family about a family death is a neglected but potentially important topic. In a first conversation in James Agee's (1957/ 2006) novel A Death in the Family, the member who knows the most about the accidental death of another member discloses information selectively. The first conversation in Agee's novel suggests that communication and caring in the first family conversation about a death is attuned to family member emotions, particularly those of the family member considered most vulnerable, and that the aim is not a shared narrative that is true, but one that people can live with.

Donor families, distinctive secondary losses, and "second death" experiences

Communication between donor families and the recipients of their loved ones' organs and tissues is a relatively new area of study. The National Kidney Foundation founded the National Donor Family Council in 1992 as a home for donor families. One of several items addressed by the Council was guidelines for communication, supporting the rights of donor families and recipients to communicate and build relationships should they choose to do so. Donation and transplant agencies play a strong role in facilitating and supporting donor families and recipients with these unique new relationships. This article offers 3 case examples of distinctive secondary losses and "second death" experiences encountered by some donor family members when the donation of tissues or organs they have authorized could not be used for transplantation, when those grafts fail or are rejected, or when the recipient dies. On that basis, the article explores the nature of these experiences and some reasons why they occur. Initial recommendations about how to address these experiences are provided. Finally, a 4-part agenda is suggested for research about (1) the nature of these distinctive secondary loss and second death experiences encountered by some donor families; (2) communications between donation and transplant professionals, on the one hand, and potential and actual donor family members, on the other hand; (3) the education, training, and support of professionals who provide bereavement support to donor family members; and (4) a review of the National Communication Guidelines.

Personality in 100,000 Words: A large-scale analysis of personality and word use among bloggers

Previous studies have found systematic associations between personality and individual differences in word use. Such studies have typically focused on broad associations between major personality domains and aggregate word categories, potentially masking more specific associations. Here I report the results of a large-scale analysis of personality and word use in a large sample of blogs (N=694). The size of the dataset enabled pervasive correlations with personality to be identified for a broad range of lexical variables, including both aggregate word categories and individual English words. The results replicated category-level findings from previous offline studies, identified numerous novel associations at both a categorical and single-word level, and underscored the value of complementary approaches to the study of personality and word use.

A Social Interactional Model of Bereavement Narrative Disclosure

According to recent bereavement research, disclosing the narrative of one's loss does not per se promote emotional recovery. At the same time, social, personality, and developmental research suggests that telling personal stories is an important means of building identity and relationships throughout adulthood. Drawing on this literature, this review illustrates how bereavement narrative disclosure may be instrumental in addressing psychosocial challenges associated with bereavement (e.g., relationship formation, identity reconstruction, and meaning making). Multiple individual and social factors may affect how successful bereavement narrative disclosure is these challenges. Applying a social interactional model of memory telling, this review examines the influence of the relationship of narrator and listener, their personality characteristics, the content and structure of the narrative, the type of loss, and the time since the loss in facilitating or disrupting the putative goals of bereavement narrative disclosure. The utility of this model for clinicians working with bereaved individuals is also explored.