Qualitative Psychology

© 2019 American Psychological Association 2019, Vol. 6, No. 2, 156 –166

2326-3601/19/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/qup0000150

Retelling Lives: Narrative Style and Stability of Highly Emotional

Events Over Time

Robyn Fivush Tilmann Habermas

Emory University Goethe University Frankfurt
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Elaine Reese
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University of Otago

Narrative forms are a tool for organizing lived experience, reflecting both the structure
of the experience in the world, and the individual’s reactions to that experience; Labov
(1972) termed these as referential and evaluative dimensions. We investigated how
four individuals narratively structure their stories across these formal narrative com-
ponents in their high- and low-point narratives in relation to stability of life story event
selection. Two participants showed a consistent, referentially elaborated and/or evalu-
atively dramatic narrative style, and also narrated the same culturally canonically
scripted events over time. In contrast, two participants displayed less referentially
elaborate, evaluative narrative styles which were specifically less consistent in the
low-point narratives, and each narrated different high and low points over time. We
posit that individual and cultural differences in the stability of the content of life stories
might be related to the consistency of narrative style used for the life story. We discuss
the possible roles of conventionality of life courses, canonicity of life stories, individ-
ualistic versus communal outlook, and rehearsal of a stock of life story anecdotes.

Keywords: narrative, autobiography, life story

The narrative turn in psychology focuses on
the ways in which humans create meaning by
storying their lives. Human cognition carves the
flow of lived experience into meaningful tem-
poral units with beginnings, middles, and ends,
stories that provide a narrative structure to hu-
man understanding (Bruner, 1990; Ricoeur,
1980; Sarbin, 1986). If and how each individual
constructs a life story that is coherent and con-
sistent is a pressing issue for exploring how
individuals construct identity; deep qualitative
analyses allow more complex and nuanced un-
derstanding of this process. Certainly, what in-
dividuals narrate informs personality, traits,
motivations, and motifs (McAdams, 1990,
2015). We argue that how people narrate is
equally informative; how individuals structure
their stories and integrate referential and evalu-
ative dimensions informs how humans use nar-
rative to create meaning more broadly. We ex-
plore how formally defined individual narrative
styles and their consistency across narrated
events and time relates to the stability of events
selected as biographically salient, and how both
express and inform identity, especially around
highly emotional pivotal events, such as high
points and low points.

Robyn Fivush, Department of Psychology, Emory Uni-
versity; Tilmann Habermas, Department of Psychology,
Goethe University Frankfurt; Elaine Reese, Department of
Psychology, University of Otago.
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to Robyn Fivush, Department of Psychology, Em-
ory University, 36 Kilgo Circle, Atlanta, GA 30030. E-mail:
psyrf@emory.edu
156
Theoretical Frameworks
As cognitive developmentalists, our theoret-
ical frame highlights how cognitive skills and
tools are used to organize information about
personal experience, and how this process un-
folds over developmental time (e.g., Fivush,
Booker, & Graci, 2017; Habermas & Reese,
 NARRATIVE STYLE AND STABILITY
2015; Reese et al., 2011). Stemming from Vy-
gotsky’s (1978) sociocultural perspective, we
argue that cultures provide tools for organizing
thought, and narratives are one of the critical
linguistic tools provided universally across cul-
tures (Bruner, 1990; Fivush & Nelson, 2004;
Gottschall, 2012). Narrative tools are learned
through guided participatory activity across de-
velopment; as children are drawn into and de-
velop these culturally mediated narrative forms,
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they begin to understand their experiences and
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themselves in alignment with these forms (Fi-
vush, Habermas, Waters, & Zaman, 2011; Re-
ese, Yan, Jack, & Hayne, 2010; Wang, 2013).
Thus, how individuals narrate their personal
experiences is constructed in sociocultural con-
texts, and these narrative forms come to define
individual experience.
Our cognitive-developmental stance focuses
on processes of change over time. We under-
stand how life stories originate from the rudi-
mentary personal narratives of early childhood,
and continue to evolve as developmental abili-
ties, tasks, and challenges emerge across the life
span (Fivush et al., 2017; Reese et al., 2011).
Our sociocultural stance focuses on how coher-
ent life stories in adulthood arise from individ-
ual differences in the early reminiscing environ-
ment with parents, and that narrators will vary
in their styles in accordance with their cultural
backgrounds, life experiences, and identities.
Our focus is on individual differences in how
cultural identities may inform narrative struc-
ture across development. In addition, Haber-
mas’ psychoanalytic training tuned us to the
myriad unconscious meanings that surface
forms of speech may implicate. At all points,
our focus is on how meaning is implied through
narrative form.
Narratives are a cultural tool that reflects both
the structure of the experience in the world and
the individual’s reactions to that experience in
ways that create human meaning. Labov termed
these the referential and evaluative dimensions
of narrative (Labov, 1972, 2008; Labov &
Waletzky, 1967/1997; Peterson & McCabe,
1983; see Reese et al., 2011 for a review). An
understandable and compelling narrative ad-
dresses the question of “what happened?” (ref-
erential information) and “why does it matter?”
(evaluative information), and relates this infor-
mation within a more holistic narrative macro-
structure that includes orientation, complicating
157
action, and resolution (Labov, 2008). This for-
mal description of narrative raises the question
of individual narrative style (McLean, Pasu-
pathi, Greenhoot, & Fivush, 2017). Narrators
with a consistent narrative style provide similar
narrative forms, expressed as similar levels of
referential and/or evaluative detail narrated
within a similar macrostructure across their
event narratives. Narrators with a less consis-
tent, more variable style provide different levels
of referential and/or evaluative detail and dif-
fering macrostructure across events and time.
Obviously, the form of the narrative must
partly rely on the narrative arc of the experi-
enced event. Experiences that are difficult or
negative often have a canonical story structure
of a problem besetting the protagonist that re-
quires some action for resolution. Positive ex-
periences, in contrast, are usually not centered
on a problem that needs to be resolved, and the
resulting narrative structure is likely to be flat-
ter, with less of a narrative arc from problem, to
attempted solution, to resolution (Fivush, Haz-
zard, Sales, Sarfati, & Brown, 2003; Fivush,
Sales, & Bohanek, 2008). Thus, narrative style
may vary as a function of event valence. To
probe these questions, we investigated how our
four case studies expressed their individual nar-
rative style across two events of high emotional
impact, the high-point and the low-point event,
at the first and second life story interviews. We
acknowledge that limiting our analyses to these
narratives may limit our ability to generalize
about these individuals. However, our goal is to
elucidate how narrative style might vary with
the stability of life stories rather than to describe
specific individuals (e.g., Josselson, 2011). In
line with our theoretical framework, we concep-
tualized narrative style in three ways: (a) by
characterizing the macrostructure of each nar-
rative in terms of canonical narrative compo-
nents; (b) by considering microanalytic ele-
ments concerning the referential function; and,
(c) by considering the evaluative function.
Three Elements of Narrative Style
Narrative Macrostructure
A personal narrative prototypically begins
with orienting information that introduces the
main characters and locates the event in time
and place (e.g., the who, when, and where of the
 158 FIVUSH, HABERMAS, AND REESE
narrative; Labov, 2008). Sometimes this orien-
tation is preceded by an abstract or overview of
the event. The following complication section
details the complicating event that breaches
normality. Sometimes a series of actions lead up
to a climax that is followed by a resolution,
which may be positive or negative, sometimes
ending with a coda that brings the temporal
setting back into the present. Evaluating infor-
mation (emotions, emphasis, and insight) is es-
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sential for conveying the importance of the
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event to the narrator, and why the event is
reportable to others.
Referential Aspect
The constitutive parts of narratives are narra-
tive clauses, defined by Labov (2008) as inde-
pendent clauses joined by a temporal juncture
that together answer the implicit question “And
then what happened?” Generally, the order of
narrative clauses reflects the order of the actual
events. Typically, these clauses begin with “and
then . . .”. The sequence of clauses can be
moved only to a limited degree without chang-
ing the meaning. Narrative clauses render nar-
ratives vivid by simulating the sequence of
events, drawing listeners into the storyworld.
Lengthier narratives are often more referentially
dense and elaborated.
Evaluative Aspect
In addition to what happened, good narratives
include why it matters. This information is car-
ried through multiple forms of evaluative de-
vices that provide the narrators’ and others’
subjective perspectives onto the narrated events.
At the structural level, the simple use of evalu-
ative clauses in the narrative (e.g., “And here’s
the worst part”), provides narrative description
of why this matters. In addition, casting events
in the historical present is a way to create a
sense of immediacy by moving the narrative out
of the past and into the present moment (Schif-
frin, 1981). The use of dialogue in personal
narratives lends an air of objectivity to the nar-
rative and is an important form of self-
presentation (Bakhtin, 1981; Labov, 2008; Wal-
ton & Walton-Wetzel, 2013). Direct speech is a
more vivid form of dialogue than indirect
speech and creates a dramatic telling by replay-
ing the speakers’ voices (Tannen, 1986). Direct
speech can also be used to dramatize thoughts
as an internal monologue. These dramatizing
devices draw listeners into the protagonist’s ex-
periential perspective. Finally, narratives that
include internal state language that describes
thoughts and emotions, desires and perceptions
help create a narrative that is both meaningful
and compelling (Fivush & Baker-Ward, 2005).
These various evaluative aspects of narratives
mark the multiple subjective perspectives from
which events are interpreted, and mark a basic
level of self-reflection, a focus not just on what
happened but how one interprets, evaluates, and
understands the event. Narratives without any
subjective perspective may leave listeners won-
dering about the narrator’s state of mind (Hab-
ermas & Diel, 2010).
Integrating referential and evaluative narra-
tive aspects is an indication that the narrator
“owns” the experience, that the experience is
singular and unique to the self (Fivush, 2001,
2012). Adding others’ subjective perspectives
renders the narrative more balanced and com-
plete (Habermas, 2006). However, subjective
perspectives may be represented in narrative but
turned impersonal by using impersonal subjects
like one or a generic you and by using an
atemporal present tense, placing the narrator’s
reactions in a more communal, shared context
that describes a universal experience (e.g., “You
are just so proud.”). Such impersonal and atem-
poral perspectives may also serve defensive
ends (Habermas, 2006) or they may simply re-
flect the narrator’s emotional distance from the
events, which tends to increase with time (Hab-
ermas & Berger, 2011).
Narrative Style in the Narratives of High
and Low Points
We examined the high-point and low-point
narratives of two low repeaters and two high
repeaters at the first and second life story inter-
views, as described in the introduction to this
special issue, in order to investigate individual
narrative styles in terms of narrative structure,
referential and evaluative aspects, and of their
consistency. These participants were drawn
from a larger study conducted at Northwestern
University (Dan McAdams, PI), and approved
by that institutions’ internal review board (IRB
STU00001801-MODCR0002). We began our
analysis by discussing at length what each of
these narrative dimensions were, and how they
 NARRATIVE STYLE AND STABILITY
could be identified in the narratives. We then
independently identified specific instances
within the narratives, shared our descriptions
with each other, discussed and refined our def-
initions, and repeated this process. Through it-
erative readings and discussions, we mutually
refined our definitions and descriptions of what
counted as elements of the narrative macro-
structure, referential and evaluative clauses. Ul-
timately, we described each narrative through
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mutual consensus of each of these elements. We
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present the analyses in two phases. We first
describe each participant individually, describ-
ing the use of these narrative devices across
events and time, and summarizing each partic-
ipant’s narrative style. We present brief extracts
to convey the flavor of each narrator’s style. In
the second stage, we compare across partici-
pants to provide a larger interpretative frame-
work for understanding consistency and vari-
ability in narrative style.
Renee (Low Repeater)
Narrative macrostructure. At the first life
story interview, Renee’s hig and lowpoint nar-
ratives were very short (200 words each) and
were still quite short at the second life story
interview (500 words). Other than the Year 5
low point, which was narrated more extensively
after a probe, responses contain no orientation
section, and, at most, very brief complication
sections. Overall, Renee’s narratives do not ex-
hibit a compelling canonical narrative structure.
Referential and evaluative aspects. All
four narratives contained few narrative clauses,
but all contained lengthy evaluative compo-
nents. In Year 1, the high-point story contained
only a brief evaluation of the AA sponsor. Eval-
uations in the low-point narrative focused on the
shortcomings of the husband’s character and her
self-criticism for not having been realistic about
them:
When my husband decided to walk out and called me
a nag. This was 2013 in our home but my house, and
I was quite devastated that he had no value on what I
had done for him. It meant absolutely nothing. I think
I had put unrealistic expectations on him and myself
believing that he would step up to the plate and be a
man. I was quite disillusional in believing that, not
actually putting things in their proper perspective. I
found that I wasn’t being honest about who he really
was and, you know. I found that it was my fault, later,
as much as it was his [ . . . ]. And it’s time for me to
smarten up and get out of this vicious cycle of self-
159
defeating, [not] going anywhere relationship. ‘Cause
he, he doesn’t know how to commit, and he doesn’t
know how to tell himself the truth. It’s my responsi-
bility for me to tell myself the truth.”
In Year 5, evaluations in the high-point story
focused on the bad character of her male col-
leagues, none of whom had attended her award
ceremony. The Year 5 low-point narrative about
the voluntary entering of a psychiatric ward and
the process of discovering her addiction prob-
lem stands out, because it creates immediacy
and perspective. Renee dramatized an episode
with the medical staff in which she explained
that she was mentally sane but addicted and
therefore needed rehab by using the historical
present and direct speech and internal mono-
logue. She reported only her own direct speech
and thought, while the other characters were
depicted as stupid. Also in the Year 1 low-point
and the Year 5 high-point stories Renee used
some mental verbs, but only from her own
perspective. She mostly expressed negative
emotions which were linked to a contrast be-
tween her own insight and the ignorance of the
men around her.
Renee’s narrative style. Across events and
time, Renee displayed very little narrativity;
most of the stories consist of her own reflec-
tions, which document a struggle to understand
better how to lead a good life. The few others’
perspectives were only mentioned to contrast
their incompetence (husband) and ignorance
(colleagues, medical personnel) to the protago-
nist’s knowing better. This style conveys her
sense of having to fight her way through life by
relying only on herself and not the family, hus-
band, or health professionals; she could rely
only on her AA sponsor, who, however, re-
mains extremely undernarrated. Overall, her
narratives display little narrative structure or
drama, with the exception of the Year 5 low
point when she was actively probed and did
provide a dramatic narrative.
Abigail (Low Repeater)
Narrative macrostructure. Abigail’s
high-point narratives are somewhat longer
(500 – 600 words) than her low-point stories
(400 words). This is highly atypical because
usually more effort is invested in narrating neg-
ative than positive events (Baumeister, Brat-
slavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001). All stories
 160 FIVUSH, HABERMAS, AND REESE
are about specific events as requested, and all
contain narrative clauses. They have very brief
orienting sections, brief complication sections
with few narrative clauses, mainly regarding the
actions of others, no resolutions, and relatively
long final evaluation sections.
Referential and evaluative aspects. The
narrative clauses in the high-point stories nar-
rate a detailed sequence of events at each of her
sons’ celebrations, and the evaluations highlight
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the significance of her sons’ achievements,
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whereas the low-point stories contain very few
narrative clauses. There is no use of the histor-
ical present or direct speech to create drama in
any of the stories. The high-point stories have
an impersonal quality, because Abigail used
mental state language mostly to present others’
evaluative perspectives: those of her sons, a
hypothetical perspective of her grandparents,
and a generalized parents’ perspective (how
parents generally feel). She used a generic sec-
ond person “you” to express her own emotions
as those of a generalized other (“You feel part
of your country”). The low-point stories, in
contrast, do contain first-person perspectives,
mostly emotions. They are evenly mixed with
her brother’s and mother’s perspectives in the
low-point story at Year 1 about the death of her
brother:
The moment in time that I’d like to talk about is the last
time that my husband and I went to visit him and he
was bedridden, very deteriorated. And we were feeding
him small amounts of liquid, when he was lying in bed.
It was a very difficult memory. I think what I was
feeling as a loss of— of the— of the person that was my
brother and of the unrealized dreams that he will—
would never—would never have in his life, and also
the sadness, because my mother was still living. I knew
that he was going to pass away and that my mother was
still living and still aware of how much he had suffered
and was going to be burying her child.
The low-point narrative at Year 5 stands out
because it was much longer and elaborated on
Abigail’s own emotions.
Abigail’s narrative style. All the narra-
tives purvey a strong sense of conforming to
norms and others’ expectations, behind which
the narrator’s individuality, and even more so,
her subjective experiences are mostly hidden.
This impression is conveyed by the stress on
positive events through narrative clauses, the
focus on how everybody else feels (both her
family members and the more generalized com-
munity), and the narrator’s defense of herself as
being a good person who acts appropriately. By
narrating specific events, Abigail fulfilled the
interviewer’s expectations, but she did not in-
dulge in the past experience by dramatizing, or
by delving into emotions and thoughts of the
past.
Dennis (High Repeater)
Narrative macrostructure. All of Dennis’
narratives are longer (800 words) compared to
Renee’s and Abigail’s, and the low-point story
in Year 5 is even longer (1,500 words). All
narratives contain an orientation, complication,
and resolution section, some even a coda. In the
high-point story of the first kiss, the sequence of
obstacles creates an increasing tension, with a
climax before the resolution (the kiss), resem-
bling the quest genre (Propp, 1968). The low-
point narratives pile one bad episode unto the
next. The Year 5 story of Dennis’s arrest con-
tains a series of five increasingly severe com-
plicating events. We use italics for the words
that were repeated verbatim from the first inter-
view. This is the narrative of the second com-
plication of being involved in a theft:
We were driving around in my mom’s station wagon
one night, and one of these guys had had his mini bike
being worked at in a motorcycle shop right on U.S.
Route 6 [ . . . ]. And we drive by there, and he goes,
“Oh, that fucker, you know, he did this and that,” and
there’s a mini bike out leaning against the wall. He
goes “Pull over,” and, you know, I was not one of the
dominant guys in this groups, more quite to the other
end. So I did. This guy runs across the street, steals the
mini bike, and throws it in the back of my mom’s
station wagon, and we take off.
Referential and evaluative aspects. All
narratives abound with narrative clauses, detail-
ing the sequence of complicating events step by
step. They use the dramatizing devices of direct
speech and internal monologue, as well as his-
torical present, which marks the climax. The
low-point story at Year 5 uses historical present
as well as direct speech by gang members (see
extract above) and later by the authorities to
mark the most intense complications. Some-
what surprisingly, the abundance of narrative
and dramatic elements is counterbalanced by a
relative dearth of internal states across narra-
tives.
Dennis’ narrative style. Dennis’ narrative
style differs starkly from Renee’s and Abigail’s
styles. Dennis told dramatic stories and built a
 NARRATIVE STYLE AND STABILITY
narrative arc. He repeated the events by restag-
ing them, leaving to the listener to infer his
subjective perspective. This is facilitated by the
dramatic narrative style and the good narrative
composition.
In addition to consistency of narrative style,
there is also consistency of referential informa-
tion across these stories. Comparing the first
kiss and the arrest story (Year 1 negative child-
hood memory, Year 5 low point) across the two
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tellings, the most central narrative clauses con-
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tain verbatim repetitions between retellings
(marked in italics). This suggests that the stories
have been told over and over again, which may
have contributed to their elaboration (cf. Nor-
rick, 1998). Still there is change over time. The
second tellings appear to be a little less drama-
tized and to be narrated with a little more hind-
sight, indicated by the addition of subsequent
narrative episodes, such as that Dennis reacted
differently from his father when confronted
with a comparable situation by his daughter.
Leah (High Repeater)
Narrative macrostructure. Similar to
Dennis, Leah’s low point was narrated at
greater length than the high point (1,400 vs.
1,000 words), and both shrank by over a third in
Year 5. All narratives have a brief orienting
section (except for Year 1 low point) and a
complication section, but no resolution. The
low-point cancer diagnosis story is complex,
consisting of three episodes. The birth narrative,
in contrast, consists only of the positive com-
plication episode of the birth except for a brief
orienting section, and of a second episode of
taking a break watching a sitcom:
So everyone left and I’m in the hospital, which I had
never really been before that I could remember. And I
wasn’t scared or anything but I knew that life had
changed now forever. I was 24 and someone was going
to call me Mom and it [crying], geez. I mean who
would do that? Who would call me Mom, you know?
What was she in for, this poor child? But I never had
any problem with it. My mom even said to me like
“You just bathe her and feed her, and you’ll see.” I, I
was not freaked out by her at all. I, you know, I had to
go through the whole breast feeding thing. [ . . . ] And,
okay, so this was a couple hours later, and they bring
her to me and they, you know, she’s sleeping or some-
thing or she was about to sleep. They’re always kind of
sleeping and, you know, they want you to start trying
to nurse which, you know, was not my biggest talent
but I didn’t know that at the time. And I was going to
do that and but she was kind of—I think she was sort
161
of just sleepy. And my favorite show happened to be
on. So it’s like 8:30 on Thursday which is Soap and I
loved Soap. And Tom [her husband] loved Soap too, so
he would have understood this. And, you know, I just
looked at her, I said, “Okay, you know, we have all the
rest of our lives to talk so I’m going to just watch this
show for a half hour and when I’m done we’ll have a
great time together. So if you could just, you know, do
your sleeping thing or whatever you do, you babies,”
and I just held her. And, you know, the world was
perfect. I was hysterically laughing at whatever was on
TV. I knew Tom was happy.
Referential and evaluative aspects. The
main episode of the birth story contains no
narrative clauses, although in Year 1 several
internal monologues dramatize thoughts about
the future and advice by her mother in direct
speech. The second episode of watching the
show (cf. extract above) was told with few
narrative clauses and stretches of a blend of
direct speech and internal monologue directed
at the baby. The cancer story, in contrast, is
replete with narrative clauses, most of which
introduce direct speech of both protagonist and
doctor/husband in “I said— he said” dialogues,
with some internal monologue in between. The
first two episodes of the low point are highly
dramatized.
All four of Leah’s narratives are rich in in-
ternal state language, especially in emotions,
and the low-point stories also in cognitions. The
representation of subjective experiencing is fo-
cused on the protagonist, but also includes the
family (and the daughter) in the birth story and
the doctor in the cancer diagnosis story. The
focus is on the past experience, not on hind-
sight.
Leah’s narrative style. Like Dennis, Leah
narrated at length, but her style is different,
especially in the high-point story. She focused
on her own past thoughts and accompanying
emotions, but less on the evolving action, which
remains without resolution. The thoughts
mostly elaborate possible futures. The birth
story main episode lacks a temporal sequence.
This is reinforced by a peculiar stylistic feature,
which is the use of present tense together with
generic syntactic subjects like “the nurses” or a
generic “you”: “in that situation nurses always
say, doctors always do, mothers always feel
. . .” This way of speaking distances from a
specific past sequence of events, and creates a
kind of impressionistic painting of an emotional
state of mind. Like Dennis’ narratives, there are
 162 FIVUSH, HABERMAS, AND REESE
several instances of verbatim or near verbatim
repetitions across both retellings (e.g., the
speech to her daughter), probably indicating
that both stories had been told repeatedly. In
fact, the positive event is not really narrated, but
told as a long internal monologue. In contrast,
the negative event is narrated and dramatized,
which only exaggerates the general difference
between narratives of positive and negative ex-
periences (e.g., Fivush & Baker-Ward, 2005).
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Narrative Style and the Stability of the
Events Selected for the Life Story Interview
Deep descriptions of each of the four narra-
tor’s styles provide insight into the consistency
of individual narrative style in relation to the
stability of choosing events from the life story.
Dennis and Leah, the two high repeaters, told
narratives that are longer and more elaborate in
terms of narrative structure and drama than Re-
nee and Abigail, the two low repeaters. But
Dennis and Leah differ from each other as well;
Dennis focused on the landscape of action, and
Leah on the landscape of consciousness
(Bruner, 1990). Dennis consistently used an ac-
tion-centered, dramatizing narrative style, in-
ducing the protagonist’s perspective rather than
explicitly naming it in terms of mental states,
whereas Leah consistently focused on naming
the protagonist’s subjective experience via her
own inner monologue, adding dramatic narra-
tive elements mostly in the negative stories.
Thus, both narrated in an elaborate, complex,
and dramatic way, but differed in their individ-
ual narrative forms.
Of note, Dennis and Leah also differentiated
between narratives of positive and negative ex-
periences. Their narratives of negative experi-
ence are longer and more complex than narra-
tives of positive experiences, both in terms of
number of episodes included, and use of dra-
matic narrative devices, supporting previous
theory and research on differences in event nar-
ratives as a function of valence (Fivush, Bohanek,
Zaman, & Grapin, 2012; Fivush & Baker-Ward,
2005; Fivush et al., 2008). Because negative ex-
periences create complications, they lend them-
selves to a more dramatic narration than posi-
tive events. Narrative variability between highly
positive and negative experiences may render
the life story more emotionally differentiated,
creating a sense of emotional ups and downs.
Thus, for Dennis and Leah the differentiation
between high- and low-point narratives is con-
sistent over time, and within this differentiation
by event valence, each also showed a consistent
elaborated and dramatic narrative style across
events and time.
In contrast, both Renee and Abigail narrated
the low-point event at the second interview
quite differently than the other three narratives,
which did not substantially differ from each
other. Thus, there is both less differentiation
between high-point and low-point events and
less consistency over time in narrative style,
especially for the low-point events. In general,
Renee consistently undernarrated, telling short
narratives that barely tell what happened and
contain few dramatic devices, but focus on her
more general evaluative stance toward her life.
There was a high focus on negative emotion
across all narratives even though different
events were selected to narrate. Abigail, in con-
trast, provided elaborated referential details for
the positive events, with almost no self-
evaluations. The mental states mentioned are
those of others or impersonal. This was also true
for the first interview low point; only the second
interview low point differs in being focused on
her own emotions due to her good name being
maligned by her sister-in-law. Thus, Dennis and
Leah showed high levels of narrativity overall,
consistency across time in how they narrated
positive and negative events, but also consis-
tently differentiated at each time point how they
narrated positive and negative events. In con-
trast, Renee and Abigail showed lower narrativ-
ity overall than Dennis and Leah, and less con-
sistency over time in how they narrated positive
and negative events, as well as less consistent
differentiation between positive and negative
narratives.
Why might the two narrators who selected
the same events show a more dramatic and
complex—as well as more consistent—narra-
tive style than the two narrators who did not
select the same events? Of note, the events
chosen repeatedly were older, stemming from
adolescence or early adulthood. Events which
occur in emerging and early adulthood are iden-
tity-defining (Erikson, 1968) and often conform
to a normative cultural life script (Rubin &
Berntsen, 2003). Indeed, the consistently nar-
rated events were meeting a romantic partner
and having a first child, clearly life-defining and
 NARRATIVE STYLE AND STABILITY
life-changing events that are part of the norma-
tive cultural life script. The exception was Le-
ah’s cancer narrative, which occurred 7 year
earlier. Diagnosis of a severe illness is a major
non-normative event; being a cancer survivor is
self-defining for most people and is expected to
be included in life narratives (Rubin & Bern-
tsen, 2003). These two narrators are very much
narrating culturally defining moments within
normative lives.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Indeed, looking at the overarching life narra-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
tive, Leah and Dennis tell a typical life story,
focusing on their individual development in ad-
olescence and early adulthood as the formative
years, followed by a stable marriage, children,
and profession. Their lives are very much in
conformity with the general middle-class Amer-
ican life story of success. They follow the cul-
tural norm of modern Western societies to fash-
ion and cultivate the self by binding together
diverse life events into an individualized and yet
coherent and continuous developmental story of
one’s life (Eakin, 2005; Giddens, 1991). Main-
taining self-continuity across change requires
integrating biographical breaks into the life
story by explicating and motivating transitions
(Habermas & Köber, 2015). Thus, these narra-
tives of life-changing events become pivot
points in the life story. The narratives convey a
sense that they have been told many times be-
fore, having been elaborated to a highly tellable
form (cf. Norrick, 1998). Dennis and Leah pro-
vide both stable events and a dramatic narrative
style, perhaps because their lives conform to
cultural norms—they are living the culturally
normative life script.
This contrasts with both Renee and Abigail.
Renee appears to have led a less scripted life.
Indeed, Black Americans tend to have fewer
resources and experience structural and endur-
ing discrimination, which is a recurring topic in
Renee’s life story. Black Americans have less
standardized normative expectations about the
life course (Coleman, 2014; see McLean &
Syed, 2015). Renee’s life may even be atypical
for a Black woman from an apparently lower-
income background, because she excelled at
school and succeeded in a White male-
dominated, well-paying technical job. Her life
did not resemble a middle-class life script be-
cause of her premature familial responsibilities,
her addiction, the chaotic family relations, vio-
lence, and unreliable love relationships. The
163
consequence may be, first, that Renee may have
less of a cultural template to guide a stable
selection of events for her life story, and, sec-
ond, that there is more focus on the present and
future than on a cultivated past which is difficult
to adapt to the ever-changing fortunes of her
life. Thus, her narrative style about specific
highly emotional experiences is sparse, with
little drama or tension (although we note that
her narratives contain many generalized evalu-
ative statements about the events and people in
her life). She does not seem to “collect” specific
stories that define a stable sense of self over
time. Her narratives are similar to life narratives
told by young Black women living highly chal-
lenging lives in the southeast United States;
their personal narratives are underdeveloped
(Sales, Merrill, & Fivush, 2013, in contrast to
young Black children’s superior oral narrative
skills in fictional narrative tasks, Curenton,
2011; Gee, 1989; Reese, Leyva, Sparks, &
Grolnick, 2010). Thus, we speculate that spec-
ificity and consistency in telling life stories
might be difficult for those who have experi-
enced many adverse life events.
In contrast, Abigail appears to have a middle-
class background, but differs from Leah and
Dennis in conceiving herself not in an individ-
ualized fashion, but primarily as a part of her
family and community. Others and relationships
are more important to her than cultivating the
self, which shows in the choice of events and of
subjective perspectives. If the life story is made
up by events of significant others, it fits less
easily into a canonical Western life script, and
events are less integrated into a stable life story.
Abigail’s life story is reminiscent of the life
stories collected by Hatiboğlu Altunnar in Tur-
key, which contained more events of family
members and were less globally coherent than
those of Germans (Altunnar & Habermas, 2018;
cf. Wang, 2013). Overall, Abigail’s stories are
characterized by a communal, less individualis-
tic orientation and of less scripted events, with a
good deal less focus on her own subjective
perspective. When a life is defined through oth-
ers, one’s own subjective perspective and nor-
mative life events—which render a life consis-
tent and coherent over time—may be lessened,
leading to a more variable selection of events in
the life story. This is supported by the finding
that if life narratives contain fewer life script
events and are overall less coherent, the selec-
 164 FIVUSH, HABERMAS, AND REESE
tion of life story events is less stable over time
(Köber & Habermas, 2017).
Concluding Comments
Our analyses focused on the relation between
narrative styles and their consistency across
events and time with the stability of selecting
the same high- and low-point events. High life
story event repeaters expressed more structur-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
ally complex and dramatic narratives than did
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
low repeaters, and high repeaters differentiated
between high-point and low-point events to a
greater extent and more consistently than did
low repeaters. Intriguingly, the two high repeat-
ers were living the more typical American cul-
tural life script, and narrated repeated events
that are culturally defined as prototypically piv-
otal in a life. The two individuals who were not
stable in the events selected lived somewhat
different lives—a Black American woman who
overcame addiction and lived a quite unpredict-
able life, and a White woman from an immi-
grant family who expressed a less individualis-
tic, more communal life perspective. These
women expressed narrative styles with less
structure, less drama, and less subjective per-
spective. Thus, stability of event selection and
consistency of narrative style may be facilitated
by conformity to a White Western canonical life
structure that invites narrators to tell the same
self-defining events over and over again, and
prizes individualism through elaborating and
dramatizing, perhaps stabilizing the narratives
in the process of repeated telling.
Our analyses reveal the deep interleaving of
narrative structure with culturally mediated ca-
nonical expectations of what a life is and how it
should be lived. Individuals conforming to a
typical life script have both the life experiences
and the culturally available narrative forms for
expressing these experiences in complex narra-
tive ways that rely on a certain form of shared
understanding of what a meaningful life is. In
contrast, individuals whose lives do not con-
form to the dominant cultural life script cannot
rely on shared narrative forms to express the
creation of meaning in less typical lives. Rather,
they struggle with expressing meaning in ways
that can be shared across cultural divides, yield-
ing less consistent narrations across time and
events. Thus, structural narrative analysis pro-
vides one way of understanding how dominant
cultural expectations both give voice to some
forms of experiences, and silence others (Fi-
vush, 2010).
Of course, we must be careful in drawing
universal implications of these differing styles.
We examined only high-point and low-point
narratives within the context of a life story
interview; thus, we were privileging a life story
schema as an organizational framework. Fur-
thermore, as we ourselves are members of mid-
dle-class European cultures, we may resonate to
the more dramatic narrative style of the high
repeaters and argue that this style is somehow
superior in terms of creating identity and stabil-
ity in a life, but the low repeaters in this study
belie this interpretation. The less consistent nar-
rating of the low points across tellings could, for
example, indicate that in the second life story
interview Renee and Abigail opened up more
and told more emotionally pressing events in a
more authentic way, whereas Dennis and Leah
repeated the ever-same stories. Also, given the
exigencies of their lives, Renee’s and Abigail’s
narrative styles may be better adapted to their
circumstances, namely to unpredictably chang-
ing life circumstances and to an other-centered
lifestyle. As our sociocultural theoretical frame
demands, we must interpret individual lives in
relation to the cultural contexts in which those
lives unfold; Renee and Abigail’s less complex
narratives conveyed as much about themselves
through their narrative evaluations as did the
two individuals telling highly structured dra-
matic stories. All of these possibilities call for a
more nuanced understanding of how identities
are created within cultural contexts that facili-
tate and constrain how lives are lived and ex-
periences are narrated.
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Received September 18, 2018
Revision received March 15, 2019
Accepted March 21, 2019 䡲