Individuals narrate stories to explain how they became who they are, forming their own narrative identity. Highly disruptive experiences such as child maltreatment (CM) may be challenging to integrate into the life story and even to narrate coherently just by themselves. To test these potential effects, we divided a total of 171 students at an…

The ability to narrate stories and a synchronic self-concept develop in the pre- and primary school years. Life story theory proposes that both developments extend to an even later developmental stage, that is, to adolescents' acquisition of a coherent life story. Cross-sectional evidence supports the emergence of a life story in adolescence, but…

Extending the study of autobiographical narratives to entire life narratives, we tested the emergence of globally coherent life narratives in adolescence, as hypothesized by McAdams (1985). Participants were 102 children and young adults (ages 8, 12, 16, and 20 years) who narrated their lives twice. Between narrations, half of each age group…