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“First we invented stories, then they changed us”: The Evolution of Narrative Identity

  • Dan P. McAdams
Published/Copyright: February 13, 2021
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Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture
From the journal Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture Volume 3 Issue 1

Abstract

An integrative psychological concept that bridges the sciences and humanities, narrative identity is the internalized and evolving story a person invents to explain how he or she has become the person he or she is becoming. Combining the selective reconstruction of the past with an imagined anticipated future, narrative identity provides human lives with a sense of unity, moral purpose, and temporal coherence. In this article, I discuss how the evolution of human storytelling provides the basic tools for constructing self-defining life narratives. I then consider theory and research on the development of narrative identity over the human life course, socially consequential variations in narrative identity, and how culture shapes the stories people tell about themselves. My overall perspective on narrative identity was formulated within the fields of personality and developmental psychology, but it is also informed by concepts and constructs in evolutionary biology, cognitive neurosci­ence, philosophy, and literary studies.

Keywords: narrative identity; stories; autobiographical memory; episodic future thought; culture; evolution; sociality; psychological development; agency; theory of mind
Published Online: 2021-02-13
Published in Print: 2019-12-01

© 2020 by Academic Studies Press

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Title
  2. Table of Contents
  3. TARGET ARTICLE
  4. “First we invented stories, then they changed us”: The Evolution of Narrative Identity
  5. RESPONSES TO TARGET ARTICLE
  6. Narrative Identity: A Cautionary Tale
  7. Narrative Self-Understanding Helps Construct the Unity of Self across Time
  8. Narrative Identity—Uniquely Human?
  9. Prompting Monopods, or The Options and Costs of Narrative
  10. Hard Truths and Comforting Fictions: Does Narrative Actually Construct Identity?
  11. “A life without stories is no life at all”: How Stories Create Selves
  12. Description, Explanation, and the Meanings of “Narrative”
  13. The Functionality of Self-Narratives
  14. The Implicit Narrativity of Objects and Ornaments—Widening the View
  15. Evolutionary Personality Psychology: Integrating the Many Functional Adaptations That Make Us Who We Are
  16. Of IPT and Archetypes
  17. The Creation of Stories: For the Person or for the Group?
  18. Can You Tell Stories about Human Intentional Agents without Words?
  19. Human Choices
  20. REJOINDER
  21. Identity, Narrative, Language, Culture, and the Problem of Variation in Life Stories
  22. REVIEW ESSAYS
  23. Beyond the End of the World: Narratives of Gain and Resilience in the Anthropocene
  24. The Roots of Human Creativity: Fire-Talks and “Hammocking” in the Runaway Species
  25. Philosophical, Neurological, and Sociological Perspectives on Religion
  26. BOOK REVIEWS
  27. Lisa F. Barrett, Michael Lewis, and Jeannette M. Haviland Jones, eds. Handbook of Emotions, 4th ed
  28. Russell Bonduriansky and Troy Day. Extended Heredity: A New Understanding of Inheritance and Evolution
  29. Pascal Boyer. Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create
  30. Peter Corning. Synergistic Selection: How Cooperation Has Shaped Evolution and the Rise of Humankind
  31. Philip Lieberman. The Theory That Changed Everything: “On the Origin of Species” as a Work in Progress
  32. Andrew W. Lo. Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought
  33. Ekkehart Malotki and Ellen Dissanayake. Early Rock Art of the American West: The Geometric Enigma
  34. Martin N. Muller, Richard W. Wrangham, and David R. Pilbeam, eds. Chimpanzees and Human Evolution
  35. Gil G. Rosenthal. Mate Choice: The Evolution of Sexual Decision Making from Microbes to Humans
  36. Judith Saunders. American Classics: Evolutionary Perspectives
  37. Steve Stewart-Williams. The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve
  38. Contributors
https://doi.org/10.26613/esic.3.1.110
Keywords for this article
narrative identity; stories; autobiographical memory; episodic future thought; culture; evolution; sociality; psychological development; agency; theory of mind

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Title
  2. Table of Contents
  3. TARGET ARTICLE
  4. “First we invented stories, then they changed us”: The Evolution of Narrative Identity
  5. RESPONSES TO TARGET ARTICLE
  6. Narrative Identity: A Cautionary Tale
  7. Narrative Self-Understanding Helps Construct the Unity of Self across Time
  8. Narrative Identity—Uniquely Human?
  9. Prompting Monopods, or The Options and Costs of Narrative
  10. Hard Truths and Comforting Fictions: Does Narrative Actually Construct Identity?
  11. “A life without stories is no life at all”: How Stories Create Selves
  12. Description, Explanation, and the Meanings of “Narrative”
  13. The Functionality of Self-Narratives
  14. The Implicit Narrativity of Objects and Ornaments—Widening the View
  15. Evolutionary Personality Psychology: Integrating the Many Functional Adaptations That Make Us Who We Are
  16. Of IPT and Archetypes
  17. The Creation of Stories: For the Person or for the Group?
  18. Can You Tell Stories about Human Intentional Agents without Words?
  19. Human Choices
  20. REJOINDER
  21. Identity, Narrative, Language, Culture, and the Problem of Variation in Life Stories
  22. REVIEW ESSAYS
  23. Beyond the End of the World: Narratives of Gain and Resilience in the Anthropocene
  24. The Roots of Human Creativity: Fire-Talks and “Hammocking” in the Runaway Species
  25. Philosophical, Neurological, and Sociological Perspectives on Religion
  26. BOOK REVIEWS
  27. Lisa F. Barrett, Michael Lewis, and Jeannette M. Haviland Jones, eds. Handbook of Emotions, 4th ed
  28. Russell Bonduriansky and Troy Day. Extended Heredity: A New Understanding of Inheritance and Evolution
  29. Pascal Boyer. Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create
  30. Peter Corning. Synergistic Selection: How Cooperation Has Shaped Evolution and the Rise of Humankind
  31. Philip Lieberman. The Theory That Changed Everything: “On the Origin of Species” as a Work in Progress
  32. Andrew W. Lo. Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought
  33. Ekkehart Malotki and Ellen Dissanayake. Early Rock Art of the American West: The Geometric Enigma
  34. Martin N. Muller, Richard W. Wrangham, and David R. Pilbeam, eds. Chimpanzees and Human Evolution
  35. Gil G. Rosenthal. Mate Choice: The Evolution of Sexual Decision Making from Microbes to Humans
  36. Judith Saunders. American Classics: Evolutionary Perspectives
  37. Steve Stewart-Williams. The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve
  38. Contributors
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