My Research

My research centers on identity development in adolescence and emerging adulthood.  I focus on how people recall and interpret their life experiences in narrative form.  I view narrative identity development as both an individual and a socio-cultural process.  In working on the individual level of analysis, I examine the meanings that individuals make of their most important memories, and how various patterns of narration are associated with personality and well-being.  On the socio-cultural level of analysis, I examine micro processes, such as how conversations with others impact how we story past events, as well as macro processes, such as the interactions with systems and structures that support and constrain the development of identity.  In my research I try to better understand how each person’s identity is at the same time unique to his or her own life story, as well as deeply integrated with the structural conditions of society.

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Why Change is Hard

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