ABSTRACT
The self is many things, but identity is a life story. In my life-story theory of identity (e.g., McAdams, 1985, 1993, 1996), I argued that identity takes the form of a story, complete with setting, scenes, characters, plot, and themes. In late adolescence and young adulthood, people living in modern societies begin to reconstruct the personal past, perceive the present, and anticipate the future in terms of an internalized and evolving self-story, an integrative narrative of self that provides modern life with some modicum of psychosocial unity and purpose. Life stories are based on autobiographical facts, but they go considerably beyond the facts as people selectively appropriate aspects of their experience and imaginatively construe both past and future to construct stories that make sense to them and to their audiences, that vivify and integrate life and make it more or less meaningful. A person’s evolving and dynamic life story is a key component of what constitutes the individuality of that particular person (McAdams, 2001; Singer, 1995), situated in a particular family and among particular friends and acquaintances (Thorne, 2000), and living in a particular society at a particular historical moment (Gregg, 1991). Life stories develop over time, and although identity itself does not become a salient psychosocial issue until the adolescent years (Erikson, 1963; Habermas & Bluck, 2000), the origins of life-story making and telling can be traced back to early childhood (Fivush, 1994), and traced forward to the last years in the human life course (Kenyon, 1996).
