ABSTRACT
This chapter examines psychological theory and empirical evidence demonstrating that a coherent narrative identity is created in everyday social interactions, beginning early in child development, and that individual narrative identity is very much an evolving socially constructed process. It uses the term "self" and "identity" interchangeably to refer to the sense of personal continuity and emotional coherence conferred by the narrative life story. The chapter explicates narrative identity in more detail and examines how narrative identity begins to develop in early parent–child reminiscing. It argues that the early emergence and ongoing maintenance of a narrative identity is a socioemotional construction, forged in interactions in which we co-narrate the experiences of our lives with others who validate, contest, negate, and negotiate what happened and what it means. The chapter argues that dialectical relations between reminiscing and socio-emotional attachment undergirds the process by which children internalize the narrative tools and cultural values to understand and evaluate new experiences across development.
