The nature of narrative coherence: An empirical approach

•The empirical structure of narrative coherence was examined.•Principle components analysis indicated three components of narrative coherence.•3 components were: Temporal Detail, Psychological Context, & Meaning/Interpretation. Coherence represents a foundational element of personal narratives,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of research in personality 2018-06, Vol.74, p.30-34
Main Authors: Adler, Jonathan M., Waters, Theodore E.A., Poh, Justin, Seitz, Sophia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coherence
Development
Identity
Narrative
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Summary:•The empirical structure of narrative coherence was examined.•Principle components analysis indicated three components of narrative coherence.•3 components were: Temporal Detail, Psychological Context, & Meaning/Interpretation. Coherence represents a foundational element of personal narratives, but the empirical nature of narrative coherence remains elusive. The present study applied an inductive empirical approach to determining the structure of narrative coherence, exploring shared and unique contributions from different established coding systems. Life stories from a diverse sample of 158 community adults were coded using three common coding systems for operationalizing narrative coherence (Baerger & McAdams, 1999; Lysaker, Clements, Plascak-Hallberg, Knipscheer, & Wright, 2002; Reese et al., 2011). Principle components analysis indicated three components, which were labeled Temporal Detail, Psychological Context, and Meaning/Interpretation. The three components do not map onto the existing coding systems in a one-to-one manner. This study suggests future directions for the quantitative study of narrative coherence.
ISSN:0092-6566
1095-7251
DOI:10.1016/j.jrp.2018.01.001