The subjective life story as a resource for well-being
Final Report Abstract
The fifth wave (2019) of the long-term study MainLife, which has been collecting short life stories every four years since 2003, was able to recruit 138 from the original 172 participants of a lifespan sample consisting of six cohorts (age 2019: 24, 28, 32, 36, 52, 77 years). At the time the funding expired (summer 2022), we began analyzing the data. The central concern of the fifth wave was to investigate complex connections between age, critical life events, creation of coherence in life stories, and experienced self-continuity, symptom burden and well-being. The MainLife longitudinal study was concluded with its final fifth wave. It documents longitudinally over the lifespan the development of the ability of autobiographical judgment and storytelling and its multiple relations with a number of other psychological factors of personality and wellbeing.
Publications
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Lifespan effects of current age and of age at the time of remembered events on the affective tone of life narrative memories: Early adolescence and older age are more negative. Memory & Cognition, 51(6), 1265-1286.
Martin, Theresa; Kemper, Nina F.; Schmiedek, Florian & Habermas, Tilmann
