Told and Untold Narrative Identity: Disclosure Increases Meaning Making in Personal Narrative.

A talk by Christin Camia. Guests from outside of AUP must register 48 hours in advance.

Autobiographical memories are shared in form of narratives in order to regulate emotions (Pascuzzi & Smorti, 2017) and to gain insight into the personal meaning that the event might bear for the self (Conway, Singer, & Tagini, 2004). Although individuals share the vast majority of their experiences (Rimé, Finkenauer, Luminet, Zech, & Philippot, 1998), especially emotional events (Luminet, Bouts, Delie, Manstead, & Rimé, 2000), other events are kept secret (Pasupathi, McLean, & Weeks, 2009). Telling events is theorized to be the context, throughout which the construction of coherence, meaning making, and emotional processing occurs (Habermas, 2018; McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007). As a consequence, undisclosed events may exhibit less coherence, meaning making, or emotional processing.

Testing this hypothesis, this study compared disclosed and undisclosed events of 180 undergraduates (Mage = 20.47; SD = 3.35). More specifically, I assessed how different aspects of the event, the self, and the relationships influence disclosure and narrative meaning making. Results show that events are disclosed independent of valence, mostly to close others, and shortly after the event had happened. Further, disclosed events are more coherent and show more meaning made than undisclosed events. The degree to which individuals include close relationships in their self-concepts (relational self-aspect) does not influence disclosure, but, together with perceived social support and a supportive listener, predicts positive and negative meaning making.   

Christin Camia completed her PhD Degree in Psychology from Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany in 2015. She conducts research on Autobiographical Memory and Narrative Identity. After having worked at New York University Abu Dhabi, she has been appointed Assistant Professor of Psychology in Zayed University Abu Dhabi.