Outline

Proposes a model for identity development. Their model moves attention from a “relatively exclusive examination of the individual to an examination of the intersection between self and society.”

Explains how “master narratives can constrain individual identities by typing those identities to these specific master narratives, which are then internalized as part of their idientities” [See Hammack, 2011].

Further, there can be a worry about power structures which shape master narratives, “those with good story telling skills, authority (politicians, parents), or those with access to the ‘masses’, have greater power to confer master narratives and to perpetuate them” [Boje, 1991; Finush 2010].

Academia may represent several power dynamics, good story-telling skills, ability to shape the narrative structures of influential individuals, i.e. politicians, impressionable but weatlhy individuals, i.e. students,

But this should not ignore the role of the media,

The media, in particular, control the flow of information that shapes how these events are first encoded, remembered and narrated, sometimes with dangerous consequences [e.g., Tropp 2012].

who just may all have been influenced in some way by academia. But perhaps this just speaks to the need to democratize and diversify academia. However it says nothing about those individuals who may be alienated for their own alternative narratives.

Narrative Approach to Identity Development

1. Five principles for defining master narratives:
   1. ubiquity
   2. utility
   3. invisiblity
   4. rigidity
   5. compulsory
2. Three types of master narratives:
   1. life course
   2. structural
   3. episodic
3. bring attention to interaction between self and society
4. contraints on individual agency to construct a personal identity
5. raises questions that emerge out of the framework that hopefully inspires future work on relationship between jself and society in the study of identity development.

This “master narrative model of identity development allows researchers to” (1) study culture and individual through narratives, (2) investigate processes of negotiating personal and cultural narratives, (3) investigate internalization of “those structures in personal identities.

Propsoes a master narrative framework for studying identity developement. 1. attends to both individual and cutural structures “in which the individual develops” and “captures dynamics of that relationship.” 2. Their framewrok of “Understanding identity development encompasses the person, the culture, and the processes of negotiation between the two.”

Background:

1. Development of peronsal identity critical psychosoical task across lifespan (Erikson 1968; McAdams & Zapa-Gietl 2015).
2. Manifestations of identity development in early childhood (Fivush & Zaman 2015).
3. Continues across adulthood and into old age (Kroger 2015).
4. Developmental processes of identity centrally located between child and adulthood. Sucess indicated by transition out of first into second (Erikson 1968; Kroger 2015; McAdams 1993; Syed & McLean 2016).
5. What are the processes through which individuals go about task of development? What are the cultural contexts that intertwine with individuals as they begin to “construct an understanding of who they are”? (Erik Erikson 1950, 1968).
6. Components of identity development (McLean & Syed 2015; Schwartz, Luyckx, & Vignoles 2011).
7. specific processes adolescents and adults engage as identities develop, and various outcomes associated with these processes (Hammack & Cohler 2009; Kunnen & Metz 2015; McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals 2007; Meeuus 2011).
8. However, what are the cultural contexts of identity development? Less known perhaps because of lack of an organizaing framework for capturing “these isssues” (McLean & Syed 2015).

Standard Identity Model:

[society] –> [agent] = traditionally (unidimensional or bidirectional) causal or correlational relationship

society = societal structure, “context” i.e., culture, individual [see Kagitcibasi 2005; Masumoto 1999].

However, doesn’t answer “How does the indivdiual make sense of - or internalize — the cultural context of (i.e. individualism in an indiviudalistic culture)” how does the “culture get to the individual”?

Narrative identity model:

History of Master Narrative Term Use:

Bamberg 2004; Hammack 2008; Hammack & Cohler 2009; Harre & Moghaddam 2003; Thorne & McLean 2003; Weststrate & McLean 2010

In a Narrative Identity Model, the focus is on the “–>” (structural-individual relations)

master narratives provide a framework “for understanding the nature of this intersection between self and society.”

1. Are culturally shared stories that:
   1. tell us about a given culture
   2. provide guidance for how to be a “good” member of a culture
   3. part of the structure of society
2. In constructing a personal narrative, one negotiates with and internalizes “these master narratives”:
   1. are the material they have to work with to understand how to live a good life
3. Those whose lives fit in “with societal structures, narratives are functional and unproblematic”:
   1. others may need to adopt alternative narrative, differs from, resists master narrative
4. examining dynamic “among personal, master, and althernative narratives provides a comprehensive framework for understanding identity development in context.”

Brings more specificity to term master narrative, great organiation of use of term

Outline:

1. Provide definition for “our” approach to identity development
2. Introduce master narrative model (delineate principles for defning master narratives, describe three broad types of master narratives). Provide a disucssion of the role of agency in their model.
3. Articulate a series of questions aristing from their framework for researchers to consider as we move forward.

Framework

1. To understand the many influences on human behavior is a difficult task because they are embedded in an “endless web of personal, societal, historical, and temporal factors” all in constant interaction (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Cooper, 1987).
2. However there are those who believe that narrative provides a framework to make sense of the contextual phenomena (See Bruner 1990; Sarbin (1986)).
3. However, much of this research relies on personal stories (e.g., Fivush et al., 2006; McLean et al., 2007; Pasupathi & Hoyt, 2009; Wiley, Rose, Burger, & Miller, 1998; see also Rogoff, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978), rather than societal structures in which these influences are embedded (e.g., McAdams & pals, 2006; cf., Hammack, 2011), which leads to the concept being used in inconsistent ways.
4. As such, it remains difficult to identify master narratives.