Narrative Identity, Traits, and Trajectories of Depression and Well-Being: A 9-Year Longitudinal Study

Mental health and well-being tend to improve with age, and personality differences affect these trajectories. Although it is well established that dispositional traits, such as extraversion and neuroticism, relate to well-being, the incremental validity of other important personality constructs, such as narrative identity, remains unknown. Across 9 years, 157 late-midlife adults (M age = 56.4 years, SD = 0.96) self-reported their well-being and symptoms of depression each year and wrote an annual narrative account describing their greatest life challenge (N challenges = 1,211). The narrative accounts were content-coded for themes of agency and communion. Results showed that themes of agency and communion in narrative identity were significantly and uniquely associated with well-being and depression across time, over and above the effects of traits. The benefits of considering both narrative identity and dispositional personality traits as they jointly apply to mental health are discussed.