The development of coherence in adolescents' life narratives

Although the ability to tell a story of a personal experience is learned between two and six years and is refined during middle childhood, how to coherently narrate the story of one's life seems to be acquired only during adolescence. The life story integrates autobiographical memories with a biographical view of the self. In an initial cross-sectional study of how life narratives gain in global coherence across adolescence, a sample of 12-, 15-, and 18-year-olds produced life narratives that were analyzed for elements that contribute to global coherence and for ways in which the textual openings set the stage for one's life. Results indicate linear age-trends for the temporal extension of causally linked statements, for causal links between events and personal change, for past-present comparisons, for other biographical concepts, and for hedges relating to explanations. There were also age-differences in the degree to which family history served as a setting for the life narratives.