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Chapter 11 - Could Life Care Contexts Impact the Adolescent’s Life Narrative Coherence?

Data from a Study Encompassing Paths of Ruptures and Adversity

from Part III - How Deviating Autobiographical Memories Shape the Life Story

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2025

By
Margarida Rangel Henriques ,
Pedro Saraiva ,
Meritxell Pacheco Pérez ,
Isabel Peters  and
Márcia Almeida
Edited by
Christin Camia  and
Annette Bohn
Christin Camia
Affiliation:
Zayed University Abu Dhabi
Annette Bohn
Affiliation:
Aarhus University
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Summary

Adolescence is a pivotal stage for developing life narrative coherence, yet little is known about the impact of early adversity on this process. Given the importance of narrative identity in adolescence, this chapter explores how adolescents in care centers construct life narratives after experiencing family ruptures and socio-emotional adversities. Using Habermas and Silveira’s (2008) life narrative task, narratives from 66 adolescents (22 in care centers, 22 with families in low SES, and 22 with families in medium/high SES) were analyzed based on temporal orientation, causal-motivational, and thematic coherence. Results indicated that adolescents from medium/high SES families demonstrated a significantly higher temporal orientation than the other groups. Living in a care center alone did not account for poorer coherence; instead, socio-economic context played a pivotal role, particularly in temporal coherence. Highlighting the foundational role of temporal coherence in narrative structure, the study emphasizes the need for narrative scaffolding interventions for adolescents in care centers or low SES contexts to foster identity development and improve life narrative coherence.

Keywords

Life narrativenarrative coherenceearly adversityresidential careidentity development

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Type
Chapter
Information
Autobiographical Memory and the Life Story
New Perspectives on Narrative Identity
 , pp. 223 - 246
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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