Life Narratives and the Ten Aspects of the Big Five Across Open-ended and Targeted Prompts
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Personality psychology seeks to understand not only individuals’ dispositional traits, but also components of personality like self-defining life narratives. Past studies correlating traits to narrative themes have largely focused on the Big Five. In the current study, two U.S. undergraduate samples (Study 1, N = 219; Study 2, N = 107) completed the Big Five Aspect Scales, which measure the Big Five domains and ten lower-order aspects (two per domain; e.g., Conscientiousness: Industriousness and Orderliness). Participants’ 2-page life stories (Study 1) and life high point, low point, and turning point narratives (Study 2) were coded for motivational, affective, structural, and autobiographical-reasoning themes. A mini meta-analysis across the two studies revealed several aspect-specific associations with motivational themes. For example, when controlling for shared variance between the aspects, Industriousness was positively associated with agency whereas Orderliness was negatively associated with agency. Trait associations with other narrative themes varied based on narrative methodology. In particular, the open-ended prompts and expanded coding schemes implemented in Study 1 may have allowed participants to better express their dispositional traits through narrative.
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7155693809