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Category: Data

Description: This study addressed whether differences in narrated growth inform potentials for a good life, given associations with character (i.e., self-compassion, proactive coping), psychosocial adjustment (i.e., flourishing, happiness), and future orientation (i.e., hope, worry, generativity). Two hundred eighty-eight college adults from a public university in the central US (mean age 18.4 years, 68.6% women) completed an online study over two, monthly sessions, providing a narrated self-defining memory, as well as reports of character, psychosocial adjustment, and future orientation. Narratives were rated for personal growth. Growth was positively associated with self-compassion, proactive coping, psychosocial adjustment, and hopefulness. Further, self-compassion and proactive coping served as intervening variables between narrated growth and both concurrent and follow-up reports of adjustment and future orientation.