Abstract
Individuals create a sense of self-continuity by constructing a narrative identity that integrates their past experiences with an imagined future. Previous research indicates that men are more likely than women to include agentic themes in their narrative identities, whereas women are more likely than men to include communal themes. The present investigation examined whether feminist identity would moderate the effects of gender on the degree to which participants included agentic and communal themes in their narrative identities. U.S. undergraduates (n = 170) completed measures of feminist beliefs in the laboratory, and then later wrote six essays describing various chapters of their life story as a measure of narrative identity. We coded each essay for agentic and communal thematic content. Consistent with previous research, gender predicted thematic content of essays; however, the gender effect on agentic themes was moderated by the degree to which individuals identified as feminists. For individuals lower in feminist identity, agentic thematic content of essays was consistent with previously reported gender differences; however, for individuals higher in feminist identity, the relationship between gender and agentic thematic content was attenuated. The effect of feminist identity on thematic content was maintained even when controlling for self-reported agentic traits.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
References
Abele, A. E., & Wojciszke, B. (2014). Communal and agentic content in social cognition: A dual perspective model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 50, 195–255. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00004-7.
Abele, A. E., Hauke, N., Peters, K., Louvet, E., Szymkow, A., & Duan, Y. (2016). Facets of the fundamental content dimensions: Agency with competence and assertiveness—Communion with warmth and morality. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01810.
Adams, S., Kuebli, J., Boyle, P. A., & Fivush, R. (1995). Gender differences in parent-child conversations about past emotions: A longitudinal investigation. Sex Roles, 33, 309–323. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01954572.
Adler, J. M. (2012). Living into the story: Agency and coherence in a longitudinal study of narrative identity development and mental health over the course of psychotherapy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 367–389. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025289.
Adler, J. M., Skalina, L. M., & McAdams, D. P. (2008). The narrative reconstruction of psychotherapy and psychological health. Psychotherapy Research, 18, 719–734. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503300802326020.
Austin, A., & Costabile, K. (2017). Two routes toward optimism: How agentic and communal themes in autobiographical memories guide optimism for the future. Memory, 25, 1358–1365. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2017.1305417.
Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Bargad, A., & Hyde, J. S. (1991). Women’s studies: A study of feminist identity development in women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 15, 181–201. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14716402.1991.tb00791.x.
Baucom, D. H., & Sanders, B. S. (1978). Masculinity and femininity as factors in feminism. Journal of Personality Assessment, 42, 378–384. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4204_8.
Bauer, J. J., McAdams, D. P., & Sakaeda, A. (2005). Interpreting the good life: Growth memories in the lives of mature, happy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 203–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.1.203.
Bauer, J. J., McAdams, D. P., & Pals, J. L. (2008). Narrative identity and eudaimonic well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 9, 81–104. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-006-9021-6.
Blatt, S. J., & Blass, R. B. (1996). Relatedness and self-definition: A dialectic model of personality development. In G. G. Noam & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Development and vulnerability in relationships (pp. 309–338). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc..
van Breen, J. A., Spears, R., Kuppens, T., & de Lemus, S. (2017). A multiple identity approach to gender: Identification with women, identification with feminists, and their interaction. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01019.
Downing, N. E., & Roush, K. L. (1985). From passive acceptance to active commitment: A model of feminist identity development for women. The Counseling Psychologist, 13, 695–709. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000085134013.
Ely, R., Melzi, G., Hadge, L., & McCabe, A. (1998). Being brave, being nice: Themes of agency and communion in children’s narratives. Journal of Personality, 66, 257–284. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.00012.
Erchull, M. J., Liss, M., Wilson, K. A., Bateman, L., Peterson, A., & Sanchez, C. E. (2009). The feminist identity development model: Relevant for young women today? Sex Roles, 60, 832–842. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-009-9588-6.
Fischer, A. R., Tokar, D. M., Mergl, M. M., Good, G. E., Hill, M. S., & Blum, S. A. (2000). Assessing women's feminist identity development studies of convergent, discriminant, and structural validity. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24(1), 15–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2000.tb01018.x.
Fivush, R., & Buckner, J. P. (2003). Creating gender and identity through autobiographical narratives. In R. Fivush & C. A. Haden (Eds.), Autobiographical memory and the construction of a narrative self: Developmental and cultural perspectives (pp. 149–167). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publisher. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410607478.
Fivush, R., Habermas, T., Waters, T., & Zaman, W. (2011). The making of autobiographical memory: Intersections of culture, narrative and identity. International Journal of Psychology, 46, 321–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2011.596541.
Grysman, A., & Hudson, J. A. (2013). Gender differences in autobiographical memory: Developmental and methodological considerations. Developmental Review, 33, 239–272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2013.07.004.
Grysman, A., Fivush, R., Merrill, N. A., & Graci, M. (2016). The influence of gender and gender typicality on autobiographical memory across event types and age groups. Memory and Cognition, 44, 856–868. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-016-0610-2.
Gwet, K. L. (2008). Computing inter-rater reliability and its variance in the presence of high agreement. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 61, 29–48. https://doi.org/10.1348/000711006X126600.
Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
Henley, N. M., Meng, K., O'Brien, D., McCarthy, W. J., & Sockloskie, R. J. (1998). Developing a scale to measure the diversity of feminist attitudes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 317–348. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1998.tb00158.x.
Holley, J. W., & Guilford, J. P. (1964). A note on the G index of agreement. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 24(4), 749–753. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316446402400402.
Jordan-Viola, E., Fassberg, S., & Viola, M. T. (1976). Feminism, androgyny, and anxiety. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 44, 870–871. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0078144.
King, L. A., & Hicks, J. A. (2007). Whatever happened to “what might have been”? Regrets, happiness, and maturity. American Psychologist, 62, 625–636. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.7.625.
Leaper, C., & Arias, D. M. (2011). College women’s feminist identity: A multidimensional analysis with implications for coping with sexism. Sex Roles, 64, 475–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-9936-1.
Liss, M., & Erchull, M. J. (2010). Everyone feels empowered: Understanding feminist self-labeling. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 34, 85–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2009.01544.x.
Liss, M., O'Connor, C., Morosky, E., & Crawford, M. (2001). What makes a feminist? Predictors and correlates of feminist social identity in college women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 25, 124–133. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.00014.
Mansfield, E. D., & McAdams, D. P. (1996). Generativity and themes of agency and communion in adult autobiography. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 721–731. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167296227006.
McAdams, D. P. (1985). Power, intimacy, and the life story. Homewood, IL: Dorsey.
McAdams, D. P. (1993). The stories we live by: Personal myths and the making of the self. New York: Guilford Press.
McAdams, D. P. (1995). What do we know when we know a person? Journal of Personality, 63, 365–396. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1995.tb00500.x.
McAdams, D. P. (1996). Personality, modernity, and the storied self: A contemporary framework for studying persons. Psychological Inquiry, 7, 295–321. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli0704_1.
McAdams, D. P. (2001). The psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology, 2, 100–122. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.2.100.
McAdams, D. P. (2006). The redemptive self: Generativity and the stories Americans live by. Research in Human Development, 3, 81–100. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15427617rhd0302&3_2.
McAdams, D. P. (2008). Personal narratives and the life story. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
McAdams, D. P., & de St. Aubin, E. (1992). A theory of generativity and its assessment through self-report, behavioral acts, and narrative themes in autobiography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 1003–1015. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.62.6.1003.
McAdams, D. P., & McLean, K. C. (2013). Narrative identity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22, 233–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413475622.
McAdams, D. P., & Olson, B. D. (2010). Personality development: Continuity and change over the life course. The Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 517–542. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100507.
McAdams, D. P., & Pals, J. L. (2006). A new big five: Fundamental principles for an integrative science of personality. American Psychologist, 61(3), 204–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.61.3.204.
McAdams, D. P., Hoffman, B. J., Mansfield, E. D., & Day, R. (1996). Themes of agency and communion in significant autobiographical scenes. Journal of Personality, 64, 339–377. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996.tb00514.x.
McAdams, D. P., Reynolds, J., Lewis, M., Patten, A., & Bowman, P. J. (2001). When bad things turn good and good things turn bad: Sequences of redemption and contamination in life narrative, and their relation to psychosocial adaptation in midlife adults. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 472–483. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167201274008.
McAdams, D. P., Anyidoho, N. A., Brown, C., Huang, Y. T., Kaplan, B., & Machado, M. A. (2004). Traits and stories: Links between dispositional and narrative features of personality. Journal of Personality, 72, 761–784. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00279.x.
McCoy, S. K., & Major, B. (2003). Group identification moderates emotional responses to perceived prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 1005–1017. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167203253466.
Moradi, B., & Subich, L. M. (2002). Feminist identity development measures: Comparing the psychometrics of three instruments. The Counseling Psychologist, 30(1), 66–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000002301004.
Niedzwienska, A. (2003). Gender differences in vivid memories. Sex Roles, 49, 321–331. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025156019547.
Pillemer, D. B., Ivcevic, Z., Gooze, R. A., & Collins, K. A. (2007). Self-esteem memories: Feeling good about achievement success, feeling bad about relationship distress. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1292–1305. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167207303952.
Rickard, K. M. (1989). The relationship of self-monitored dating behaviors to level of feminist identity on the feminist identity scale. Sex Roles, 20, 213–226. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287993.
Saunders, K. J., & Kashubeck-West, S. (2006). The relations among feminist identity development, gender-role orientation, and psychological well-being in women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30, 199–211. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2006.00282.x.
Schmader, T., & Block, K. (2015). Engendering identity: Toward a clearer conceptualization of gender as a social identity. Sex Roles, 73, 474–480. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-015-0536-3.
Silver, E. R., Chadwick, S. B., & van Anders, S. M. (2019). Feminist identity in men: Masculinity, gender roles, and sexual approaches in feminist, non-feminist, and unsure men. Sex Roles, 80(5–6), 277–290. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0932-6.
Singer, J. A. (1995). Putting emotion in context: Its place within individual and social narratives. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 5, 255–267. https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.5.3.07put.
Singer, J. (2004). Narrative identity and meaning-making across the adult lifespan. Journal of Personality, 72, 437–459. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00268.x.
Singer, J. A., & Salovey, P. (1993). The remembered self: Emotion and memory in personality. New York, NY: Free Press.
Walker, L. J., & Frimer, J. A. (2007). Moral personality of brave and caring exemplars. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(5), 845–860. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.93.5.845.
Walls, R. T., Sperling, R. A., & Weber, K. D. (2001). Autobiographical memory of school. The Journal of Educational Research, 95, 116–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220670109596580.
Wiggins, J. S. (1991). Agency and communion as conceptual coordinates for the understanding and measurement of interpersonal behavior. In D. Cicchetti & W. M. Grove (Eds.), Thinking clearly about psychology: Essays in honor of Paul E. Meehl, Vol. 2, (pp. 89-113). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Xu, S., & Lorber, M. F. (2014). Inter-rater agreement statistics with skewed data: Evaluation of alternatives to Cohen’s kappa. Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology, 82, 1219–1227. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037489.
Yoder, J. D., Perry, R. L., & Saal, E. I. (2007). What good is a feminist identity?: Women’s feminist identification and role expectations for intimate and sexual relationships. Sex Roles, 57, 365–372. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9269-2.
Yoder, J. D., Tobias, A., & Snell, A. F. (2011). When declaring “I am a feminist” matters: Labeling is linked to activism. Sex Roles, 64(1–2), 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9890-3.
Zucker, A. N. (2004). Disavowing social identities: What it means when women say, “I’m not a feminist, but …”. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 28, 423–435. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2004.00159.x.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
The manuscript entitled “Feminism, Gender, and Agentic and Communal Themes in Narrative Identity” that was submitted to Sex Roles was not funded. The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.
The research was collected using human participants. This investigation was approved by the authors’ university Institutional Review Board prior to data collection.
All research participants provided informed consent prior to participating in the research study and were fully debriefed after their participation in the study had ended.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic Supplementary Material
ESM 1
(DOCX 28 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Boytos, A.S., Costabile, K.A., Austin, A.B. et al. Feminism, Gender, and Agentic and Communal Themes in Narrative Identity. Sex Roles 83, 54–63 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01089-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01089-x
Keywords
- Feminism
- Gender
- Self-concept
- Identity
- Narratives