Российский психологический журнал (Oct 2022)
The Narrative Identity Analysis as a Way to Study the Crisis of Adulthood
Abstract
Abstract: Introduction. The article is devoted to the narrative identity analysis of people experiencing a crisis of adulthood. Narrative identity analysis has so far been used to study ego-identity in adolescents. As a study of the ego-identity of people experiencing a crisis of adulthood, it is used for the first time. Methods. The study involved 80 people (40 men and 40 women aged 35–45). The analysis of narrative identity was carried out according to the algorithm of M. Syed and S. Nelson. The reliability of the resulting Kappa toolkit k = 0.69, which is a sufficient indicator of reliability. Quantitative indicators of differences in the structure of narrative identity were calculated using Pearson’s chi-square, and qualitative indicators were calculated using hierarchical cluster analysis. Results. As a result of the study, there were no differences in the experience of the crisis of adulthood between men and women. Nevertheless, quantitative differences were revealed in the narrative identity of people who did not experience a crisis of adulthood, who are experiencing an acute crisis, and who survived it in the recent past. Qualitative differences showed that the three structures differ in the degree of immersion in contradictions and immersion in difficult emotional states associated with them. Discussion. The lack of differences in the experience of the crisis between men and women revealed in the course of the study contradicts the well-established opinion that women's crises are related to family cycles. We assume that the 30-year difference in the obtained data may be the reason for this. Qualitative and quantitative differences in groups at different stages of experiencing a crisis have been confirmed both in empirical data obtained by other authors and in psychological theory.
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