Life Story: An Alternative To Understanding Personality

Since the mid-1980s, personality psychology has witnessed a strong upsurge of interest in personal narratives and life stories. Through narrative methods, Personality psychologist can obtain and interpret storied accounts of personal experiences to shed light on personality and social process. The narrative theories of personality developed during this period are Tomkins's "Script Theory" , McAdams's "Life-Story Model of Identity" , Hermans's "Theory of the Dialogical Self and Hooker's "a Six Foci of Personality Model ". A life story is not simply an objective account of life in the past, but an alternative to understanding personality which does provide a different kind of information about personality.Contemporary research on life stories draws from four different research traditions in the social sciences: thematic analysis, life history studies, hermeneutics and psychobiography. Each presents different scientific paradigm and favors particular methods for collecting and interpreting life-narrative data.A life story is full of the experience, feeling and understanding of one's life. It plays an important role in constructing self as well as being knowing by others. In narrative therapy, individual can reconstruct one's personality by reconstruct his/her life story. The narrative method characterized by "plebeian" emphasis the interaction between the researcher and the participant. It shows great respect to the participant and can really benefits the participant. A life story is jointly authored, both by the person whose story it is and the culture within which the story is embedded. It provides a vivid picture of human psychology and an alternative to understanding personality.