Instruments

Note on the LGS and GBC [PDF]
Information concerning the construction and validation of the LGS and GBC can be found in:
-- 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
-- McAdams, D.P., Hart, H.M., & Maruna, S. (1998). The anatomy of generativity. In D.P. McAdams and E. de St. Aubin (Eds.), Generativity and adult development: How and why we care for the next generation (pp. 7-43). Washington, D.C.: APA Press.

People’s lives vary tremendously, and people make sense of their lives in a tremendous variety of ways. As social scientists, we wish to collect as many different life stories as we can in order to begin the process of making sense of how people make sense of their own lives. Therefore, we are collecting and analyzing autobiographies of "normal" people from all walks of life, and we are looking for significant commonalities and significant differences in those life stories that people tell us. Essentially, we wish to catalogue people’s life stories so that we may eventually learn more about how American adults make sense of their lives. We are not interested, therefore, in pathology, abnormal psychology, neurosis, and psychosis. We are not trying to figure out what is wrong with you. Nor are we aiming to pass judgment on the "goodness" of your life. Instead, we want to "read" your life story as if it were a book, seeing what kinds of characters, scenes, and themes you identify.
Guided Autobiography [HTML] / [PDF]

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Coding Autobiographical Episodes for Themes of Agency and Communion

The coding system is designed to detect the salience of agency and communion themes in accounts of discrete life-story episodes, such as life story "high points," "low points," "turning points," and "earliest memories." Such accounts may be collected through life-narrative open-ended questionnaires or through interviews. In general, the coding scheme works best when subjects describe particular events in their lives that they find to be especially personally meaningful -- events that the subjects themselves may see as having had an important impact on their identity. For each event, subjects are typically asked to describe (verbally or in writing) what happened in the event itself, who was involved, what the subject was thinking and feeling during the event, and what (if anything) the event means in the context of the subject’s own self-defining life story. Subjects may describe events that are either positive or negative in emotional tone. 
Coding Autobiographical Episodes for Themes of Agency and Communion [HTML] / [PDF]


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Coding System for Redemption Sequences 

Redemption is a common theme in both classic and contemporary narratives. In life story research, redemption
sequences can be detected in a wide range of accounts that people provide, from their reconstructions of the past events, to their characterizations of what may happen in their lives in the future. The current coding scheme is based on research into the form and content of particular life-story scenes. 
Coding System for Redemption Sequences [HTML] / [PDF]


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Coding System for Contamination Sequences 

In a contamination scene, a good or positive event or state becomes bad or negative. That which was good or acceptable becomes contaminated, ruined, undermined, undone, or spoiled. Positive affect gives way to negative affect, so that the negativity overwhelms, destroys, or erases the effects of the preceding positivity. For some narrators who describe very difficult lives, scenes may begin with an acceptable or mildly positive state, but the typical pattern of spoiling or contamination with negative affect follows. One woman describes a rare moment of pleasure when her sister organizes a birthday surprise for her, but spoils the positive memory with the observation that "To me, good things just don’t happen." Another woman summarizes her entire life story with the comment, "Good things happen, but they are always canceled out by an even worse thing happening next." In contamination sequences, things may go from very good to bad or from barely acceptable to worse.
Coding System for Contamination Sequences [HTML]

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Personal Faith, Politics, and the Life Story Interview