Vicarious Family Stories of Turkish Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults: Are Family Stories Related to Well-Being?

Abstract

In the current study, we examined whether vicarious family stories are linked to family climate and well-being among young, middle-aged, and older adults across two different samples. In total, there were 168 triads of Turkish families (N = 504). Across Sample 1 (written narratives) and Sample 2 (spoken narratives), we found a significant link between family climate and well-being. In addition, participants from Sample 2 who experienced better family climate narrated more coherent family stories. The results also revealed that participants from Sample 1 who rated their stories as more emotionally positive and participants from Sample 2 who included more identity connections in their stories reported higher levels of well-being. Overall, our findings emphasise the links to well-being for family climate and family stories, and highlight the importance of capturing different characteristics of vicarious stories (elicited via different methods) across generations.