Authoring esteem: Writing about vicarious and personal life story chapters boosts state self-esteem

Abstract

Constructing personal life stories carries benefits for psychological adjustment. We examined whether writing about the life stories of parents (i.e., vicarious life stories) hold similar advantages. In Study 1, we adapted an established experimental paradigm to an online format. Participants wrote either about personal life story chapters or about famous persons (control condition) and completed pre- and post-measures of state self-esteem. We found the predicted interaction as self-esteem increased in the chapter but not in the control condition. In Studies 2 and 3, we added the critical condition of writing about vicarious chapters. Study 2 did not find the predicted interaction. Instead, all three conditions increased in self-esteem. Study 3, which used a new neutral control task (writing about historical events), showed that the two chapter conditions, but not the control condition, increased in self-esteem. This suggests that authoring life stories for both oneself and close others momentarily boosts self-esteem.As individuals interact with parents, friends, and romantic partners, they hear their stories. These stories help individuals construct life stories for close others: Coherent narratives of the close other’s remembered past, lived present, and imagined future. Such vicarious life stories aid complex individualized perspective-taking and shape individuals’ personal life stories (i.e., narrative identities). Research has established relations between qualities of vicarious life stories and well-being. However, to further understanding of vicarious life stories and their presumed benefits, we need experimental studies examining causal relations between vicarious life stories and positive outcomes. In this paper, we report the first experimental studies on vicarious life stories. We demonstrate that writing about vicarious life stories for parents increase state self-esteem. Given this promising result, we suggest using our experimental paradigm to further illuminate the benefits of vicarious life stories. Conditions can be varied to study the micro-processes involved in the adaptive effects of life story construction, such as positive meaning-making and emotional exploration. The results from this research program may broaden existing narrative interventions, which focus on personal life stories, to include vicarious life stories. Writing about vicarious and personal life stories increases state self-esteem. This effect is unrelated to the emotional tone and self-event connections in chapters. Constructing vicarious life stories contributes to psychological adjustment.