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Lost Possible Selves and Personality Development

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Traumatic Stress and Long-Term Recovery

Abstract

This chapter explores the role of goals, life dreams, or possible selves that are disrupted by life experiences in personality development. We first compare and contrast the concepts of posttraumatic growth and personality development (from a trait perspective), suggesting that these approaches offer complementary evidence about the potential role of stressful life experiences in development. However, each falls short in capturing the process by which such events can facilitate development. Then, we describe an alternative approach to personality development, ego development, that is well suited to revealing that process. We show how narrative features suggesting accommodation (the active revision of meaning structures) provide a means of tracking active personality development, as demonstrated in a sample of parents of children with Down syndrome. Then, we return to the potential place of lost goals in personality development, considering how accommodation is demonstrated in narrative descriptions of lost possible selves. We review the studies on community samples of divorced women, gay men, and lesbian women showing that the capacity to elaborate on lost possible selves is associated with ego development concurrently and prospectively, over 2 years. We suggest that this research has implications on two levels. First, it suggests that the goal changes that are likely common to adults can be opportunities to grow. Second, we note that, as well-being and ego development were independent in all of these samples, the acquisition of wisdom through potentially traumatic life events need not come at the cost of happiness.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Missouri, McAlester Hall, 65211, Columbia, MO, USA

    Laura A. King & Gerald L. Mitchell

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  1. Laura A. King
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  2. Gerald L. Mitchell
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Correspondence to Laura A. King .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Louisiana State University Dept. Psychology, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

    Katie E. Cherry

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King, L., Mitchell, G. (2015). Lost Possible Selves and Personality Development. In: Cherry, K. (eds) Traumatic Stress and Long-Term Recovery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18866-9_17

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