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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
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Generativity and Themes of Agency and Communion in Adult Autobiography

Elizabeth D. Mansfield

Hamilton Center

Dan P. McAdams

Northwestern University

Theorists have suggested that generativity combines tendencies toward both agency and communion in adult lives. The highly generative adult is able to generate products that extend the self in a powerful way (agency) and to offer those products to others with the purpose of assisting the next generation (communion). This study examined differences between two groups of subjects, more and less generative adults, in their autobiographical expressions of agency and communion. Employing a new coding system for analyzing themes of agency and communion in significant life-story scenes, the study revealed that highly generative adults express greater levels of communion in their autobiographical scenes than do less generative adults, especially with respect to the communal themes of dialogue and care/help. Highly generative adults also show greater levels of agency/communion integration. However; in the agency themes alone, no significant differences between the two groups emerged.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 22, No. 7, 721-731 (1996)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167296227006
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