This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Wrightsman, L. S. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Wrightsman, L. S. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Personal Documents as Data in Conceptualizing Adult Personality Development

University of Kansas

Personal documents (i.e., diaries, collections of letters, autobiographies, memoirs) can provide the raw data that improve our knowledge base as we assess theories of personality development during adulthood. Yet, until recently, the "state of the art" regarding utilization of personal documents in psychological research had not advanced beyond that described in Gordon Allport's monograph almost 40 years ago. The present article reviews three differing conceptions of adult personality development—the lifescript approach of Eric Berne, stage theory conceptions of Erik Erikson and Daniel Levinson, and a dialectic approach-and describes the knowledge base on which each theory has been evaluated. Various applications of data from personal documents are proposed or described. These include a dialectical reanalysis of Letters from Jenny, the use of presidents' autobiographies to look at expressed values, and the use of personal documents to generate social schemes.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. L. Singer The Private Personality Pers Soc Psychol Bull, March 1, 1984; 10(1): 7 - 30. [Abstract]