Reading, Writing, Arithmetic…and Redemption: Relations among academic redemptive stories, authenticity, and life satisfaction

•We explored redemptive academic stories in relation to psychological adjustment.•In Study 1, redemption in academic high points correlated with academic-domain authenticity.•In Study 2, redemption in self-defining stories corresponded with the trajectory of life satisfaction in college.•Redemptive academic stories provide some, albeit limited, indication of college students’ psychological adjustment. Over the course of two studies, we explored relations between college students’ academic redemptive stories (narratives with negative beginnings and positive endings) and psychological adjustment. In Study 1, redemption in stories of academic high points (but not low points) was associated with greater academic-domain authenticity. In Study 2, students who provided redemptive academic stories during their third year in college evinced greater increases in life satisfaction throughout college relative to those who told non-redemptive stories. During this same period, redemption was unrelated to the mean-levels and trajectories of self-esteem and depression. Collectively, these data suggest that redemptive academic stories provide some, albeit limited, indication of college students’ psychological adjustment and trajectories.