Emerging Adults' Narratives About the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: An Examination of Meaning-Making Strategies and the Role of Development

Because human development is essential to understanding how people make sense of complicated situations, psychologists must consider one's developmental period when thinking about politics. Specifically, during emerging adulthood, people experience major developments regarding identity and worldview construction, which are fundamental to political decision-making. The qualitative study examines the ways in which emerging adults made meaning of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Through narrative analysis, we identified 7 linguistic strategies that emerging adults used to make meaning of the election: self-positioning, counterfactual thinking, metaphor, perspective shifting, use of contrast, emotion expression, and self-identification. Some emerging adults felt that their beliefs easily aligned with the dominant cultural narrative, but most emerging adults in the sample did not see their beliefs reflected within the dominant cultural narrative, forcing them into deeper negotiation to make meaning of the event; however, regardless of the strategy used or their position in the dominant cultural narrative, all emerging adults in the sample reflected on larger, developmentally appropriate themes, such as worldview construction, social trust, and morality, to reason about the election. Therefore, developmental processes relevant to emerging adulthood were fundamental to the themes emerging adults captured in their narratives and the strategies they used to negotiate meaning.