Putting the Person into Social Identity

In recent years, the turn toward narrative in psychology has shifted the carrier of identity from stages to stories. Like Erik Erikson's [1959] stage theory of identity, storied approaches construe identity as a psychosocial project, developing through engagement with larger social forces. Storied approaches also preserve Erikson's premise that identity emerges through the struggle to make sense of oneself in the complex world of adulthood. Stories, however, are a more visible and efficient vehicle than stages, which are more elusive and more tenuously tied to the social world. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]