View article

Dispositional traits and life narratives represent two different levels of personality that have not previously been empirically linked. The current study tested five hypotheses connecting Big‐Five traits to life‐narrative indices of emotional tone, theme, and structure. Students (Study 1) and adults (Study 2) completed a self‐report measure of the Big‐Five traits and provided extended written accounts of either ten (students) or eight (adults) key life‐narrative scenes, including life high points, low points, and turning points. Content analysis of the narrative data revealed that for both samples Neuroticism was positively associated with an emotionally negative life‐narrative tone, Agreeableness was correlated with narrative themes of communion (e.g., friendship, caring for others), and Openness was strongly associated with the structural complexity of life narrative accounts. Contrary to prediction, however …