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Prior research has shown that parents help children to develop the requisite skills to construct an autobiographical self in past event conversations, yet research in adolescence is lacking. Further, friendships increase in importance during adolescence, and these new relationships may play a role in narrative identity development. The current study examined past event conversations between adolescents (n = 22; mean age = 13) and their friends, and adolescents and their mothers. Conversations were reliably coded for degree of personal meaning communicated and listener scaffolding behavior. Results showed that friends showed less frequent explicit scaffolding of narrative identity than mothers, although listener scaffolding behavior was associated with adolescent meaning-making for both friends and mothers. Additional qualitative analysis of the conversations suggests that friends may be more engaged in scaffolding the self-presentational aspects of narrative identity, as well as providing a safe arena for exploration away from mothers. (Contains 1 table.)

The development of narrative identity occurs within storytelling contexts, and the present study examined the role of listener behaviors in this process. Methodology developed within studies of mother–child conversations was used to examine how listener behaviors are associated with the meanings that individuals make of their personal stories in conversations with their romantic partners and in subsequent private reflection. Fifty-two “speakers” shared an important personal memory with their partner. These narratives were coded for meaning-making (self-event connections), and listener turns were coded for scaffolding behaviors (positive responding, new interpretations, negations). Overall, a summary composite score of scaffolding behavior was associated with more meaning produced in the conversation and afterwards. Further analyses showed that scaffolding behavior was particularly important to the production of negative meanings, and specific types of scaffolding behaviors also interacted with each other in predicting meaning production. Results are discussed in terms of the role that listeners play in narrative identity development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]