Life Narratives and the Ten Aspects of the Big Five Across Open-Ended and Targeted Prompts

Background: Personality psychology seeks to understand individuals' dispositional traits and other components of personality including self-defining life narratives. Past studies correlating traits and narrative themes have largely focused on the Big Five. Methods: In the current study, two U.S. undergraduate samples (Sample 1, N = 219; Sample 2, N = 107) completed the Big Five Aspect Scales, which measure the Big Five domains and ten lower-order traits (two per domain; e.g., Conscientiousness: Industriousness and Orderliness). Participants' two-page open-ended descriptions of their life histories and/or personal characteristics (Sample 1) and life high point, low point, and turning point narratives (Sample 2) were coded for motivational, affective, structural, and autobiographical-reasoning themes. Results and Discussion: An exploratory mini meta-analysis across the two studies revealed several aspect-specific associations with motivational themes. For example, when controlling for shared variance between the aspects, Industriousness was positively associated with agency whereas Orderliness was negatively associated with agency. Trait associations with other narrative themes varied based on narrative methodology: the open-ended prompts and expanded coding schemes implemented in Sample 1 may have allowed participants to better express their dispositional traits through narrative. Conclusion: This study advances our understanding of how traits and life narratives are interconnected and the utility of the Big Five Aspect Scales in revealing nuances of this relationship.