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  • Title: Life story development in childhood: the development of life story abilities and the acquisition of cultural life scripts from late middle childhood to adolescence.
    Author: Bohn A, Berntsen D.
    Journal: Dev Psychol; 2008 Jul; 44(4):1135-47. PubMed ID: 18605840.
    Abstract:
    The authors investigated the relationship between the acquisition of cultural life scripts and the degree of coherence in children's and adolescents' life stories. Three groups of Danish school children aged 9 to 15 years participated. In 3 sessions, they wrote down a recently experienced single autobiographical event, their life story, and their cultural life script. Single-event and life stories were scored for coherence; life scripts were scored for normativity compared to an adult norm. Single-event stories and life stories were longer and more coherent in the older participants. Younger participants wrote significantly more coherent single-event stories than life stories. When controlling for age, single-event story coherence and global life story coherence did not correlate significantly, suggesting different developmental pathways. Life script normativity increased steadily across childhood and adolescence. Further, a significant relationship between the normativity of life scripts and the coherence of life stories, but not the coherence of single-event stories, was found.
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