9 - Comments on children's self-narratives

Summary

This discussion is based on the assumption that a consideration of the emotional basis of self-understanding will lead to a better appreciation of the role of personal narratives in self-construction. Recently, there has been a great deal of attention paid to the role of emotionality in personality and self-concept development. For example, Watson and Clark (in press) have delineated the emotional core of extroversion in adults. Emde (1983) and Stern (1985) have suggested that early affective experiences form a core around which children organize their representations of themselves and their world. Eder and Mangelsdorf (in press) suggest that this underlying emotionality is a complex construct that is derived from the interaction between infant temperament, parental personality, and the infant-caregiver attachment relationship.

Emotionality is distinct from emotion and affect in several ways. First, it describes nonspecific affects (e.g., the presence or absence of positive affects), as opposed to the specific affects (e.g., anger, fear, sadness) that are usually called “emotion.” Second, emotionality is relatively long-term and is thus distinct from affect, which is often associated with short-term mood fluctuations. Third, the terms emotion and affect usually describe states, whereas emotionality is viewed as a trait.

Emotionality is often conceived of as a somewhat primitive feeling of self that can exist prior to the ability to assign linguistic labels to one's feelings (e.g., Tellegen, 1985; Watson & Clark, in press). In fact, Stern (1985) has suggested that the ability to describe these early feelings of self may radically alter the nature of self-knowledge. One function of the self-concept is to explain (and perhaps rationalize) one's emotionality.