Creating the self

The construction of identity through self-narration in autobiographical interviews

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21591817
AutoresAlberto Guerrero‐Velázquez (0000-0002-1384-7601, The University of Western Australia), Alberto Guerrero-Velázquez (The University of Western Australia, autor correspondente)
Ano2025
Páginas1-26
Data de publicação2025-12-25
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPhilosophical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0951-5089 • E-ISSN: 1465-394X
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09515089.2025.2608901
OpenAlexW7117258044
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas66

Autobiographical interviews are a key tool in various social science disciplines. Autobiographical narratives, the product of these interviews, suggest that individuals use self-narration to construct their identity. In addition to remembering, interviewees often engage in parallel additional mental tasks (AMTs), such as action evaluation, counterfactual imagination, and value expression. Although research on autobiographical interviews has highlighted the occurrence of these AMTs, the cognitive processes behind them remain underexplored. In this article, I draw on the theoretical framework of Simulation Theory, which is influential in the psychology and philosophy of memory, to examine the nature of AMTs and their role in identity construction. According to simulationist accounts, remembering personal past events relies on mental simulation as a general mechanism for episodic construction. I argue that this mechanism not only enables recalling information about the past but also supports AMTs that help achieve the agent’s current goals. In autobiographical interviews, the coordinated use of recalling information about the past and engaging in AMTs serves to construct identity through self-narration. AMTs play a key role in reinforcing or altering beliefs about the self by tapping into the malleability of memory and the need for coherence between memories and self-conceptions

Narrative · Narrative identity · Qualitative research · Autobiographical and Biographical Writing · Identity, Memory, and Therapy · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis