One team of researchers asked elderly adults to write down memories
from each decade of their lives (Conway & Holmes, 2004). Presumably the
participants wrote about events that characterized the way they thought oftheir life during those decades. Judges then coded the stories according to
which Eriksonian theme they portrayed. For example, a memory about falling
in love was placed in the intimacy versus isolation category. A story about
helping a grandchild overcome a personal problem fell into the generativity
versus stagnation category. As shown in Figure 5.2, the number of stories re-
flecting a generativity theme peaked during the midlife decades, just as wewould predict from Erikson ’s theory.
What is it about some people that enables them to develop a sense of
generativity while others do not? One way to answer this question is to lookat the life stories people tell. Compared to adults who fail to develop a sense
of generativity, highly generative adults are likely to tell stories in which bad
situations lead to good outcomes (McAdams et al., 1997; McAdams et al.,
2001). In these stories a personal tragedy, such as the death of a loved one,
eventually leads the storyteller to an increased sensitivity to the suffering of
others and a commitment to help those going through similar experiences. Not
surprising then, stories from highly generative adults tend to contain more
themes about friendship, sharing, affiliation, and nurturance (Mansfield &
McAdams, 1996). It ’s not difficult to see how middle-aged adults who have
lived such lives —or who at least recall their lives in this way —would be con-
cerned about helping and nurturing the next generation.0102030405060
10–19 20–29 30–39 40–49 50–59Number of Memories
Age at Encoding0–9 60 1
FIGURE 5.2 Number of Memories with a Generativity Theme
Source: Adapted from Conway and Holmes (2004).Assessment: Personal Narratives 119