 5. Narrative Identity and the Life Story 135
into question. Fourth, master narratives 
manifest a compulsory nature : “They have 
a moral component, an ideological message, 
which tells us how we are supposed to feel,” 
to think, and to be (p. 327). Finally, master 
narratives typically exhibit marked rigidity . 
They offer a well-  defined structure within 
which to articulate a narrative identity, but 
the structure is not especially elastic, in part 
because its existence typically reinforces 
privileged positions in society.
Sociologically oriented narrative research -
ers have coined the term counternarratives  
to refer to the stories people tell and live, 
which offer resistance to dominant cultural 
narratives (Bamberg & Andrews, 2004). 
Counternarratives, then, run counter to 
master narratives. As such, counternarra -
tives often champion values, aspirations, 
and movements that challenge mainstream 
conceptions of the good life. Narratives that 
run counter to the redemptive self, for ex -
ample, might call into question American 
optimism regarding upward social mobility, 
or identify negative, even sinister, motives in 
stories about overcoming adversity and giv -
ing back to society. Counternarratives can 
be edgier still. They can promote alternative 
lifestyles and value systems that directly op -
pose the respectable mainstream; they can 
motivate political resistance and call for the 
replacement of the status quo; they can opt 
out completely and celebrate a life of hedo -
nism, or anomie. They can be a call for re -
bellion, or a lone cry in the wilderness. They 
can give voice to stories that have never been 
heard before.
Counternarratives often arise from mar -
ginalized or stigmatized groups. For ex -
ample, Saguy and Ward (2011) investigated 
stories that obese American women have 
begun to tell about their experiences with 
their bodies. They identified a nascent social 
movement about “coming out as fat” (p. 53). 
Borrowing tropes from the gay and lesbian 
culture, overweight women have begun to 
construct narratives that celebrate being 
overweight, describing their own personal 
journeys toward being fat, or delineating a 
process of personal discovery whereby they 
came to understand and fully appreciate 
their status as a fat person. Their counter -
narratives aim to transform a stigma into 
strength.Lives in Full: From Nomothetic 
to Idiographic
In laying out the original agenda for a science 
of personality psychology, Allport (1937) 
identified a central tension between nomo -
thetic and idiographic inquiry. Whereas the 
majority of empirical studies in personality 
sample large groups of individuals in order 
to test hypotheses and develop theories 
about persons in general, Allport believed 
that space should be set aside in the field for 
intensive examinations of individual cases in 
order to generate new hypotheses and exam -
ine patterns of psychological individuality in 
the whole person. Ever since Allport, a small 
but vocal contingent of personality psychol -
ogists has always strenuously argued for the 
idiographic approach (Schultz, 2005). In re -
cent years, narrative theories, concepts, and 
methods have provided new tools for the 
psychological study of the single case.
One of the first formal applications of life- 
narrative theory to understanding the whole 
person may be found in Nasby and Read’s 
(1997) remarkable case study of Dodge 
Morgan. In 1986, at the age of 54, entrepre -
neur and adventurer Dodge Morgan sailed 
a small boat solo around the world in 150 
days. Before embarking, Morgan agreed to 
an intensive psychological assessment. Be -
fore and after the voyage, he completed an 
extensive battery of psychological tests, in -
cluding measures of personality traits, needs 
and motives, emotional predispositions 
and states, interpersonal adjustment, and 
cognitive aptitudes. During the voyage, he 
completed psychological measures of mood 
and cognitive abilities in dated, waterproof 
packets. He also kept a detailed log that con -
tained not only information on the voyage 
but also his reflections and dreams. Nasby 
and Read drew on these sources, as well 
as Morgan’s memoirs and correspondence, 
to provide a rich and complex interpreta -
tion of one man’s self-  defining life voyage. 
Their interpretation is a creative synthesis of 
trait theory and the life-story model of adult 
identity (McAdams, 1985).
Morgan’s responses to self-  report person -
ality questionnaires showed high scores on 
scales for autonomy, exhibition, endurance, 
achievement, dominance, and dislike of am -
biguity. Conversely, he demonstrated mark -