The study examined the extent to which a service trip to Nicaragua affected college students’ narrative understanding of themselves and their commitment to volunteer service. College students who went on a spring break service trip to work with poor citizens of Nicaragua wrote narrative accounts of three important experiences on the trip shortly after they returned. Measures of volunteerism were collected before the trip and at two points afterward: 1 week and 3 months later. Themes of self-transformation in service trip narratives predicted trip-related volunteerism one week and 3 months later, even after controlling for prior volunteerism. Themes of sympathy in the narratives predicted trip-related volunteerism one week but not 3 months, and themes of helplessness negatively related to prior volunteerism. The results underscore the importance of examining the role of life narratives in the development of volunteer behavior and service mindedness among emerging adults.
ArnettJ. J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 55, 469-480.
2.
ArnettJ. J. (2004). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the twenties. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
3.
AstinA. W.SaxL. J. (1998). How undergraduates are affected by service participation. Journal of College Student Development, 39, 251-263.
4.
BanduraA. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Worth Publishers.
5.
BatsonC. D.LishnerD. A.CarpenterA.DulinL.Harjusola-WebbS.StocksE. L.. (2003). “. . . As you would have them do unto you”: Does imagining yourself in the other’s place stimulate moral action?Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 1190-1201.
6.
BauerJ. J.McAdamsD. P.SakaedaA. R. (2005). Interpreting the good life: Growth memories in the lives of mature, happy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 203-217.
7.
ButinB. W. (2006). The limits of service-learning in higher education. The Review of Higher Education, 29, 473-498.
8.
ChapmanJ. G.FerrariJ. R. (1999). An introduction to community-based service-learning (CBSL). In FerrariJ. R.ChapmanJ. G. (Eds.), Educating students to make-a-difference: Community-based service-learning (pp. 1-3). New York: Haworth.
9.
ClaryE. G.SnyderM.RidgeR. D.CopelandJ.StukasA. A.HaugenJ.. (1988). Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers. A functional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1516-1530.
10.
CohenJ.KinseyD. F. (1994). “Doing good” and scholarship: A service-learning study. Journalism and Mass Communication Education, 48, 4-14.
11.
EriksonE. H. (1950). Childhood and society (1st ed.). New York: W. W. Norton.
12.
EriksonE. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis (1st ed.). New York: W. W. Norton.
GilesD. E.Jr.EylerJ. (1994). The impact of a college community service laboratory on students’ personal, social, and cognitive outcomes. Journal of Adolescence, 17, 327-339.
15.
HabermasT.BluckS. (2000). Getting a life: The emergence of the life story on adolescence. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 748-769.
16.
HabermasT.de SilveiraC. (2008). The development of global coherence in life narratives across adolescence: Temporal, causal, and thematic aspects. Developmental Psychology, 44, 707-721.
17.
HammackP. L. (2008). Narrative and the cultural psychology of identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12, 222-247.
18.
HarthN. S.KesslerT.LeachC. W. (2008). Advantaged groups emotional reactions to inter-group inequality: The dynamics of pride, guilt, and sympathy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 115-129.
19.
MarkusG. B.HowardJ. P. F.KingD. C. (1993). Integrating community service and classroom instruction enhances learning: Results from an experiment. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 15, 410-419.
20.
McAdamsD. P. (1985). Power, intimacy and the life story: Personological inquiries into identity. New York: Guilford.
21.
McAdamsD. P. (2006). The redemptive self: Stories Americans live by. New York: Oxford University Press.
22.
McAdamsD. P.de AubinE.St. (1992). A theory of generativity and its assessment through self-report, behavioral acts, and narrative themes in autobiography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 1003-1015.
23.
McAdamsD. P.AlbaughM.FarberE.DanielsJ.LoganR. L.OlsonB. (2008). Family metaphors and moral intuitions: How conservatives and liberals narrate their lives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 978-990.
24.
McEwenM. K. (1996). Enhancing student learning and development through service-learning. In JacobyB.. (Eds.), Service-learning in higher education (pp. 53-91). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
25.
McLeanK. C. (2005). Late adolescent identity development: Narrative meaning making and memory telling. Developmental Psychology, 41, 683-691.
26.
McLeanK. C.FournierM. A. (2008). The content and processes of autobiographical reasoning in narrative identity. Journal of Personality, 42, 527-545.
27.
McLeanK. C.PasupathiM.PalsJ. L. (2007). Selves creating stories creating selves: A process model of self-development. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, 262-278.
28.
Myers-LiptonS. J. (1996). Effect of service-learning on college students’ attitudes toward international understanding. Journal of College Student Development, 37, 659-668.
29.
PalsJ. L. (2006). Authoring a second chance in life: Emotion and transformational processing within narrative identity. Research in Human Development, 3, 101-120.
30.
ReedV. A.JernstedtG. C.HawleyJ. K.ReberE. S.DuBoisC. A. (2005). Effects of a small-scale, very short-term service-learning experience on college students. Journal of Adolescence, 28, 359-368.
31.
RiméB.MesquitaB.PhilippotP.BocaS. (1991). Beyond the emotional event: Six studies on the social sharing of emotion. Cognition & Emotion, 5, 435-465.
32.
SchwartzS.CoteJ.ArnettJ. (2005). Identity and agency in emerging adulthood: Two developmental routes in the individualization process. Youth & Society, 37, 201-229.
33.
SeiderS. (2007). Catalyzing a commitment to community service in emerging adults. Journal of Adolescent Research, 22, 612-639.
34.
SeiderS. (2008). “Bad things could happen”: How fear impedes social responsibility in privileged adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 23, 647-666.
35.
SingerJ. A. (2004). Narrative identity and meaning-making across the adult lifespan: An introduction. Journal of Personality, 72, 437-459.
36.
SingerJ. A.KingL. A.GreenM. C.BarrS. C. (2002). Personal identity and civic responsibility: “Rising to the occasion” narratives and generativity in community action student interns. Journal of Social Issues, 58, 535-556.
37.
ThorneA. (2000). Personal memory telling and personality development. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4, 45-56.
38.
ThorneA.McLeanK. C.LawrenceA. M. (2004). When remembering is not enough: Reflecting on self defining memories in late adolescence. Journal of Personality, 72, 513-541.
39.
WattsR. J.FlanaganC. (2007). Pushing the envelope on youth civic engagement: A developmental and liberation psychology perspective. Journal of Community Psychology, 35, 779-792.
40.
YounissJ.McLellanJ. A.YatesM. (1997). What we know about engendering civic identity. American Behavioral Scientist, 40, 620-631.
