Narrative Identity is a description of the qualities of stories that people tell about themselves. Researchers interested in Narrative Identity consider it to be a distinct level of personality and have developed metrics to quantify adaptive qualities in stories. Recent debates about the classification of personality problems in the DSM-5 Alternative Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD) have led to several attempts to distinguish functioning (Criterion A) from traits (Criterion B). Current conceptualizations of personality and personality disorder suggest that there is an underlying personality impairment that demonstrates the severity of personality problems and hence is predictive of the likelihood of personality disorder. The current study asked four questions: first, is there an underlying global developmental quality to Narrative Identity variables? Secondly, are Narrative Identity variables a good analogue for levels of personality functioning? Third, what is the impact of completing Narrative Identity tasks? Finally, our fourth question was whether there were positive impacts when people were given a re-storying exercise. We found that instead of a unidimensional structure to Narrative Identity variables, there was a four factor structure, meaning that this style of quantifying Narrative Identity results in categorical themes. We also found that the Levels of Personality Functioning Scale - Self Report (LPFS-SR) was not incrementally predictive of these Narrative Themes above and beyond traits, but this may be as a result of differences in measurement of Narrative Identity. An impact of Narrative activities is that Self-Concept Clarity is improved after completing stories, and endorsements of Difficulty, Arousal and perceived Pleasure after completing the task seem to be prompt specific. There were differential impacts with regards to personality functioning, in that people with personality impairment tended to rate the Narrative tasks as being more difficult, in some instances more arousing, and they were less likely to demonstrate improvements in self-concept clarity. Re-storying (telling a story for a second time after being instructed on how to improve adaptive qualities of the story) also resulted in a reduced likelihood of improved self-concept clarity in participants with personality impairment.
