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Words of the Past Reflect Present Well-Being: Effects of Depression, Life Satisfaction, Cognitive Bias, and Time on Redemptive Identity
by Neerul Gupta
Faculty Advisor: Christopher Beevers, PhD, Graduate Student Advisor: Mackenzie Zisser, MA
Our narrative identity consists of our life stories, how we describe them, and what they mean about us. Narrative identity studies analyze interpretations of subjective life events and mental health trajectories. Redemption, a subcategory of narrative identity, explores interpretations of significant negative life events as producing either a positive outcome (i.e., redemptive) or only negative outcomes (i.e., non-redemptive). Previous research correlated redemptive interpretations to fewer depressive symptoms and greater life satisfaction, but existing literature has not yet examined redemption’s relationship with cognitive bias or time since a negative life event. This study assessed the predictive power of depression, life satisfaction, interpretation bias, and temporal distance on participants’ level of redemption in a narrative about a negative life event. Participants were 95 English-fluent adult U.S. residents using an online data collection platform. Life satisfaction was a significant predictor of redemption, but depression, interpretation bias, and temporal distance were not. Our results may indicate that how we view our present life relates to how we interpret our past. This study strengthens existing literature describing strong relationships between life satisfaction and redemption and encourages further study of the effects of interpretation bias and temporal distance on redemption.