narrative identity

Our life stories contain other people, but we rarely possess their full story. We observe behaviour, infer motives and assign meaning. Over time, those interpretations can become so familiar that we forget which parts were witnessed and which parts were supplied by us.

We do more than remember what happened. We organise events into an account that explains who we are, how we became that person and what kind of person we expect ourselves to be next. Identity shapes memory, but memory also helps maintain identity.