Life-Narrative Studies of Identity

As a personality psychologist I work in the "study of lives" tradition pioneered by Henry Murray, Robert White, and Erik Erikson, which entails investigating single lives in depth. In my research, I conduct open-ended interviews to elict life-stories, beliefs, and values, and then draw on a variety of narrative analysis methods -- especially those associated with Levi-Strauss, Ricoeur, and Bakhtin -- to study how people construct and shift among multiple identities.

Self-Representation         Greenwood Press 1991        more info

Culture and Identity: Life-Narrative Studies in Morocco                            Oxford U. Press 2007           more info

Cultural Psychology: Morocco and the Middle East

I am interested in how culture shapes development across the life-span, and especially the development of identity in early adulthood. I lived and did field work in Morocco for five years, conducting an ethnography of the Berber-speaking Imeghrane of the High Atlas - Dades Valley region, and then using life-history interviews to study identity development among educated young adults in villages and small towns around Ouarzazate (see Publications).

The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology
                                         Oxford U. Press 2005                 more info

Narrative and Music Cognition

Though not a musician, I am interested in exploring the ways in which life-narratives may have organizational structures similar to those of tonal music. In particular, I believe that people may configure "key" symbols, images, and metaphors into scale-like relations, which then provide an orchestration of their emotional lives.

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