This paper introduces key concepts for studying intraindividual variability in narratives (narrative IIV). Narrative IIV is conceptualized in terms of sources of within‐person variation (events and audiences) and dimensions of variation (structural and motivational/affective dimensions of narratives). Possible implications of narrative IIV for well‐being and self and social development are outlined. Considering narrative IIV leads to complexity in both theory and method, raising the issue of whether some avenues might be more productive than others. Using previously collected data, we sought to evaluate the research potential of different indices of narrative IIV (n = 106 participants; n = 1272 narratives). All analyses were preregistered: doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/SXV4W. Findings show that narrative IIV is distinct depending on source and dimension, replicating previous work. However, narrative IIV was largely unrelated to the measures of well‐being and self and social development used in the present study. These findings support the practice of aggregating across narratives in existing research, at least for these outcomes and sources of variation, and provide important guidance for investigators who remain interested in the possible insights that narrative IIV may reveal about the person. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology

中文翻译：

---

叙事身份中的个体差异：复杂性，花园路径和未开发的研究潜力

本文介绍了研究叙事中的个体差异的关键概念（叙事IIV）。叙事IIV是根据人际变异的来源（事件和受众）和变异的维度（叙事的结构和动机/情感维度）来概念化的。概述了IIV叙事对幸福以及自我和社会发展的可能影响。考虑叙事IIV会导致理论和方法的复杂性，从而提出了一些途径是否可能比其他途径更具生产力的问题。使用以前收集的数据，我们试图评估不同叙事IIV指标的研究潜力（n  = 106名参与者；n = 1272个叙述）。所有分析均已预先注册：doi：10.17605 / OSF.IO / SXV4W。调查结果表明，叙事IIV取决于来源和维度而有所不同，从而重复了先前的工作。但是，IIV叙事在很大程度上与本研究中所使用的幸福感，自我和社会发展的措施无关。这些发现支持至少在这些结果和变异来源中，对现有研究中的叙事进行汇总的做法，并为仍对叙事IIV可能揭示的人的洞察力感兴趣的研究人员提供重要指导。©2020欧洲人格心理学协会