Welcome to our site
Welcome to the Family Narratives Lab, part of the Child Studies Center in the psychology department at Emory University. Here you will find information about our past and current research, more about the people who work in our lab, links to the other labs in the Child Studies Center, and ways that you can get involved in our research. Thank you for your interest!
Narratives and Autobiographical Memory
We are interested in how people remember and narrate the events of their lives. Narratives, or stories, about one’s past, are the way in which individuals make sense of their experiences and create meaning, both for themselves and for their families. By examining how children, adults, and families tell the stories of their past, both the good times and the bad, we examine how family narratives are created over time through social interaction, and how these stories become part of one’s self. In a very real way, narratives become the defining expression of our autobiographical memories, memories of our self over time that help to define who we are and how we relate to other people.