Contextualizing narrative identity: A consideration of assessment settings

•The influence of assessment contexts on autobiographical scenes was examined.•Interviewer presence (vs. absence) and format of responses were manipulated.•Narratives were quantified in terms linguistic and conceptual categories.•The majority of categories differed across experimental conditions.•Linguistic and conceptual content is highly malleable across assessment contexts.

We examined the influence features of assessment contexts exhibited on the content of the key autobiographical scenes often considered by personality psychologists. Participants (N = 402) narrated life high points, low points, and turning points within a 2(interviewer; present, absent) × 2(response format; written, spoken) study design. Narratives were quantified for 15 linguistic (e.g., negative emotion words) and six conceptual (e.g., affective tone) variables. We noted that 93% of linguistic variables and 83% of conceptual variables differed as a function of assessment context in the form of main effects for, and/or interactions between, study variables. The narrative materials commonly assessed by personality psychologists are highly sensitive to features of the contexts in which they are assessed.