Widaad Zaman
wzaman@emory.edu
Emory Department: Psychology
Project Title:
Emory Family Togetherness Project;
Narratives and Attachment Project
The Emory Family Togetherness project focuses on family history and
adolescent well-being and identity. We have collected personal
narratives from adolescents, narratives about their parents' childhood,
among other narratives. We have also collected narratives from mothers
about their personal experiences and their childhood experiences. My
interest has primarily been in the adolescents' personal and
parent-childhood narratives, gender differences within them and how
they relate to adolescents' wellbeing. Adolescents' narratives have
been examined for gender differences on the dimensions of elaboration,
affiliation, achievement, affect, emotion and cognition. Results
indicate that girls' personal narratives are more elaborate and
affectively and emotionally rich than boys' personal narratives.
Similarly, narratives about mothers are more elaborate, affiliative,
affectively and emotionally rich than narratives about fathers, which
tend to be more achievement-focused. Additionally, girls' personal
narratives more closely resemble their narratives about their mothers
than about their fathers, while boys' personal narratives do not
resemble either their mothers' or their fathers' narratives. I am also
interested in how adolescents' knowledge of their family history relate
to their wellbeing. So far, preliminary results indicate that girls who
tell more elaborate, emotionally-rich narratives about their mothers
are better adjusted. This is not true for boys.
A second project which is currently in the planning stages is the
Narratives and Attachment Project. This examines issues of attachment
to both mother and father, and how co-constructed conversations about
the child's past emotional experiences may relate to their attachment
quality.
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