Storied across time: Construction, validation, and relationships of the cinematic self scale

Five studies provide evidence of cinematic self, a novel individual difference about how strongly people experience narrative identity. Study 1 constructs the cinematic self scale and demonstrates its strong psychometric properties. Study 2 shows relationships between cinematic self and self, emotion, individual differences, development, and well-being variables. Studies 3 and 4 demonstrate relationships between cinematic self and narrative attitudes, behaviors, and performance on a narrative task. Cinematic self predicts stronger narrative performance and extent personal memories are valued, communicated to others, and preserved. Study 5 suggests cinematic self is stable trait. Cinematic self reflects how storied people experience themselves, interact with and make sense of their personal memories, and has implications for self, narrative identity, social behavior, and well-being.