Joseph Kishton

As a lifespan developmental psychologist, my interests include developmental changes which occur throughout the entire lifespan from infancy through very old age. The courses I typically teach include Child Psychology. Adolescent Psychology, Psychology of Aging and Lifespan Human Development. I routinely teach online sections of these courses.

My research and scholarly interests are centered on a life-story model of adult identity. According to the model, people living in modern societies begin to organize their lives in narrative terms in late adolescence and young adulthood. People create internalized and evolving life stories that serve to reconstruct the past and anticipate the future in ways that provide their lives with some degree of unity and purpose.

Life-narrative data are typically obtained through life-story Interviews, narrative biographical material or through guided autobiography. Life-narrative data may be analyzed in many ways. Objective content analysis procedures have been developed to code such narrative categories as agency and communion themes, redemption and contamination sequences, emotional tone, and narrative coherence.

An ongoing project I have been involved in is the establishment of the Henry Miller Audio Archives. This is a collaborative effort between Randall Library at UNCW and the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California.