Narrative Self‐Transcendence: Decreased Regret and Increased Acceptance Over Late Midlife

Late midlife is seen as ushering in opportunities for increased self-transcendence, especially acceptance of oneself and one's life. We found some of the strongest empirical evidence of this phenomenon to date. On average, US Black and White adults narrated their life stories with less regret and more satisfaction with self across late midlife. Findings demonstrate the utility of leveraging first-person narrative identity methods to collect and analyze data about rich, complex personality constructs and highlight positive changes associated with late midlife.