Growthy Tones in Personal Narratives

Tone in a personal narrative conveys the narrator’s degrees of satisfaction and positive and negative affectivity in an event. As distinct from theme and structure, narrative tone uniquely conveys how well an event turns out (i.e., hedonic value fulfillment) but not why that event is important or valued (i.e., value orientation, which only theme conveys). A story’s tone can change. Affective changes for the better are called positive affective sequences. Examples include gain, redemption (change from bad to good), recovery (changes for the worse and then back to baseline), and hedonic self-improvement (positive change in self-concept). Importantly, positive affective sequences do not convey growth. Without associated themes of growth, tones convey only hedonic gain, not eudaimonic growth. Hence, positive affective sequences are growthy. That said, growthy tones are key features of a transformative self. The relation between positive affective sequences and well-being depends on the type of event.