Bringing the (disabled) body to personality psychology: A case study of Samantha

Personality psychology has largely ignored the experiences of people with disabilities. This article strives to bring the thriving, interdisciplinary field of disability studies to personality psychology via a case study of Samantha (N = 1). Samantha feels that she grew up as a hearing person who could not hear and is now a deaf person who can hear.

Narrative identity provides the theoretical, methodological, and analytical framework for the rich, qualitative examination of Samantha's life story, interwoven with approaches from disability studies and intersectionality theory. Two Life Story Interviews (McAdams, 2008), conducted 2 weeks prior to Samantha's cochlear implant surgery and again 7 weeks after the surgery, provide the foundation for this case study and are interpreted alongside additional self-report measures. Grounded theory methods were used to interpret Samantha's narrative identity.

Samantha's story demonstrates the ways in which narrative identity can serve as a foundation for meaning and psychological well-being, as well as a demonstration of the ways in which the study of identity can be enriched by perspectives from disability studies.

As an initial effort at integrating personality psychology and disability studies, this article sought to approach this task by privileging ethical representation over generalizability.