Narrative Work Identity and Resilience—Redemption Prospectively Predicts Teachers' Stress Resilience at Work

ABSTRACT Objectives Individuals create narratives about the vocational domain of their lives, which represent their identity at work and encompass their remembered past, lived present and imagined future work lives. Grounded in the literature on narrative identity, we examine whether individual differences in features of narrative work identity prospectively predict resilience at work as an important vocational outcome. Method A sample of 125 teachers was interviewed about their work life stories and provided narratives about work life low points, work life turning points, and their main challenge at work. They completed two measures of resilience at both baseline and 6 months follow‐up, as well as measures of control variables (work demands, social support, occupational self‐efficacy, purpose of work, optimism and personality traits). Narratives were coded for redemption, contamination, agency and communion. Results Higher redemption predicted resilience after 6 months and was related to concurrent resilient behavior at work. More agency and less contamination correlated with resilience at baseline Conclusions The results suggest that narrative work identity represents a promising construct in the study of work identity and work‐related outcomes.