Dan P. McAdams

40.3k total citations · 14 hit papers
241 papers, 22.9k citations indexed

About

Dan P. McAdams is a scholar working on Developmental and Educational Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Sociology and Political Science. According to data from OpenAlex, Dan P. McAdams has authored 241 papers receiving a total of 22.9k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 133 papers in Developmental and Educational Psychology, 69 papers in Clinical Psychology and 54 papers in Sociology and Political Science. Recurrent topics in Dan P. McAdams's work include Identity, Memory, and Therapy (131 papers), Family Support in Illness (28 papers) and Personality Traits and Psychology (27 papers). Dan P. McAdams is often cited by papers focused on Identity, Memory, and Therapy (131 papers), Family Support in Illness (28 papers) and Personality Traits and Psychology (27 papers). Dan P. McAdams collaborates with scholars based in United States, Philippines and Denmark. Dan P. McAdams's co-authors include Ed de St. Aubin, Jennifer L. Pals, Henry A. Murray, Jack J. Bauer, Kate C. McLean, Bradley D. Olson, Regina L. Logan, Jennifer Lilgendahl, Elizabeth Mansfield and Jonathan M. Adler and has published in prestigious journals such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología and Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews.

In The Last Decade

Dan P. McAdams

233 papers receiving 20.5k citations

Hit Papers

The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of ... 1985 2026 1998 2012 1997 2001 2006 2007 1992 500 1000 1.5k
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self
    1997 1.6k citations Dan P. McAdams profile →
  2. The Psychology of Life Stories
    2001 1.5k citations Dan P. McAdams profile →
  3. A new Big Five: Fundamental principles for an integrative science of personality.
    2006 1.2k citations Dan P. McAdams et al. profile →
  4. Explorations in Personality
    2007 1.1k citations Dan P. McAdams et al. profile →
  5. A theory of generativity and its assessment through self-report, behavioral acts, and narrative themes in autobiography.
    1992 857 citations Dan P. McAdams, Ed de St. Aubin Journal of Personality and Social Psychology profile →
  6. Narrative Identity
    2013 831 citations Dan P. McAdams et al. profile →
  7. Power, Intimacy, and the Life Story: Personological Inquiries into Identity
    1985 816 citations Dan P. McAdams profile →
  8. Personality, Modernity, and the Storied Self: A Contemporary Framework for Studying Persons
    1996 706 citations Dan P. McAdams Psychological Inquiry profile →
  9. What Do We Know When We Know a Person?
    1995 651 citations Dan P. McAdams Journal of Personality profile →
  10. When Bad Things Turn Good and Good Things Turn Bad: Sequences of Redemption and Contamination in Life Narrative and their Relation to Psychosocial Adaptation in Midlife Adults and in Students
    2001 544 citations Dan P. McAdams et al. profile →
  11. Personality Development: Continuity and Change Over the Life Course
    2009 528 citations Dan P. McAdams, Bradley D. Olson profile →
  12. The redemptive self : stories Americans live by
    2005 501 citations Dan P. McAdams profile →
  13. The Psychological Self as Actor, Agent, and Author
    2013 340 citations Dan P. McAdams profile →
  14. The empirical structure of narrative identity: The initial Big Three.
    2019 189 citations Jennifer Lilgendahl, Dan P. McAdams et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
Dan P. McAdams United States 68 8.2k 8.1k 7.5k 6.9k 3.8k 241 22.9k
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett United States 64 5.1k 0.6× 12.9k 1.6× 10.1k 1.3× 11.4k 1.6× 4.4k 1.2× 140 34.8k
Brent W. Roberts United States 81 2.9k 0.4× 5.3k 0.7× 10.5k 1.4× 16.6k 2.4× 10.1k 2.7× 230 30.9k
Erik H. Erikson United States 40 4.8k 0.6× 8.3k 1.0× 6.3k 0.8× 7.2k 1.0× 2.4k 0.6× 97 24.0k
Richard W. Robins United States 78 2.2k 0.3× 7.5k 0.9× 14.1k 1.9× 14.7k 2.1× 7.9k 2.1× 247 30.3k
Bernard Weiner United States 72 3.8k 0.5× 9.9k 1.2× 13.1k 1.7× 5.8k 0.8× 5.8k 1.5× 205 32.0k
Shinobu Kitayama United States 70 2.5k 0.3× 15.1k 1.8× 24.6k 3.3× 6.2k 0.9× 6.0k 1.6× 208 37.5k
Kennon M. Sheldon United States 85 3.0k 0.4× 6.5k 0.8× 21.2k 2.8× 8.2k 1.2× 6.4k 1.7× 230 32.5k
Hazel Rose Markus United States 85 3.9k 0.5× 20.1k 2.5× 27.0k 3.6× 9.0k 1.3× 8.2k 2.2× 219 50.5k
Bart Soenens Belgium 80 4.4k 0.5× 5.6k 0.7× 13.5k 1.8× 10.0k 1.4× 4.5k 1.2× 336 24.6k
S. Alexander Haslam Australia 91 1.8k 0.2× 14.7k 1.8× 12.1k 1.6× 4.2k 0.6× 1.8k 0.5× 461 32.6k

Countries citing papers authored by Dan P. McAdams

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Dan P. McAdams's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Dan P. McAdams with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Dan P. McAdams more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Dan P. McAdams

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Dan P. McAdams. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Dan P. McAdams. The network helps show where Dan P. McAdams may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Dan P. McAdams

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Dan P. McAdams. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Dan P. McAdams based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Dan P. McAdams. Dan P. McAdams is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Thomsen, Dorthe Kirkegaard, Henry R. Cowan, & Dan P. McAdams. (2025). Mental illness and personal recovery: A narrative identity framework. Clinical Psychology Review. 116. 102546–102546. 3 indexed citations
2.
Lind, Majse, et al.. (2024). Narrative Identity, Traits, and Trajectories of Depression and Well-Being: A 9-Year Longitudinal Study. Psychological Science. 35(12). 1325–1339. 3 indexed citations
3.
Thomsen, Dorthe Kirkegaard, et al.. (2024). Narrative identity in context: How adults in Japan, Denmark, Israel, and the United States narrate difficult life events.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 127(6). 1263–1287. 4 indexed citations
4.
Cowan, Henry R., Vijay A. Mittal, & Dan P. McAdams. (2021). Narrative identity in the psychosis spectrum: A systematic review and developmental model. Clinical Psychology Review. 88. 102067–102067. 34 indexed citations
5.
McAdams, Dan P., et al.. (2020). Self‐transcendence and life stories of humanistic growth among late‐midlife adults. Journal of Personality. 89(2). 305–324. 27 indexed citations
6.
Cowan, Henry R., et al.. (2020). The power of narrative. Narrative Inquiry. 34(1). 1–29. 5 indexed citations
7.
Pornpattananangkul, Narun, et al.. (2014). Posterior versus frontal theta activity indexes approach motivation during affective autobiographical memories. Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience. 15(1). 132–144. 11 indexed citations
8.
Matsuba, M. Kyle, et al.. (2012). Environmentalism as a Context for Expressing Identity and Generativity: Patterns Among Activists and Uninvolved Youth and Midlife Adults. Journal of Personality. 80(4). 1091–1115. 67 indexed citations
9.
Narváez, Darcia, Dan P. McAdams, Daniel Cervone, et al.. (2009). Personality, Identity, and Character. Cambridge University Press eBooks. 87 indexed citations
10.
McAdams, Dan P., et al.. (2008). Family metaphors and moral intuitions: How conservatives and liberals narrate their lives.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 95(4). 978–990. 198 indexed citations
11.
McAdams, Dan P.. (2004). Redemption and American politics. ˜The œchronicle of higher education. 3 indexed citations
12.
Lilgendahl, Jennifer & Dan P. McAdams. (2004). The transformed self: A narrative understanding of posttraumatic growth. Psychological Inquiry. 15(1). 65–69. 145 indexed citations
13.
Pagano, Maria E., Barton J. Hirsch, Nancy L. Deutsch, & Dan P. McAdams. (2003). The Transmission of Values to School-Age and Young Adult Offspring. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy. 14(3-4). 13–36. 21 indexed citations
14.
Woike, Barbara A. & Dan P. McAdams. (2001). TAT-based personality measures have considerable validity. APS observer. 14. 4 indexed citations
15.
Bauer, Jack J. & Dan P. McAdams. (2000). Competence, relatedness, and autonomy in life stories. Psychological Inquiry. 11(4). 276–279. 23 indexed citations
16.
McAdams, Dan P., Ed de St. Aubin, & Regina L. Logan. (1993). Generativity among young, midlife, and older adults.. Psychology and Aging. 8(2). 221–230. 345 indexed citations
17.
McAdams, Dan P.. (1989). Intimacy: The need to be close.. Doubleday eBooks. 54 indexed citations
18.
McAdams, Dan P.. (1985). On being short or relevant in personality theory: A review of B. R. Hergenhehn (Ed.), An introduction to theories of personality (2nd Ed.) and R. Frager and J. Fadiman, Personality and personal growth.. Contemporary Psychology. 30. 566–567. 1 indexed citations
19.
McAdams, Dan P. & George E. Vaillant. (1982). Intimacy Motivation and Psychosocial Adjustment: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Personality Assessment. 46(6). 586–593. 64 indexed citations
20.
McAdams, Dan P., et al.. (1981). Religious Identity among Students at a Private College: Social Motives, Ego Stage, and Development.. Merrill-palmer Quarterly. 27(3). 219–239. 20 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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