In McAdams's life story model, identity is not synonymous with the "self' or the "self-concept" or even with "who I am"; rather, it refers to a particular quality or flavoring of people's self-understandings, a way in which the self can be arranged or configured. To the extent that a person's self-understanding is in-tegrated synchronically and diachronically such that it situates him or her into a meaningful psychosocial niche and provides his or her life with some degree of unity and purpose, that person "has" identity.
identity def