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Self-Discrepancy Theory

[add to Self-Discrepancy Theory introduction] The theory proposes how a variety of self-discrepancies represents a variety of types of negative psychological situations that are associated with different kinds of discomfort (Higgins, 1987, p. 319). A primary goal of the Self-Discrepancy Theory is to help aid in predicting which types of incongruent ideas will cause such individuals to feel different kinds of negative emotions (Higgins, 1987, p. 319). The structure of the theory was built based on three ideas: to distinguish among the different kinds of discomfort felt by those people holding incongruent ideals experienced, to relate the different possible kinds of emotional vulnerabilities felt by the different types of discrepancies that people may have for the self, and to consider the role of both the availability and accessibility to the different discrepancies that may potentially have in influencing the kind and type of discomfort they are most likely to experience. Also, the theory suggests that individuals are motivated to reach a goal of where the self-concept matches the appropriate self-guides (Higgins, 1987, p. 321)

Higgins (1987) measured how individuals experienced self-discrepancies by having individuals reminisce and remember about “negative events or personal self-guides, including hopes, goals, duties, and obligations, and measure what will help increase the that kind of discomfort the individual experiences” (p. 329). The study found that the “absence of an actual/own and ideal/own discrepancy” is associated with the emotions “happy” and “satisfied” and the “absence of an actual/own and ought/other discrepancy” is associated with the emotions “calm” and “secure” (Higgins, 1987, p. 236)

[Add to Discrepancies] Types of Self-Discrepancies(Higgens, 1987, p. 319):There are different discrepancies that create two kinds of negative psychological situations which are connected to particular types of emotional states. The absence of positive outcomes is linked with individuals who feel the dejection-related emotions, including disappointment, dissatisfaction, and sadness. The presence of negative outcomes is linked to the agitation-related emotions, including fear, threat, edginess, and restlessness. The basic assumption among dejection-related emotions and agitation-related emotions are used to distinguish between different levels of depression and anxiety.

Self-Discrepancy assumes that each type of discrepancy reflects a particular type of negative psychological situation that is associated with specific emotional/motivational problems. Individual differences in types of self-discrepancies are associated with differences in the specific types of negative psychological situations their possessors are likely to experience (Higgins, 1987 p. 322).

The motivational/emotional effects of your self-concept are determined by the significance to you of achieving such attributes. The significance is assumed to depend on the relation between the self-concept and your self-guides, with different types of relations representing different types of negative psychological situations (Higgins, 1987 p. 322).

Actual/own versus Ideal/own: individual is predicted to be vulnerable to disappointment or dissatisfaction because these emotions are associated with people believing that their personal wishes have been unfulfilled. These emotions have been described as being associated with the individuals’ own standpoint and a discrepancy from his or her hope, desire, or ideals. The motivational nature of this discrepancy also suggests that it could be associated with frustration because of these unfulfilled desires. Emotions such as blameworthy, feeling no interest in things, and not feeling effective was also associated with this discrepancy. In addition, this discrepancy is also associated with dejection from perceived lack of effectiveness or self-fulfillment (Higgins, 1987 p. 326). This discrepancy is uniquely associated with depression (Higgins, 1987 p. 332).

Actual/own versus Ideal/other: because one believes that they have failed to obtain some significant other’s hopes or wishes are likely to believe that the significant other is disappointment and dissatisfaction with them. In turn, individuals will be vulnerable to shame, embarrassment, or feeling downcast, because these emotions are associated with people believing that they have lost standing or esteem in the eyes of others. Analysis of shame and related emotions have been described as being associated with the standpoint of one or more other people and discrepancies from achievement and/or status standards. Other analyses describe shame as being associated with concern over losing the affection or esteem of others. When people have a sense of the difference between their actual self and their social ideal self, an individual will experience feelings of shame and unworthiness. Shame that is often experienced when there is a failure to meet a significant other’s goals or wishes involves loss of face and presumed exposure to the dissatisfaction of others (Higgins, 1987 p. 322). Feeling lack of pride, lack of feeling sure of self and goals, feeling lonely, feeling blue, and feeling not interest in things was also associated with this discrepancy. This discrepancy is associated with dejection from perceived or anticipated loss of social affection or esteem (Higgins, 1987 p. 326).

Actual/own versus ought/other: because violation of prescribed duties and obligations is associated with punishment, this particular discrepancy represents the presence of negative outcomes. The individual experiencing this discrepancy will have an expectation of punishment; therefore, the person is predicted to be vulnerable to fear and feeling threatened, because these emotions occur when danger or harm is anticipated or impending. Analyses of such emotions have described them as being associated with the standpoint of one or more other people and discrepancy from norms or moral standards. The motivational nature of this discrepancy suggests that one might experience feelings of resentment. The feeling of resentment arises from the anticipated pain to be inflicted by others. The person might also experience anxiety because of apprehension over negative responses from others. This discrepancy is associated with agitation from fear and threat (Higgins, 1987 p. 322). In addition, it is also associated with agitation from self-criticism (Higgins, 1987 p. 326). Social anxiety is uniquely associated with this discrepancy (Higgins, 1987 p. 332).

Actual/own versus ought/own: one predicts a readiness for self-punishment. The person is predicted to be vulnerable to guilt, self-contempt, and uneasiness, because these particular feelings occur when people believe they have transgressed a personally legitimate and accepted moral standard. Analysis of guilt have described it as associated with a person’s own standpoint and a discrepancy from his or her sense of morality or justice. The motivational nature of this discrepancy suggests associations with feelings of moral worthlessness or weakness (Higgins, 1987 p. 323). Transgression of one’s own internalized moral standards has been associated with guilt and self-criticism because when people attribute failure to a lack of sufficient effort on their part, they experience feelings of guilt (Higgins, 1987 p. 325).

Availability and Accessibility of Self-Discrepancies“Conflicting beliefs are cognitive constructs; therefore, they can vary both in their accessibility and availability,” (Higgins, 1987, p. 320). In order to establish which types of discrepancies an individual holds and which are likely to be active and produce their associated emotions at any point, the availability and accessibility of self-discrepancies must be distinguished, (Higgins, 1987, p. 323).

Availability“The availability of any specific type of self-discrepancy is assumed to depend on the extent to which the attributes of the two conflicted self-state representations diverge for the person in question. Each attribute in one of the self-state representations (actual/own) is compared to each attribute in the other self-state representation (ideal/own). Each pair of attributes is coded as either a match or a mismatch,” (Higgins, 1987, p. 323). The larger variance between the number of matches and the number of nonmatches (i.e., the greater the divergence of attributes between the two self-state representations), the larger the magnitude of that type of self-discrepancy that is available. Furthermore, the greater the magnitude of a particular discrepancy produces more intense feelings of discomfort accompanying the discrepancy when activated, (Higgins, 1987, p. 324).

The availability of the self-discrepancy is not enough to influence emotions. In order to do so, the self-discrepancy must also be activated. The variable that influences the probability of activation is its accessibility, (Higgins, 1999, p. 1315).

Accessibility“The accessibility of an available self-discrepancy is assumed to depend on the same factors that determine the accessibility of any stored construct. One factor is how recently the construct has been activated. The more often a construct is activated, the more likely it will be used later on to understand social events.The accessibility or likelihood of activation, of a stored construct also depends on the relation between its “meaning” and the properties of the stimulus event. A stored construct will not be used to interpret an event unless it is applicable to the event. Thus the negative psychological situation represented in a self-discrepancy (i.e. the “meaning” of the discrepancy) will not be activated by an unambiguously positive event. In sum, the accessibility of s self-discrepancy is determined by its recency of activation, its frequency of activation, and its applicability to the stimulus event,” (Higgins, 1987, p. 324). The theory "hypothesizes that the greater the accessibility of a particular type of self-discrepancy possessed by a person, the more strongly the person will experience the emotion associated with that discrepancy,” (Higgins, 1999, p. 1314).

The theory does not propose that individuals are aware of their accessibility or availability of their self-discrepancies. However, it is obvious that both the availability and accessibility can influence social information processing automatically and without awareness, (Higgins, 1987, p. 324). Thus, self-discrepancy theory simulates that the “available and accessible negative psychological situations embodied in one’s self-discrepancies can be used to give meaning to events minus one’s being aware of either the discrepancies or their influence on processing. The measure of self-discrepancies requires only that one be able to retrieve attributes of specific self-state representations when asked to do so. It does not require that one be aware of the relations among these attributes of their significance,” (Higgins, 1987, p. 324). Self-discrepancy theory hypothesizes that the “greater the magnitude of a particular type of self-discrepancy possessed by a person, the more strongly the person will experience the emotion associated with that type of discrepancy,” (Higgins, 1987, p. 336).

[Add to Self-Discrepancy Theory and depression] Strauman and Higgins (1988) report that individuals felt dissatisfaction, discouragement, pitifulness, gloominess and feelings of frustratedness/angriness are done towards oneself. They also explain that feelings, such as guilt, anxiety, worry, fear, and feeling tense, alarmed, threatened, angry, and resentful is done towards others. Higgins, Bond, Klein, and Strauman (1986) showed that magnitude, type, and accessibility of the participants’ self-discrepancies reportedly had an increase in the particular emotion experienced in the laboratory experiment.

Strauman & Higgins (1988) reproduced the same findings found in the study (Higgens, et al., 1986) using clinically depressed and social phobic participant’s. The findings found supports the idea that self-discrepancies contribute to causal factors in clinically diagnosed emotional disorders, such as depression and anxiety (Strauman & Higgins, 1988, p. 688). The depressed individuals demonstrated experiencing the greatest dejection-related emotions in response to ideal-discrepancies. In comparison, those individuals who felt anxiety demonstrated experiencing the greatest agitation-related emotions in response to ought-discrepancies (Strauman & Higgins, 1988, p. 688).

Strauman & Higgins (1988) investigated two particular discrepancies: actual/own—ideal/own (AI) and actual/own—ought/other (AOO). AI discrepancy was found to be related to anger and frustration with the self while AOO discrepancy found to be in more related to with emotions, including anger and resentment at others (Strauman & Higgins, 1988, p. 689).The second part of the study examined the potential association between AI and AOO self-discrepancies and depression versus anxiety (Strauman & Higgins, 1988, p. 697). The results demonstrated evidence that A1 was more highly correlated with depression while AOO was more strongly correlated with anxiety (Strauman & Higgins, 1988, p. 698). This means that actual/own and ideal/own concepts are more likely to be seen in depressed individuals. In comparison, actual/own and other/ought concepts are more likely to be seen in anxious individuals. This study demonstrated that the self-discrepancy theory can be used to predict general emotional vulnerability (Strauman & Higgins, 1988, p. 703).

References

Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94(3), 319-340.

Higgins, E., Bond, R. N., Klein, R., & Strauman, T. (1986). Self-discrepancies and emotional vulnerability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(1), 5-15

Higgins, E. T. (1999). Who do self-discrepancies have specific relations to emotions? The second-generation question of Tangney, Niedenthal, Covert, and Barlow (1998). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1313-1317.

Strauman, T. J. & Higgins, E. T. (1988). Self-discrepancies as predictors of vulnerability to distinct syndromes of chronic emotional distress. Journal of Personality, 56(4), 685-707.