Self-Discrepancy Theory

Why is it that when people are emotionally overwhelmed by a tragedy or serious setback in their lives, such as the death of their child, the loss of their job, or the break-up of their marriage, some suffer from depression whereas others suffer from anxiety? Self-discrepancy theory was developed to find an answer to this question. The answer proposed by self-discrepancy theory is that even when people have the same goal, such as college students wanting a good grade point average (GPA) or older adults wanting a good marriage, they can vary in how they represent the goal. Some people represent their goals as hopes, wishes, or aspirationscalled ideal self-guides in self-discrepancy theory. Other individuals represent their goals as beliefs about their duties, responsibilities, or obligationsought self-guides. According to self-discrepancy theory, this difference between pursuing ideals versus oughts explains why people have such different emotional reactions to the same negative life event.

Self-discrepancy theory proposes that people treat what is currently happening in their personal lives as saying something about them nowas representing their actual selves. These actual selves are then compared with their ideal or ought self-guides. People suffer emotionally when there is a discrepancy between some aspect of their actual self and one of their self-guidesa self-discrepancy. When there is an actual-self discrepancy from a personal ideal, people feel sad, disappointed, discourageddejection-related emotions that relate to depression. When there is an actual-self discrepancy from a personal ought, people feel nervous, tense, and worriedagitation-related emotions that relate to anxiety. Thus, according to self-discrepancy theory, people's emotional vulnerabilities depend on the type of self-guide that motivates their livesa vulnerability to dejection or depression when ideals dominate and a vulnerability to agitation or anxiety when oughts dominate.

Why are different emotions associated with an actual-ideal discrepancy versus an actual-ought discrepancy? According to self-discrepancy theory, this is because different emotions are associated with different psychological situations that people experience: Success or failure in ideal goal pursuit produce different psychological situations than does success or failure in ought goal pursuit. Specifically, when pursuing ideal goals, people experience success as the presence of a positive outcome (a gain), which is experienced as feeling happy, and they experience failure as the absence of positive outcomes (a non-gain), which is experienced as feeling sad. In contrast, when pursuing ought goals, people experience success as the absence of a negative outcome (a non-loss), which is experienced as feeling relaxed, and they experience failure as the presence of a negative outcome (a loss), which is experienced as feeling nervous.

Self-discrepancy theory also proposes that different kinds of parenting contribute to children developing strong ideal self-guides or strong ought self-guides, and this is because of the different psychological situations involved in the parenting. When children interact with their parents (or other caretakers), the parents respond to them in ways that make the children experience specific kinds of psychological situations. Over time, the children respond to themselves like their parents respond to them, producing the same specific kinds of psychological situations. Over time, this develops into the type of self-guide that is associated with those psychological situationsideal or ought self-guides.

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