Self-Discrepancy Theory

This quantitative study attempted to explore whether there is a variation in the respondents' perception of the practice of positive relationship behaviors, negative relationship behaviors, introverted behaviors and extroverted behaviors in real life and online. Self-discrepancy theory was employed as the framework. Two sets of participants were utilized. The first set rated their own behavior while the second set rated the behavior of others in general. Both sets were asked whether these behaviors were perceived to be practiced in the same degree in real life and online or if they perceive them being practiced more in one or the other.The findings indicate that both sets of respondents rated most of the behaviors as being practiced more in real life, which supports the assertion of the selfdiscrepancy theory that people may attempt to reconstruct themselves differently in cyberspace.

Objective:  This experiment is analysing the relationship between Facebook usage and Self-Discrepancy theory. This is a novel investigation as prior studies have tended to focus upon characteristics such as personality traits and self-esteem in relation to Facebook activity.
Design:  A cross-sectional investigation.
Method:  A sample of 152 participants answered a questionnaire concerning the frequency of their Facebook activity. They were additionally asked to login to their own personal profiles and rate their content for self-promotional features. Self-discrepancy was measured using the Higgins Self Discrepancy test, and self-esteem was measured as a covariate.
Results: Self-discrepancy was found to be significantly related to self-promotional ratings of Facebook profile, where participants with higher self-discrepancy rated themselves as more self-promoting in their uploaded/edited content. Additionally, findings also differed significantly between genders, where females had higher self-discrepancy than males.
Conclusion:  These finding suggest that Facebook users with higher self-discrepancy tend to promote themselves more actively on their profiles. Females also show a larger gap between their ideal and their actual self than males. This study supports that self-discrepancy may be a viable predictor of types of online social networking behaviour, and should be further utilised as a measure of identity perception in prospective studies concerning online self-presentation.

A youth is expected to experience difficulties due to the opposing desire to be free while still remaining dependent to family and other significant individuals in their lives. Filipino youth are known as being family-oriented and being submissive which is one of the factors that pounds the importance of what people around them utters. Thus, creating a gap or discrepancy between what they truly want and what other people expect them to do. When these internal battles began, significant external aspects such as social interaction can be compromised. These occurrences can be elucidated by using the two frameworks Self-Discrepancy Theory and Attachment Style. In this study, correlational research design and survey method were employed to 384 Filipino Youth from Makati whom are selected through convenience sampling. Results of the study showed that the respondents have positive image of themselves. Also, a big majority of the respondents were discerned to have high discrepancies between their self-states. In this study, it was also seen that the respondents were dismissive and were characterized to be independent, self-reliant, and gave low importance to relationships. Finally, findings of this study revealed a weak positive correlation between secure attachment style towards the self-discrepancy of the respondents while weak negative correlation was found between the rest of the attachment styles towards the discrepancy among their self-states. With this, the researchers recommended stabilizing internal discrepancies and strengthening significant relationships as the two were seen as big factors in respondents' social interaction and self-esteem.

The true self is one of the essential parts of people's self-concept and identity, but it is not easily expressed in face-to-face communications. On the Internet, people can express what they intrinsically think and believe with fewer concerns about others' disapproval and judgments. Increasingly more researchers have started to investigate people's expression of the true self in the online context. However, the existing research is quite diverse and fragmented. A rigorous and comprehensive review of the emerging literature is called for. The present study conducted a systematic literature review to examine what is already known about the expression of the true self online. This paper analysed the selected studies on the basis of research contexts, research methods, and research themes. Our review offers readers an easy access to the current status of research in this field; it also provides some insightful suggestions for future studies.

Perfectionistic concerns are putative risk factors for procrastination. Even so, rigorously tested models explaining why perfectionistic concerns result in procrastination are scarce. To address this our study proposed, tested, and supported a model explaining why perfectionistic concerns give rise to procrastination. This model posits perfec-tionistic concerns generate discrepancies (a subjective sense of falling short of one's own standards), which in turn trigger procrastination. Undergraduates (N = 317) completed measures of perfectionism. The following day, participants completed online questionnaires measuring discrepancies and procrastination, twice a day, for seven consecutive days. Model predictions were supported. Perfectionistic concerns had a moderate positive association with procrastination. Tests of mediation suggested perfectionistic concerns contributed to procrastination through discrepancies. And results supported the incremental validity of our model beyond perfectionistic strivings. Findings lend credence to theoretical accounts suggesting perfectionistic concerns generate a persistent paralytic gap between the actual and the ideal self that contributes to procrastinatory behavior.

Secrecy is defined as an act of omission of information from a social environment or inclusion of other information to divert social attention by masking private information. Consumers may need secrecy to protect privacy, conform to the social environment without attracting unwanted attention, and/or avoid discrepancies between actual and ideal, and normative “ought” selves. Secret consumption experiences may differ based on product characteristics and social and cultural context. The present phenomenological study aims to explore the secret consumption of alcoholic beverages, which is described as a demerit good, and was carried out to find out the reasons for confidentiality, how it is experienced in purchasing and consumption practices, and its effects on consumer behavior. Qualitative data analysis was conducted using data collected from a sample of young and educated secret alcohol consumers residing in the province of Izmir. The findings show that participants keep their consumption secret from immediate environment and families. Consumers use various coping strategies that enable protecting their privacy and social identities, while maintaining their consumption at a minimum risk. It has been found that secret alcohol consumption leads to mental preoccupation and reduces satisfaction with consumption.

The research is based on Higgins's self-discrepancy theory and Martin's four style of humour model. At first the study confirmed hypothesis which postulates that discrepancies between self standards (ideal and ought) and the actual self will negatively correlate with hedonic balance. Analyses at the result (Pearson's r) fully confirmed hypothesis for both discrepancies. The study also examined the role of sense of humour in relationship between self-discrepancies and emotional consequences. There are two types of discrepancies with two different moderators included in the survey: discrepancy between actual self and ideal self (with self-enhancing humor as a moderator) and discrepancy between actual self and ought self (with affiliative humor being as a moderator). The participats (N = 103) completed surveys of self-discrepancies (DRP), humor style (HSQ) and affect (PANAS-X). Results showed that there are no moderation effects in both cases of discrepancies.

The study explores the relationship between values and social behavior during the acculturation of immigrants.  When immigrants settle in a new country, they discover that the rules of social interaction differ from the rules in their own culture of origin. They need to change their way of thinking, speaking and behaving in order to accomplish even simple, everyday tasks.  The study investigates: (1) whether or not behavior changes correspond to value changes during the adaptation of Russian immigrants, (2) when there are discrepancies between the adaptation of values and the adaptation of behaviors, how do immigrants cope with them and (3) what is the impact of discrepancies on individual immigrants.  The study explores adaptation in three discrete areas of social interaction: in friendship interaction, workplace interaction and male-female interaction. This differentiated approach allows for a more precise description of the adaptation process and generates data that can be used for effective counseling of immigrants in transition.       
    The findings reveal that the behavior changes and the value changes of Russians do not always correspond to each other.  Immigrants experience a significant number of discrepancies between what they believe and how they are expected to behave in the United States.  The largest number of discrepancies occur in friendship, the second largest in workplace interaction, the fewest in male-female interaction.  Women describe more discrepancies than men.  84% of the discrepancies occur when Russians communicate with Americans, 16% when they communicate with other Russians in the U.S. Cultural differences in values associated with individualism-collectivism account for over eighty percent of the discrepancies.  Discrepancies cause immigrants to experience negative emotional responses such as stress, anger, frustration and disappointment, which they manage using both emotion focused and problem focused coping strategies.
    The adaptation of Russians varies across different areas of social interaction.  Immigrants use more active coping strategies and conform to American norms of social interaction more in public settings (work interaction, public male-female interaction).  In private settings (friendship; male-female interaction at home), they practice more culture maintenance and use more avoiding coping strategies.

In face-to-face communications, to avoid sanctions and disapproval from others, people are more likely to hide negative aspects of their true self (such as socially undesirable personalities, minds, beliefs and consciousness) to avoid conflict with social norms and laws. The anonymity of cyberspace provides people a unique environment to behave more freely and openly with less restraint from the real word. Existing research related to online true self expression has mainly explored true self as an independent aspect of self. Regarding true self as a two-dimensional concept, this study investigates true self from the perspective of individuals' self-guide and identity reconstruction in both online and offline world. Using qualitative research methods, the current study investigates 57 participants through interviews and questionnaires. Content analysis reveals four factors that motivate people to express more true self (especially negative true self) when reconstructing their online identity and involve true self as a part of their self-guide in anonymous environment. By incorporating true self as an important part of individuals' self-guide and identity online, the current study advances self-discrepancy theory, making it more comprehensive for cyberspace. The results are also interpreted based on self-determination theory. The theoretical contributions of this study are discussed and practical implications are also presented.

Keywords
KeyWords Plus:SOCIAL-INTERACTION; FACEBOOK USE; INTERNET; PERSONALITY; SATISFACTION; MOTIVATION; COMMUNITIES; DIRECTIONS; EXPRESSION; BEHAVIOR

Reduced memory specificity (RMS) is a robust finding in (previously) depressed patients and patients suffering from posttraumatic symptoms. It has been associated with depression severity, rumination, and – more recently – with cue content (e.g., cues referring to highly discrepant self-guides are assumed to hinder specific memory retrieval more likely than cues that match one’s self-concept). In this study we have investigated the presence of these relationships in 34 patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). All participants completed the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ), the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), and the Ruminative Response Scale (RRS). First, it was observed that both rumination and depression severity were associated with RMS. However, when confounding between rumination and depression severity was considered using partial correlations, only depression severity was found to be significantly associated with RMS. Second, in the currently depressed BPD patients (n = 11), memory specificity was significantly related to cue content suggesting that, at least for depressed BPD patients RMS is related to the extent to which cues activate highly discrepant personal domains. Although our data suggest that depression severity as well as current depression (in interaction with cue content) play an important role in the occurrence of RMS in BPD, we will discuss that these findings could be moderated by posttraumatic stress and / or executive functioning.