Self-Awareness and the Emotional Consequences of Self-Discrepancies

Abstract

Several self theories explore the effects of discrepant self-beliefs on motivation and emotion. This research intersected two self theories: self-discrepancy theory and objective self-awareness theory. Self-discrepancy theory predicts that ideal and ought discrepancies cause different negative emotions; objective self-awareness theory predicts that high self-awareness will strengthen the relationship between self-discrepancies and emotions. People (N =112) completed measures of self-discrepancies and emotions (dejection, agitation, positive affect, and negative affect). Self-focused attention was manipulated with a large mirror. When self-awareness was low, self-discrepancies had weak, nonsignificant relations to emotion. When self-awareness was high, however, self-discrepancies strongly predicted emotional experience. These effects were general—ideal and ought discrepancies affected emotions because of their substantial shared variance, not their unique variance. Implications for theories of self-discrepancies and emotions are considered.