Higgins Dima Gorelik

Higgins' article about self discrepancy deals with the type of thoughts

which cause us to experience negative affect. The focus of his theory is self

perception which he divides into three parts: the actual-self corresponding to

the way we or other people perceive ourselves, the ideal-self corresponding to

the qualities we or other people think we need to possess to be successful or

happy, and the ought-self corresponding the qualities we or other people think

we need to posses to be socially accepted and behaviorally approved.

These self concept models sum up to six different variants (e.g. ideal-

own, ideal-other) while the actual-own and actual-other self states are treated

as baseline states amongst the six. Higgins assumes that we naturally strive

to narrow the gap between the baseline states and the ideal and ought states.

Another important component in Higgins' theory is the association between

target self states and different emotional-affective states. Failing to reach our

ideal-self goal leads to dejection-related emotional problems like depression.

Failing to reach our ought-self goal leads to agitation-related emotional

problems like anxiety.

Higgins' hypothesis deals with matters of magnitude and accessibility. The

greater the magnitude and the accessibility of self-discrepancy, he says, the

more the individual will suffer from the type of discomfort associated with that

self state (see above). Later in the article Higgins provides experimental

evidence for this claim.

One of the interesting parts of the article deals with developmental

psychology and socialization of self-beliefs. In that section Higgins draws a

comparison between parenting style, childhood experiences and later self-

discrepancy patterns. He links dejection-related emotional problems to a

childhood lack of positive outcomes emotional experience and agitation-

related emotional problems to a childhood experience with a pervasive pattern

of negative emotional outcomes.

One of the fascinating parts of the theory is that self concepts are

insufficient in illustrating psychological maladjustment. As Higgins shows we

also need to consider the relation between different self concepts to gain a

complete picture of the workings of the human psyche.

The theory is quite promising in the practical sense. Its implications are

that it's beneficial to lower our self-ideals and be able to look at ourselves with

less bias. If we would be able to do that, our self esteem and feelings of

satisfaction would increase.

Lastly I think it's a pity Higgins didn't compare his theoretical premise to

Duval and Wicklund's Self-Awareness Theory.