RESEARCH PAPER
Private vs. public self-consciousness and self-discrepancies
1
Institute of Psychology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland
Submission date: 2015-10-08
Final revision date: 2015-11-16
Acceptance date: 2015-11-17
Online publication date: 2015-11-30
Publication date: 2016-03-18
Current Issues in Personality Psychology 2016;4(1):58-64
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
the role of personality in interpersonal relations and social behaviorsindividual differencesquality of life and well being
ABSTRACT
Background
We studied the relationships of self-discrepancies with private and public self-consciousness. It was postulated that private self-consciousness is more strongly related to actual–ideal discrepancy than to actual–ought discrepancy, and that the latter is more strongly related to public self-consciousness.
Participants and procedure
The sample consisted of 71 students aged 19-25, who completed the Self-Consciousness Scale and the DRP procedure for measuring self-discrepancies.
Results
The results did not confirm the hypotheses, but revealed a correlation between actual–ideal discrepancy and social anxiety. It also turned out that private self-consciousness negatively correlates with the time of rating ideal-self attributes and positively with the time of rating ought-self attributes.
Conclusions
Self-consciousness may be related not so much to the size of self-discrepancies as to the accessibility of the content of each self-standard. The results are also consistent with the sequence of studies that challenge the central thesis of Higgins’s theory concerning the specific relationship between actual-ought discrepancy and anxiety.
We studied the relationships of self-discrepancies with private and public self-consciousness. It was postulated that private self-consciousness is more strongly related to actual–ideal discrepancy than to actual–ought discrepancy, and that the latter is more strongly related to public self-consciousness.
Participants and procedure
The sample consisted of 71 students aged 19-25, who completed the Self-Consciousness Scale and the DRP procedure for measuring self-discrepancies.
Results
The results did not confirm the hypotheses, but revealed a correlation between actual–ideal discrepancy and social anxiety. It also turned out that private self-consciousness negatively correlates with the time of rating ideal-self attributes and positively with the time of rating ought-self attributes.
Conclusions
Self-consciousness may be related not so much to the size of self-discrepancies as to the accessibility of the content of each self-standard. The results are also consistent with the sequence of studies that challenge the central thesis of Higgins’s theory concerning the specific relationship between actual-ought discrepancy and anxiety.
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