Title: Wanting to be better but thinking you can't: Implicit theories of personality moderate the impact of self-discrepancies on self-esteem
Abstract: Abstract Two studies examined the role of implicit theories of personality in the relation between actual – ideal self-discrepancies and self-esteem. Replicating previous work, we found that those with greater actual – ideal self-discrepancies reported lower self-esteem. Moreover, we hypothesized that this outcome would be especially stronger for those possessing an entity theory of personality (i.e., believing that personality is relatively fixed and unchangeable) than for those possessing an incremental theory of personality (i.e., believing that personality is relatively flexible and malleable). Both studies supported this prediction, using either a nomothetic measure of actual – ideal self-discrepancy (Study 1) or an idiographic measure of actual – ideal self-discrepancy (Study 2). In other words, the relation between self-discrepancy and self-evaluation was stronger for entity theorists than for incremental theorists. Implications of these findings for topics ranging from emotional regulation to educational settings are discussed. Notes 1. Analyses treating implicit theory as a continuous variable (using interaction regression analyses) yield similar results to those to be reported in both studies. In order to simplify the presentation of the results (and to maintain fidelity with work in the existent literature, e.g., Levy et al., Citation1998), we present the data based on an entity versus incremental theory dichotomization. Additional informationNotes on contributorsJeanette M. Renaud This research was supported by NIMH grant MH068279 and NSF grant BCS 0516931.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 34
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot