STABILITY WITHIN THE SELF - A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF THE STRUCTURAL IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-DISCREPANCY THEORY

Self-discrepancy theory emphasizes the emotional significance of patte rns of relations between the self-concept and idea(and ought self-guid es and predicts stability within the self related to structural charac teristics independent of specific self-beliefs. It was hypothesized th at whereas participants' specific self-descriptions would vary substan tially over time, magnitude of self-discrepancy, regulatory focus (the individual's dominant self-guide domain), and other structural featur es would be stable. Participants (N = 47) were recruited from 2 sample s that had completed a self-belief interview and a childhood memory cu ed-recall task 3 years earlier (T. J. Strauman, 1990). As expected, pa rticipants' self-descriptions varied, but magnitude and type of self-d iscrepancy associations between self-guide domains and childhood memor ies, and correlates of regulator): focus were stable.