Objective self-awareness and causal attributions for self-standard discrepancies: Changing self or changing standards of correctness

An experiment tested the hypothesis that causal attributions for self-stand ard discrepancies determine whether the motivation to reduce such discrepan cies results in changing self toward standards or changing standards toward self, rn this experiment, individuals who were either high or low in self- fonts were led to direct attention either toward their performance or towar d the standard fm that performance immediately following a self-standard di screpancy induction. Predictions under high self-focus conditions were conf irmed. High self-fonts persons who focused on the standard attributed more causality for their performance to that cognitive element than to self and changed the standard toward self more than did high self-focus persons who focused on their performance and vice versa. Implications of these findings fm theories involving operation of the self-to-standard type of system are discussed.