Discrepant self-views and young women's sexual and emotional adjustment

Young women in the United States receive conflicting messages about being s exually, moral versus sexually desirable. Drawing from self-discrepancy the ory, we hypothesized that women's internalization of messages about moralit y and desirability influence their ought and ideal self-guides for sexualit y, respectively. Further, we expected that women who viewed their actual se lves as significantly less positive/more negative than their self-guides wo uld endorse greater sexual and emotional problems. In Study 1, never-marrie d undergraduate women (N = 242) completed measures of sexual self-views, ou ght self-guides, and sexual adjustment. In Study 2, another sample (N = 170 ) also completed measures of ideal self-guides, depression, and anxiety. Pa rticipants were predominantly Caucasian and from upper middle-class backgro unds. Both negative actual:ought and actual:ideal discrepancies were associ ated with poorer sexual adjustment. Negative actual:ought discrepancies wer e associated with anxiety but not depression, whereas negative actual:ideal discrepancies were associated with both anxiety and depression. Self-discr epancy theory is a useful framework for understanding how self-standards fo r sexual morality versus desirability are associated with young women's emo tional and sexual adjustment.