Self-Discrepancies in Young Adults and Childhood Violence

Abstract

Drawing on Higgins, Klein, and Strauman's (1985) self-discrepancy theory of anxiety and depression, we investigated the relation between violence in childhood and later discrepancies in young adults between their perceptions of their actual self and the self they felt they ought to be or would ideally like to be. Reports of early violence were significantly associated with actual-ought self-discrepancies, and also with perceived parental actual-ought discrepancies, but not with actual-ideal discrepancies. The data were consistent with two main possibilities: first, that violence creates parental discrepancies that subsequently lead to self-discrepancies in their children and, second, that parental perceptions that their children are not as they ought to be lead independently both to greater violence and to the creation of self-discrepancies in their offspring.