Author: Régine Débrosse

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

"Everyone has faced mismatches between how they see themselves and how they desire to be. At times, people compare their present self to the person they hope to become; at other times, they reflect on the skills they wish to acquire. Research stemming from Self-Discrepancy Theory suggests that such self-concept mismatches are associated with poor psychological health and motivation. Yet, the fact that some of us also perceive mismatches when comparing our social group to our desired selves has not been examined. This gap in the literature is an important limitation: according to research stemming from Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), especially research pertaining to the collective identity primacy hypothesis (Taylor, 2002), personal components of our self-concept are often derived from collective identities or shaped by group-based experiences. In the present thesis, I build on premises of Self-Discrepancy Theory and Social Identity Theory to introduce two forms of self-concept mismatches: collective actual/personal ideal self-discrepancies (i.e. perceived mismatches between who a person aspires to be as an individual and this person's collective identity) and collective actual/personal ought self-discrepancies (i.e. perceived mismatches between who a person believes they should be as an individual and this person's collective identity). I tested for the psychological health, aspiration, and education correlates and effects of collective actual/personal ideal self-discrepancies and of collective actual/personal ought self-discrepancies in three manuscripts. In Manuscript 1, I found that collective actual/personal ought self-discrepancies are associated with the severity of anxiety and depression symptoms, and results further suggest that these relations are mediated by personal actual/personal ought self-discrepancies. Similarly, the two field studies of Manuscript 2 indicate that collective actual/personal ideal self-discrepancies predict the engagement of immigrant adolescents to pursue their personal aspirations (Study 1) as well as their academic outcomes (Study 2), through personal actual/personal ideal self-discrepancies. In Manuscript 3, collective actual/personal ideal self-discrepancies predicted the academic disengagement of minority university students (Study 1 and Study 2), even when they were measured two months apart (Study 2), and evidence suggests a mediating role for personal actual/personal ideal self-discrepancies. Moreover, Study 1 and Study 2 of Manuscript 3 indicated that relations between collective actual/personal ideal self-discrepancies cannot be attributed to a lack of esteem for their ethnic group, or to mismatches between aspiration-related values and ethnic identity values. Finally, in Study 3, university students subtly led to perceive large collective actual/personal ideal self-discrepancies reported significantly higher academic disengagement than students in a neutral condition. For students in the large collective actual/personal ideal self-discrepancies condition, but not for students in the neutral condition, perceiving larger personal actual/personal ideal self-discrepancies was associated with higher academic disengagement. These results are discussed in light of the literature on mismatches within the self-concept and identities, and on the barriers impeding the success of ethnic minority students. " --