Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 1998 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 1998, Vol. 75, No. 1,256-268 0022-3514/98/$3.00 Are Shame and Guilt Related to Distinct Self-Discrepancies? A Test of Higgins's (1987) Hypotheses June Price Tangney George Mason University Paula M. Niedenthal Indiana University at Bloomington Michelle Vowell Covert and Deborah Hill Barlow George Mason University A study of 229 undergraduates examined whether specific self-discrepancies are differentially related to shame proneness and guilt proneness. Contrary to E. T. Higgins (1987), but in line with the present authors' expectations, the tendency to experience shame, but not guilt, was positively related to all types of self-discrepancies. An attempt was also made to replicate E. T. Higgins, Klein, and Strauman's (1985) findings that specific self-discrepancies are associated with distinct emotion syndromes. No support was found for the central hypotheses of self-discrepancy theory. Finally, the authors evaluated the utility of two methods for assessing self-discrepancies: Higgins's qualitative method and quantitative adjective ratings. The two methods yielded essentially identical relationships to other variables. The very high correlations among different types of self-discrepancies within each method, however, raise discriminant validity concerns. Shame and guilt are moral emotions that arise from discrepan- cies between our behavior or characteristics of ourselves and our moral standards. Higgins's (1987) self-discrepancy theory focuses on incompatible or inconsistent beliefs about the self that produce psychological discomfort. As Higgins noted, previ- ous theories of incompatible beliefs--self or otherwise (e.g., Epstein, 1980; Heider, 1958; Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955)- have typically described the emotional consequences of belief discrepancies ~n general terms (e.g., people typically feel "bad" when they experience dissonance, imbalance, incongruity, self- inconsistency, etc.). Such theories do not predict which distinct emotional responses will be induced by which particular belief incompatibilities. Self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987), in contrast, at- tempts to provide a more articulated framework for relating June Price Tangney, Michelle Vowell Covert, and Deborah Hill Badow, Department of Psychology, George Mason University; Paula M. Niedenthal, Department of Psychology, Indiana University at Bloomington. This research was supported in part by National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Grants R01 HD27171-06 and RO1 HD27171-06S1 and by the Mark and Catherine Winkler Foundation. Portions of these results were presented at the 104th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, August 1996, and at the annual meeting of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, Sturbridge, MA, October 1996. We extend our warmest thanks to Darcie Dimitroff, Carey R. Fletcher, James E. Gordon, Ashley Harris, Nancy Heleno-Obetz, Samuel B. How- ell, Natalie Migliorini, Jennifer Sanftner, Priya Singh, Jocelyn Skirpak, and Jonathan Sollinger for their assistance with this study. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to June Price Tangney, Department of Psychology, George Mason Univer- sity, Fairfax, Virginia 22030. Electronic mail may be sent to jtangney@ gmu.edu. 256 patterns of discrepancies to distinct negative emotional re- sponses. In Higgins's (1987) theory, the beliefs of interest con- cern the self: perceived discrepancies between selves or self- states. Higgins proposed that there are two cognitive dimensions that underlie self-state representations: domains of the self and standpoints on the self. Pairing these domains and standpoints results in specific self-discrepancies that theoretically predict specific constellations of negative affect. Self-discrepancy theory maintains that different types of self discrepancies are associated with shame and guilt, respectively. Surprisingly little empirical research has evaluated this intrigu- ing notion. This study examined the degree to which theoreti- cally predicted patterns of self-discrepancies are associated with individual differences in proneness to shame and guilt, using both idiographic and nomothetic methods of assessing self-dis- crepancies. We also attempted to replicate key findings regard- ing the links between specific self-discrepancies and agitation- versus dejection-related emotions (Higgins, 1987; Higgins, Klein, & Strauman, 1985). Self-Discrepancy Theory According to Higgins (1987), there are three basic domains of the self: (a) the actual self, which is the representation of attributes that either a person or a significant other believes that the person actually possesses; (b) the ideal self, the representa- tion of attributes that a person or significant other would like the person, ideally, to possess (i.e., representation of hopes and wishes); and (c) the ought self, the representation of attributes that a person or significant other believes the person should or ought to possess (i.e., representations of duty and responsibility). The standpoint dimension represents the point of view or source of a particular domain of the self. Higgins (1987) de- scribed two basic standpoints on the self: (a) one's own stand-