The Relationship between Chinese Adolescents' Self-Discrepancies and Adjustment: Moderating Effects of Gender, Self-Construals and Authenticity

Adolescents would try to match their actual selves to the different ideal standards set by themselves, their parents, or their friends. The discrepancy between adolescents' actual self and these multiple ideal standards as well as the conflict between their parental ideal standards and their friends' ideal standards may affect adolescent's adjustment. The effect of a given type of self-discrepancy or self conflict on adjustment, however, varies from one adolescent to another. It may be stronger in some adolescents, but weaker in others, depending on the relative accessibility of this type of self-discrepancy to different adolescents. Using the self-discrepancy theory (SDT, Higgins, 1987) as a framework, this study set out to investigate how Chinese adolescents' self-discrepancy with multiple ideal standards and the conflict between parental and friends' ideal standards affected their adjustment (e.g., internalizing problems, externalizing problems and loneliness). Specifically, this study aimed at clarifying moderating effects of gender, self-construals and authenticity on the relationships among self-discrepancy, self conflict and adjustment. A total of 619 Grade 10 to Grade 12 adolescents from mainland China participated in this study. The adolescents completed a battery of questionnaires, including Self-Lines Measure, The Youth Self-Report (YSR), Self-Construal Scale, Authenticity Scales-Parents, Authenticity Scale-Friends, and the State Loneliness Scale.;The results showed that adolescents' discrepancy with different ideal standards was associated with different pattern of maladjustment. Larger discrepancy with own ideal self was significantly related to greater depression/anxiety and more social withdrawal. Furthermore, larger discrepancy with parental standards was significantly associated with greater depression/anxiety and more externalizing problems. It was also noted that larger discrepancy with friends' standards was significantly related to greater depression/anxiety, more externalizing problems and higher loneliness.;The findings yielded mixed supports for moderating effects of gender, self-construals and authenticity on discrepancy-adjustment relationship. Discrepancy with parental standards was more strongly related to girls' depression/anxiety, but boys and girls did not differ in their emotional and behavioral reactions toward the discrepancy with their own standards and friends' standards. Moderating effect of self-construals on the discrepancy-adjustment relationship was far more complicated than the original hypothesized prediction. The relation of adolescents' discrepancy with parental standards to depression/anxiety became less strong when adolescents' reported higher independent self, but the relations of adolescents' discrepancy with friends' standards to depression/anxiety and loneliness became stronger when adolescents' independent self increased. Moreover, the association between adolescents' discrepancy with friends' standards and aggression became less strong when adolescents' interdependent self increased. The results suggested that the adolescents with higher independent self were more vulnerable to self-discrepancy with friends' standards but less vulnerable to self-discrepancy with parental standards. Authenticity was not found to play a moderating role on the relation of the conflict between parental standards and friends' standards to adjustment.;The present study contributed to the academic literature on Chinese adolescents' self-discrepancy and adjustment in three important ways. Firstly, it clarified how parents and friends affected Chinese adolescents' adjustment by incorporating in the study multiple standards of ideal self. Secondly, it investigated the moderators in discrepancy-adjustment relationships, which helped us clarify the mechanisms underlying Chinese adolescents' discrepancy-adjustment relationships. Thirdly, it helped parents, teachers and counselors explore interventional strategies in regulating Chinese adolescents' adjustment problems induced by discrepancy with different standards of the ideal self.