Testing the Selves Questionnaire

Abstract

American psychologist Edward Tory Higgins developed a theory of self-discrepancy in which it is defined as the discrepancy between the various aspects of self-concept of the individual. Higgins identifies the following types of inconsistencies in the representations of the person about themselves: “actual–ideal” and “actual–ought” self-discrepancies. The main advantage of Higgins’ theory is that it deals with a specific set of inconsistencies in the individual representations of themselves, which results from not only the conceptualization of the problem, but also from many empirical studies based upon it. As a result, the researcher has proposed an original measure. This article reports on the results of approbation of The Selves Questionnaire on a Russian-speaking population.Development of a new instrument is associated with the representations of the person’s beliefs about themselves. The questionnaire evaluates the discrepancies between the various aspects of self-concept, in particular between the “actual self” and / or “ideal self” or “ought self” from two perspectives: own and “significant other”. The study was conducted on a Russian-speaking sample of subjects aged 22 to 60 years (81 people in total, including 44 females and 37 males). The sample consisted of students of Moscow universities studying for their first or second degree, as well as of their intimate relatives (parents, siblings, etc.) and colleagues or friends. The approbation included a test–retest reliability check (r ranged from 0.391 to 0.503, p < 0.01). The Test–retest interval ranged from 4 to 6 months. The analysis has proved satisfactory psychometric properties of the questionnaire that are discussed in detail in the paper. Problem areas related to further adaptation and validation are identified.