Self-Discrepancy and the Level of Satisfaction with Life Essay Example

a person sees him/herself. Taking focus in conscious subjective view of self, the phenomenal field, free will of behavior is put forward in stead of being driven.It is suggested that a discrepancy between the actual self and ideal self would lead to anxiety, and contribute to the development of the defense mechanism which influence the well-being of the individual.

In short, Rogers’s (1961) view of cognitive disparity focused on the discrepancy between an individual’s real self and ideal self as an indicator of maladjustment (Fromson, 2006). A larger discrepancy is suggested to mean a larger degree or anxiety and a less well-adjusted the individual. A well-adjusted person is meant to be psychological healthy on aspects like feeling of self-esteem and life role uality in social relation and marriage, which compose the life of an individual. Aim of Study The study is purposed to examine the relationship between self discrepancy and life satisfaction based on Carl Rogers’ theory, using a humanistic approach.

Hypothesis Given the specified aim, the following hypothesis is made: H0: A larger discrepancy between the actual self and the ideal self would mean a lower degree of satisfaction with life. DEFINING Self / Self Concept The human organism's "phenomenal field" includes all experiences available at a given moment, both conscious and unconscious (Rogers, 1959).Rogers originally failed to recognize the importance of "self". When he began his work he had the "settled notion that the "self" was a vague, ambiguous, scientifically meaningless term which had gone out of the psychologist's vocabulary with the departure of the introspectionists" (1959, p. 200).

However, through his work with clients he came to appreciate the importance of self.

As development occurs, a portion of the phenomenal field becomes differentiated and this becomes the person's "self" (Hall & Lindzey, 1985; Rogers, 1959). The "self" is a central construct in this theory.It is perceived as being fluid (Markus & Kitayama) active, forceful, capable of change and is thought to guild and control one’s behaviour (Markus & Wurf, 1987). Rogers regard the self as the organized consistent conceptual gestalt composed of perceptions of the characteristics of 'I' or 'me' and the perceptions of the relationships of the 'I' or 'me' to others and to various aspects of life, together with the values attached to these perceptions.

It is a gestalt which is available to awareness though not necessarily in awareness. It is a fluid and changing gestalt, a process, but at any given moment it is a specific entity (Rogers, 1959).This is also known as the self concept. This gestalt is a fluid and changing process, available to awareness. By using the term "gestalt", Rogers points to the possibility of change describing it as "a configuration in which the alteration of one minor aspect could possibly alter the whole picture" (p.

201). It develops through interactions with others and involves awareness of being and functioning. The self-concept is "the organized set of characteristics that the individual perceives as peculiar to himself/herself" (Ryckman, 1993, p. 106).

It is based largely on the social evaluations he/she has experienced.Rogers recognize two variation of self: the actual self and the ideal self. The “ideal self” denotes the self-concept that the individual would most like to possess. It is the “you” that, if all goes well, you will become.

It includes

the perceptions and meanings that potentially are relevant to the self and that are valued highly by the individual. And the “actual self” is what the individual perceive himself to be now or even what the individual think himself to be. It is the “you” at present. The concept is all about subjective perceptions. CongruenceBy the ideal self, Rogers is suggesting something not real, something that is always out of reach, the standard we cannot meet.

This gap between the real self and the ideal self, the "I am" and the "I should" is called incongruity. There’s a second kind of congruence and that is between the actual self and experience. That is the experiences in life should fit with the type of person an individual think himself as. Incongruity arises if an individual think himself to be generous but find himself being mean to someone in actions or if the individual think his ruthless and find himself being soft and mushy in some experiences.

Incongruence, Anxiety and Defend Mechanism Rogers (1961, p. 195) believes that: "The tragedy for most of us is that our defenses keep us from being aware of this rationality so that we are consciously moving in one direction, while organismically we are moving in another. " Incongruence is bad and means there is a breakdown in your unitary sense of self. Incongruence leads to anxiety, whether the incongruence is between actual & real self or between actual self and experience. Rogers believed an individual defend ourselves against ncongruence or even the perceptions of incongruence when he experiences anxiety.

This concept of defenses is very similar to the psychodynamic concept. But unlike

Freud, Rogers did not see conflict as inevitable and humans as basically destructive. Rogers assumes two main categories of defenses, with one being distortion of experience and the other being denial. Although defenses are there to maintain the congruity or integrity of self, distortions in awareness lead to maladjustment and a multitude of destructive behaviors.There is some empirical support for the hypothesis that incongruence between self and experience leads to worse personality adjustment and more defensiveness (Chodorkoff, 1954).

The individual would be unable to develop into a full-functioning person, which is open to experience able to live existentially, trusting in his own organism, expresses feelings freely, acts independently, creative and lives a richer life, which can be interpreted as "the good life”. Satisfaction with Life Shin and Johnson (1978) describe the board concept of happiness as the individual’s assessment of the quality of life as per the criteria set by the individual.Happiness is also defined by the positive evaluation of favorable or auspicious aspect of life situations derived by comparing present and previous life situations, which is also assessed from the standpoint of another. Diener (1984) has argued that the proper assessment of life satisfaction requires the possibility that different values are imposed by the researcher on the distinctive desirable factor determining satisfaction across individuals should be counteracted by asking them to rate their satisfaction with life as a whole, rather than summing across their satisfaction with specific areas to obtain measure of overall life satisfaction.He then developed the Satisfaction With Life scale (SWLS) to fulfill the need for a multi-item scale to measure life satisfaction as a cognitive-judgmental proves, The scale is concise, containing

only five items, and was designed around the idea that one must ask subjects for an overall judgment of their life in order to measure the concept of life satisfaction.

The scale is adopted in the study for its simplicity and preciseness. METHOD Participants Participants were teenagers aged 12 to 35, with the majority being students.A total of 80 questionnaires were sent out in which 20 is discarded due to missed questions. 60 valid questionnaires were collected.

Materials The questionnaire is divided into three parts. Part A is a list of 50 questions shortened from the California Q-set obtained from the University of California Berkeley, USA. For each particular question, participants were asked to rate on a 5-point scale for both actual self and ideal self with 1 being the “least characteristic of me” and 5 being the “most characteristic of me”.Part B is a 7-point Satisfaction with Life Scale devised in 1980 by psychologist Edward Diener.

Participants were asked to rate their agreement on the 5 statements with 1 being “not all true”, 4 being “moderately true” and 7 being “absolutely true”. For the last part, it is a yes/no question “do you think people who are more satisfied with themselves tents to have a higher degree of satisfaction with life”. Procedure For part A, a discrepancy score is calculated by summing up all the absolute values of the difference between actual and ideal self on each question.A higher score indicates a larger discrepancy between the actual self and ideal self. As for part B, a satisfaction score is obtained by summing up the ratings of the 5 questions.

A total of 7 groups

of different score range is divided, with scoring 31 to 35 being “extremely satisfied with life”; scoring 26 to 30 being “very satisfied with life”, scoring 21 to 25 being “slightly satisfied”, 20 being the “neutral point”, 15 to 19 being “slight dissatisfied with life”, 10 to 14 being “dissatisfied with life”, and 5 to 9 being “extremely dissatisfied with life”. Table 1) After the scores for Part A and Part B are obtained, the data is used to calculate the correlation by the statistical software Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 10. 0) and correlation analysis to examine the relationships between the independent variable (self-discrepancy score) and the dependent variable (life satisfaction score). RESULTS As shown in Chart 1, the majority of participants falls into the group of “slightly satisfied with life”, occupying 29% of the whole sample population. 3% of the participants are “very satisfied with life”, followed by the third large group of “slightly dissatisfied with life” of 20%, and 15% of “dissatisfied with life”. There is 11% of the participants who are “extremely satisfied with life” and 0% of “extremely dissatisfied with life”.

2% of the sample falls into the neutral point of life satisfaction. Chart 2 shows the allocation of answer on the question “Do you think people who are more satisfied with themselves tents to have a higher level of satisfaction with life”.A large percentage of 97% answered “yes”, indicating the general belief for a positive relationship between self-discrepancy and level of satisfaction with life. In Table 2, the Correlation table shows that the correlation between the self-discrepancy score and the life satisfaction score. (-. 276).

The result is

significant (p = 0. 033), indicating a strong association between the two variables. A negative relationship between self-discrepancy and life satisfaction is also indicated, denoting by the negative sign of the correlation (-. 76). As shown in the graph, a downward sloping curve in plotted, which means an increase in the self-discrepancy would lead to a decrease in level of satisfaction with life. The hypothesis is therefore accepted.

DISCUSSION Freund and Rogers both recognize the working of mind is of enduring value and they both started off as therapists. Their defensive mechanism is very much similar as well. However, unlike Freudian theory, Rogers focus on the conscious mind as he believes that the person is the one and only expert of himself.The questionnaire is set in the form of self-reporting, allowing participants to learn and tell about what they think about themselves on their conscious minds.

Free will of behaviour is suggested rather than being driven by other forces. The self-actualizing theory indicates his belief on the forward movement of people instead of a repeat of what they did in early childhood. He recognizes the importance of experience in affecting behaviour. Rogers also suggested the emergence of anxiety followed by the defend mechanism when there is a discrepancy between the actual self and the ideal self.And the study finds out a dissatisfaction with life when a discrepancy of self arises.

Schlenker and Leary (1982) discussed antecedents of social anxiety, two of which seem particularly relevant to the influence of perceived discrepancy. The two variables are inter-related. When there is dissatisfaction, it symbolizes the arousal of anxiety. And in some sense, anxiety causes dissatisfaction. Linkage between

dissatisfaction and anxiety can be waited to discover in future studies.

Strength and Limitation of theoryRogers theory focuses on important aspects of human existence that are neglected in many other theories, including self-concept and the human potential for personal growth. He also provides concrete therapeutic strategies that have proven useful in bringing about psychological change in therapy. Personally, the greatest contribution for Rogers is his positive approach to think about people and his emphasis on development at present rather than reworking in the past. In short, he offered a new way, a break with earlier traditions. On the other hand, Rogers’ self theory on the ideal self and self-actualization create some degree of confusion.

As ideal is so difficult to achieve and people are moving forward for development and improvement, the ideal self will keep changing, creating difficulties in self-actualization. Maddi (1996) raises an interesting point regarding such issues. While it has been found that self-descriptions move toward ideals after counseling and one would assume the closer a person is to full functioning the smaller the discrepancy would be, statements of ideals may be operational representations of conditions of worth, which are socially imposed.Conditions of worth are to be dissolved rather than moved toward for full functioning in this theory. His theory also lack possible cultural variation or situation-to-situation variation in psychological structures and process involving the self, and thus providing few tools for explaining those variations that actually exit. Limitations of research As the sample employed only mainly student subjects, which is generally a homogeneous group of age, occupation, values and believes, thus, the data may not be representative of the general population.

The analytical results

presented here thus may have limited generalizability. A larger and randomized sample is therefore advised for future studies. The original questionnaire is written in English, and it is translated into Chinese for easy reference. However, error or variations may exist during the course of translation that leads to inaccurate answers from the participants who tents to read the Chinese instead of English. Professional translation is recommended to ensure accuracy.The rationale behind the discrepancies and the level of satisfaction with life cannot be examined and therefore is not known.

In-depth interviews or case study could be used to investigate the reasons affecting the variables in greater detail. Conclusion The concept of actual self & ideal self are very useful in rationalizing behaviour and it is important for later development of theory, like the self-esteem theory. The study provide in insight on the relationship between self-discrepancy and the level of satisfaction with life. It would be useful for conducting more detailed research.

Overall, it is a useful theory in the sense that it provides measurable and testable applications to explain human behaviour REFERENCE Hall, C. S. , Gardner, L. (1985). Introduction to the theories of personality.

Toronto: John Wiley & Sons Kareem, Shazia, M. A. : When East meets West: The relations between acculturation, self-discrepancy, and life satisfaction, Southern Connecticut State University, 2005 Markus, H. , & Kitayama, S. (1994).

A collective fear of the collective: Implications for selves and theories of selves. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 568-579.Markus, H. , & Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective.

Annual Review of Psychology; 1987, 38, 299-337. Pavot, W. , E. Diener, C. R. Colvin

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APPENDICES Table 1: Grouping of scoring of the Satisfaction with Life Scale Scoring 31 - 35Extremely satisfied with life 26 - 30Very satisfied with life 21 - 25Slightly satisfied 20Neutral point 5 - 19Slight dissatisfied with life 10 - 14Dissatisfied with life 5 - 9Extremely dissatisfied with life Table 2: Correlations Table Correlations Self DiscrepancyLife Satisfaction Self DiscrepancyPearson Correlation1-. 276(*) Sig. (2-tailed) . 033 N6060 Life SatisfactionPearson Correlation-.

276(*)1 Sig. (2-tailed). 033 N6060 * Correlation is significant at the 0. 05 level (2-tailed).

Chart

1: Level on Satisfaction with Life Chart 2: Chart 3: Linear Scattered Graph on Self-discrepancy and Life satisfaction Level Table 3: Linear Regression of Life satisfactionModel Summary RR SquareAdjusted R SquareStd. Error of the Estimate .276. 076. 0605.

754 The independent variable is Self Discrepancy. Table 4: ANOVA Table ANOVA Sum of SquaresdfMean SquareFSig. Regression157. 9461157. 9464.

771. 033 Residual1920. 2375833. 108 Total2078. 18359 The independent variable is Self Discrepancy. Table 5: Coefficients Table Coefficients Unstandardized CoefficientsStandardized CoefficientstSig.

BStd. ErrorBetaBStd. Error Self Discrepancy-. 092.

042-. 276-2. 184. 033 (Constant)26. 7482. 032 13.

162. 000