Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Subjective trajectories for life satisfaction: A self-discrepancy perspective

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Motivation and Emotion Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Although the belief that life gets better and better over time is widespread, individuals who perceive their lives to be improving over time report less positive functioning. Here we report an experimental study based on self-discrepancy theory (Higgins in Psychol Rev 94:319–340, 1987) in which the type of future self-guide (ideal, ought, undesired, unspecified) was manipulated across young adult participants. Perceived self-discrepancy and subjective life satisfaction trajectories (derived from ratings of past, current, and anticipated future life satisfaction) were impacted as expected. Subjective trajectories (current-to-future) were associated with greater perceived discrepancies in the undesired future condition only. Emotional distress was associated with greater perceived discrepancy from a positive future (ideal, ought, unspecified) and more steeply inclining subjective trajectories (current-to-future), along with less perceived discrepancy from an undesired future and less steeply declining subjective trajectories (current to undesired future). Thus, temporal self-discrepancy may shape temporal life satisfaction evaluations and associated emotional reactions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. A temporal distance of 5 years into the future was chosen in order to provide sufficient separation between the current and future temporal perspectives. For example, given that the anticipated participants were first or second-year university students, 5 years in the future would occur after most students had finished their undergraduate degree. Further, in recent research, participants who were instructed to envision their anticipated future lives without instructions concerning temporal distance reported focusing on events that were, on average, 5 or 6 years in the future (Jones and Busseri, in preparation).

  2. Additional individual differences measures not relevant to present purposes were also included in the questionnaire, subsequent to the primary study measures. Please contact the first author for further details.

  3. Note that in this analysis (and all subsequent analyses involving perceived discrepancy), the perceived discrepancy score in the undesired future condition was reversed so that in each condition, greater perceived discrepancy would be expected to be associated with greater emotional distress. This approach allowed for testing the consistency of the associations across conditions based on comparisons involving the magnitudes of the within-condition correlations, instead of confounding the magnitudes and directions of these associations.

  4. Two raters blind to experimental condition independently evaluated each participant’s description of their guide-future life along four dimensions (actual, ideal, ought, undesired) using five-point scales (0-not at all, to 4-extremely). The raters’ combined scores were then compared across experimental conditions. Mean ratings differed between the ideal and ought conditions for three of the four dimensions: Compared to the ought condition, the guide-future life descriptions in the ideal condition were rated as less ‘actual’, more ‘ideal’, and less ‘ought’, but did not differ in ‘undesired’ content. Across the four ratings, life descriptions in the ideal condition were rated as low in actual, high in ideal, low in ought, and low in undesired future content, whereas the life descriptions in the ought condition were rated as moderate in actual, ideal, and ought content, and low in undesired content. These findings suggest that participants did respond in distinct ways in the ideal and ought conditions with respect to the content of their envisioned guide-future lives. Full details are available from the first author.

References

  • Albert, S. (1977). Temporal comparison theory. Psychological Review, 84, 485–503.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arnett, J. J. (2015). Oxford handbook of emerging adulthood. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Smollan, D. (1992). Inclusion of other in the self scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 596–612.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baltes, P. B. (1987). Theoretical propositions of life-span developmental psychology: On the dynamics between growth and decline. Developmental Psychology, 23(5), 611.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bless, H., & Schwarz, N. (2010). Mental construal and the emergence of assimilation and contrast effects: The inclusion/exclusion model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 319–373.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boldero, J. M., & Francis, J. J. (2000). The relation between self-discrepancies and emotion: The moderating roles of self-guide importance, location relevance, and social self-domain centrality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 38–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boldero, J., & Francis, J. (2002). Goals, standards, and the self: Reference values serving different functions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6, 232–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boldero, J., Moretti, M. M., Bell, R. C., & Francis, J. J. (2005). Self-discrepancies and negative affect: A primer on when to look for specificity and how to find it. Australian Journal of Psychology, 57, 139–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buehler, R., McFarland, C., Spyropoulos, V., & Lam, K. C. H. (2007). Motivated prediction of future feelings: Effects of negative mood and mood orientation on affective forecasts. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 11265–11278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Busseri, M. A. (2013). How dispositional optimists and pessimists evaluate their past, present, and anticipated future life satisfaction: A lifespan approach. European Journal of Personality, 27, 185–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Busseri, M. A., Choma, B. L., & Sadava, S. W. (2009a). Functional or fantasy? Examining the implications of subjective temporal perspective “trajectories” for life satisfaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 295–308.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Busseri, M. A., Choma, B. L., & Sadava, S. W. (2009b). “As good as it gets” or “the best is yet to come”? How optimists and pessimists view their past, present, and anticipated future life satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 352–356.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Busseri, M. A., Choma, B. L., & Sadava, S. W. (2012). The past, present, and future of subjective well-being: Examining subjective temporal trajectories for life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. Journal of Positive Psychology, 7, 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Busseri, M. A., & Peck, E. (2014). Do (even) clinically depressed individuals believe that life gets better and better over time? The link between depression and subjective trajectories for life satisfaction. Clinical Psychological Science, 3, 715–725.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Busseri, M. A., & Sadava, S. W. (2011). A review of the tripartite structure of subjective well-being: Implications for conceptualization, operationalization, and synthesis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 290–314.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Carver, C. S., Lawrence, J. W., & Scheier, M. F. (1999). Self-discrepancies and affect: Incorporating the role of feared selves. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 783–792.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Choma, B. L., Busseri, M. A., & Sadava, S. W. (2014). Deciphering subjective trajectories for life satisfaction using self-versus-normative other discrepancies, self-esteem, and hope. European Journal of Personality, 28, 107–119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cialdini, R. B., & Goldstein, N. J. (2004). Social influence: Compliance and conformity. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 591–621.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cummins, R. A. (2010). Subjective well-being, homeostatically protected mood and depression: A synthesis. Journal of Happiness Studies, 11, 1–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. (2008). Myths in the science of happiness, and directions for future research. In M. Eid & R. J. Larsen (Eds.), The science of subjective well-being (pp. 493–514). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., & Diener, M. (1995). Cross-cultural correlates of life satisfaction and self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 653–663.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1996). Most people are happy. Psychological Science, 7, 181–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Inglehart, R., & Tay, L. (2013). Theory and validity of life satisfaction scales. Social Indicators Research, 112, 497–527.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duncan, T. E., Duncan, S. C., & Strycker, L. A. (2006). An introduction to latent variable growth curve modeling: Concepts, issues, and applications. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fujita, F., & Diener, E. (2005). Life satisfaction set-point: Stability and change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 158–164.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hardin, E. E., & Lakin, J. L. (2009). The integrated self-discrepancy index: A reliable and valid measure of self-discrepancies. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 245–253.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94, 319–340.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Higgins, E. T. (1989). Self-discrepancy theory: What patterns of self-beliefs cause people to suffer? Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 22, 93–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Higgins, E. T. (1996). The “self digest”: Self-knowledge serving self-regulatory functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 1062–1083.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Higgins, E. T. (1999). When do self-discrepancies have specific relations to emotions? The second-generation question of Tangney, Niendenthal, Covert, and Barlow (1998). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1313–1317.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Higgins, E. T., Shah, J., & Friedman, R. (1997). Emotional responses to goal attainment: Strength of regulatory focus as moderator. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 515–525.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, J. B. & Busseri, M. A. (in preparation). The role of temporal and subjective distance in subjective trajectories for life satisfaction.

  • Kilpatrick, F. P., & Cantril, H. (1960). Self-anchoring scaling: A measure of individuals’ unique reality worlds. Journal of Individual Psychology, 16, 158–173.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kline, R. B. (1998). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York, NY: Guildford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lachman, M. E., Rocke, C., Rosnick, C., & Ryff, C. D. (2008). Realism and illusion in American’s temporal views of their life satisfaction: Age differences in reconstructing the past and anticipating the future. Psychological Science, 19, 889–897.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lucas, R. E., & Donnellan, M. B. (2012). Estimating the reliability of single-item life satisfaction measures: Results from four national panel studies. Social Indicators Research, 105, 323–331.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Markman, K. D., & McMullen, M. N. (2003). A reflection and evaluation model of comparative thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7, 244–267.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954–969.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McFarland, C., & Buehler, R. (2012). Negative moods and the motivated remembering of past selves: The role of implicit theories of personal stability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 242–263.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McIntosh, C. N. (2001). Report on the construct validity of the temporal satisfaction with life scale. Social Indicators Research, 54, 37–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Newby-Clark, I., & Ross, M. (1998). Conceiving the past and future. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 807–818.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norem, J. K. (2008). Defensive pessimism, anxiety, and the complexity of evaluating self-regulation. Social and Personality Compass, 2, 121–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oglivie, D. M. (1987). The undesired self: A neglected variable in personality research. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 379–385.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ozgul, S., Huebeck, B., Ward, J., & Wilkinson, R. (2003). Self-discrepancies: Measurement and relation to negative affective states. Australian Journal of Psychology, 55, 56–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palgi, Y., & Shmotkin, D. (2010). The predicament of time near the end of life: Time perspective trajectories of life satisfaction among the old-old. Aging and Mental Health, 14, 577–586.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pavot, W., Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1998). The temporal satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 70, 340–354.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pavot, W., Fujita, F., & Diener, E. (1997). The relation between self-aspect congruence, personality, and subjective well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 22, 183–191.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peetz, J., & Wilson, A. E. (2013). The post-birthday world: Consequences of temporal landmarks for temporal self-appraisal and motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104, 249–266.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, A. G., & Silvia, P. J. (2005). Self-awareness and the emotional consequences of self-discrepancies. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 703–713.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, A. G., Silvia, P. J., & Paradise, M. J. (2007). The undesired self and emotional experience: A latent variable analysis. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 26, 1035–1047.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rocke, C., & Lachman, M. E. (2008). Perceived trajectories of life satisfaction across past, present, and future: Profiles and correlates of subjective change in young, middle-aged, and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 23, 833–847.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, M., & Newby-Clark, I. R. (1998). Construing the past and future. Social Cognition, 16, 133–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ryff, C. D. (1991). Possible selves in adulthood and old age: A tale of shifting horizons. Psychology and Aging, 6(2), 286.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shanahan, E. & Busseri, M. A. (submitted). Life gets better and better: Cultural life script theory and subjective life satisfaction trajectories among young adults.

  • Shmotkin, D. (1991). The role of time orientation in life satisfaction across the life span. Journal of Gerontology, 46(5), 243–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shmotkin, D. (2005). Happiness in the face of adversity: Reformulating the dynamic and modular bases of subjective well-being. Review of General Psychology, 9, 291–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Staudinger, U. M., Bluck, S., & Herzberg, P. Y. (2003). Looking back and looking ahead: Adult age differences in consistency of diachronous ratings of subjective well-being. Psychology and Aging, 18, 13–24.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tangney, J. P., Niendenthal, P. M., Covert, M. V., & Barlow, D. H. (1998). Are shame and guilt related to distinct self-discrepancies? A test of Higgins’ (1987) hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 256–268.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193–210.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, S. E., Neter, E., & Wayment, H. A. (1995). Self-evaluation processes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1278–1287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, A. E., & Ross, M. (2000). The frequency of temporal-self and social comparisons in people’s personal appraisals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(5), 928–942.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Standard Research Grant to the first author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We thank Annette Malinowski for assistance with data collection.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Avenue, St. Catharines, ON, L2S 3A1, Canada

    Michael A. Busseri & Helen Merrick

Authors
  1. Michael A. Busseri
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Helen Merrick
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael A. Busseri.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Busseri, M.A., Merrick, H. Subjective trajectories for life satisfaction: A self-discrepancy perspective. Motiv Emot 40, 389–403 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9535-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9535-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation