Ideals, oughts, and self‐regulation: Are there qualitatively distinct self‐guides?

Self‐regulation, the ability to regulate one's emotions and behavior with respect to important goals, is an important function. While a number of different self‐regulatory models exist, self‐discrepancy theory (SDT: Higgins, 1987, 1989a, 1989b) is the only model which proposes that there are distinct self‐guides, the ideal and the ought self. Discrepancies or congruencies between the actual self and each type of self‐guide is proposed to result in unique emotional and behavioral consequences. Some recent research findings have failed to demonstrate these unique consequences, causing the proposed distinction between the self‐guides to be questioned in the literature. This paper suggests that this conclusion is based on the assumption that these effects must occur in every case. We argue that SDT does not propose that unique relationships between discrepancies and either emotions or behavior always occur; rather, it specifies moderators of these relationships. A review of recent research examining the effects of these moderators highlights not only that, indeed, such moderating effects are found, but also in some cases the moderating effect is different for relationships between emotions and the two types of discrepancies. It is concluded that these two different types of evidence, namely, the existence of moderator variables and their differential effects on ideal and ought self‐regulation, provide compelling support for the distinct nature of the ideal and the ought self‐guides.