Abstract:
Renewed interest in self-concept as a useful theoretical construct can be attributed partly to advances made by researchers focussing on the development of reliable rating scales designed to measure multiple facets of self concept. The Self Description Questionnaires (Marsh, 1990), for example, consist of a fixed set of items that are assumed to be generally appropriate to all respondents. An implicit assumption in this nomothetic paradigm is that the underlying structure of self-concept is similar across individuals. In contrast, an idiographic paradigm emphasised in phenomenological approaches assumes that the structure of self-concept is idiosyncratic to each individual. Advocates of this paradigm argue that the items, or at least the scoring of items should be specific to each individual. In this study SDQ III scores from 48 subjects are compared with self- identified discrepancies between self-generated lists of attributes describing their "actual", "ideal" and "ought" selves regarding each of five distinct facets of self-concept.