Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Sanford Center for Biobehavioral Research.
Psychol Bull. 2019 Apr;145(4):372-389. doi: 10.1037/bul0000186. Epub 2019 Jan 14.
Self-discrepancy theory (SDT) is a model of the relations between the self and affect which has been applied to the study of different types of psychopathology including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Although the theory itself is compatible with a transdiagnostic perspective on psychopathology, to date no systematic review of the literature has examined that possibility. We conducted a meta-analysis that synthesized the literature on self-discrepancy and psychopathology across a heterogeneous range of 70 studies. Results showed a small-to-medium association between self-discrepancy and psychopathology that was highly robust and similar in magnitude across domains. Furthermore, self-discrepancy was related to higher levels of a range of negative emotions and lower levels of a range of positive emotions. Meta-regression models showed that the effects were greater for actual:ideal discrepancy compared with actual:ought discrepancy for both depression and anxiety, which was contrary to the tenets of SDT which suggests specific associations between actual:ideal discrepancy and depression and actual:ought discrepancy and anxiety. Measurement type (i.e., idiographic vs. nomothetic) was a significant predictor of the effects for depression and anxiety, such that nomothetic measures evidenced greater associations compared with idiographic measures. Our findings could suggest that self-discrepancy represents a contributory factor related to a number of psychiatric disorders. However, the tenet of SDT suggesting unique associations between actual:ideal and actual:ought discrepancy and anxiety and depression respectively was not supported. Implications are discussed for future research on self-discrepancy and psychopathology including the study of mechanistic frameworks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
自我差异理论（SDT）是一种自我与情感关系的模型，已被应用于研究包括抑郁、焦虑和饮食障碍在内的不同类型的精神病理学。尽管该理论本身与精神病理学的跨诊断观点兼容，但迄今为止，尚无系统的文献综述来检验这种可能性。我们进行了一项荟萃分析，综合了跨越 70 项研究的自我差异与精神病理学的文献。结果表明，自我差异与精神病理学之间存在小到中等程度的关联，这种关联具有高度的稳健性，且在各个领域的大小相似。此外，自我差异与一系列负面情绪的水平较高和一系列积极情绪的水平较低有关。元回归模型表明，实际：理想差异与实际：应该差异相比，实际：理想差异与抑郁和焦虑的关联更大，这与 SDT 的原则相反，该原则表明实际：理想差异与抑郁和实际：应该差异与焦虑之间存在特定关联。测量类型（即个体化与描述性）是抑郁和焦虑效应的一个重要预测指标，即描述性测量比个体化测量具有更大的相关性。我们的研究结果表明，自我差异可能是许多精神障碍的一个相关因素。然而，SDT 的原则表明，实际：理想和实际：应该差异与焦虑和抑郁之间存在独特的关联，这一原则并未得到支持。讨论了未来关于自我差异和精神病理学的研究，包括对机械框架的研究的意义。（PsycINFO 数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。
