Body Image Self-discrepancies and Affect: Exploring the Feared Body Self

We investigate the feared body image self within Carver, Lawrence, and Scheier's (1999 Carver, C. S., Lawrence, J. W. and Scheier, M. F. 1999. Self-discrepancies and affect: Incorporating the role of feared selves. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 25: 783–792. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) interaction self-discrepancy framework. Ought, ideal, and feared body image self-discrepancies were examined as predictors of agitation-related affect (anxiety) and dejection-related affect (happiness). The relationship between approach (ought and ideal) body fat discrepancies and affect was in line with Higgins (1987 Higgins, E. T. 1987. Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94: 319–340. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) but was moderated by distance from the feared self for women only. Specifically, the relationship between approach body fat self-guides and affect was strong only when women were far from their feared fat self. The results suggest that the feared body self is an important body image construct and that Carver et al.'s framework is suitable for investigating body image self-representations.