In Pursuit of the Perfect Appearance: Discrepancies Among Self‐Ideal Percepts of Multiple Physical Attributes 1

Testing self‐discrepancy theories of body image, this investigation examined self‐perceived and idealized physical attributes among 66 men and 69 women, who were white, heterosexual college students. Physical attributes included body size, weight, height, muscularity, hair color and length, eye color, and female breast size. Physical ideals included personal ideals, assumptions about the other sex's ideals for one's own sex, and actual other‐sex ideals. Both sexes expressed significant self‐ideal discrepancies on most attributes, whether ideals were assessed from personal or perceived other‐sex standpoints. The sexes' discrepancies were often comparable in magnitude if the direction of discrepancy was ignored. Both sexes frequently exaggerated their assumptions of what the other sex idealized in the subjects' own sex. Particular self‐ideal discrepancies predicted subjects' global body image. The applied and empirical implications of these findings were considered for both social and clinical contexts.