Wanting to be better but thinking you can't: Implicit theories of personality moderate the impact of self-discrepancies on self-esteem

Two studies examined the role of implicit theories of personality in the relation between actual – ideal self-discrepancies and self-esteem. Replicating previous work, we found that those with greater actual – ideal self-discrepancies reported lower self-esteem. Moreover, we hypothesized that this outcome would be especially stronger for those possessing an entity theory of personality (i.e., believing that personality is relatively fixed and...