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The complexities of “minding the gap”: perceived discrepancies between Values and behavior affect well-being

Chrystal, Megan, Karl, Johannes Alfons orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-5166-0728 and Fischer, Ronald orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-3055-3955 (2019) The complexities of “minding the gap”: perceived discrepancies between Values and behavior affect well-being. Frontiers in Psychology, 10 . ISSN 1664-1078

Abstract
Research on self-determination theory and clinical models such as acceptance and commitment therapy has shown that behaving in line with our values is a key to maintaining healthy well-being. Combining work on values and experimental studies on moral hypocrisy and well-being, we experimentally tested how behaving incongruently with values affects well-being. We hypothesized that discrepancies between how one thinks one should have behaved and how one reported one did behave would be more detrimental to well-being when the behaviors were value-expressive and motivationally coherent compared to a control condition; greater perceived gaps between how participants feel they should have acted and how they report they did act would be associated with more negative well-being outcomes; the relationship between value manipulation and well-being would be mediated by perceived behavioral gap; and that personal values would interact with value manipulation to produce differential effects on well-being. One-hundred and fifty-eight first-year psychology students participated in an experiment designed to highlight discrepancies between how participants have behaved in accordance with a certain value and how they think they should have behaved, before reporting their well-being. As hypothesized, greater discrepancies between reported past behavior and how participants thought they should have behaved was associated with negative affect and decreased reports of positive well-being. We found no evidence for differential effects of manipulated value-expressive behaviors on well-being, or for our hypothesis that personal values and manipulated value-expressive behaviors interact. Nevertheless, value content mattered in terms of inducing perceived behavioral gaps. Our study suggests that perceived discrepancies between any value and reported past behavior can have a negative impact on some aspects of well-being. We discuss how the application of our methodology can be used in further studies to disentangle the value-behavior nexus.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Additional Information:Article number: 00736
Uncontrolled Keywords:values; behavior, well-being; self-determination theory; ACT
Subjects:Medical Sciences > Mental health
Medical Sciences > Psychology
Social Sciences > Social psychology
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science and Health > School of Psychology
Publisher:Frontiers Media
Official URL:http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00736
Copyright Information:© 2019 The Authors. Open Access (CC-BY 4.0)
ID Code:27437
Deposited On:27 Jul 2022 12:57 by Johannes Karl . Last Modified 27 Jul 2022 12:57
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