Identity-balance Difficulty

What it measures

The scale captures perceived tension between a person's ideal and obligated self-identities, grounded in self-discrepancy theory. It offers a way to study how consumers navigate competing versions of who they want to be versus who they feel they should be.

Response format

7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree)

Scale items

• My Ideal identity and my Ought identity directly compete with one another.
• I have difficulty balancing my Ideal identity and my Ought identity.
• It is easy to maintain both my Ideal identity and my Ought identity.
• Resolving competition between my Ideal and Ought identities is easy.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

This appears to be an original measure created by the lead author as part of a dissertation, drawing on Higgins' (1987) self-discrepancy theory; used by Saint Clair and Forehand (2020) across two studies with alphas of .79–.85. A companion scale on this site, Inter-identity Association, was validated alongside it via factor analysis in the same paper.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Saint Clair, J.K., & Forehand, M.R. (2020). The Many-Faced Consumer: Consumption Consequences of Balancing Multiple Identities. Journal of Consumer Research, 46(6), 1011–1030.

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