Edward Tory Higgins (born March 12, 1946) is the Stanley Schachter Professor of Psychology and Business,[1] and Director of the Motivation Science Center[2] at Columbia University.

He is also the author of Beyond Pleasure and Pain: How Motivation Works,[3] and Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence (with Heidi Grant Halvorson).

[5] In 1981, he was employed by New York University, where he collaborated with fellow colleagues to reconstruct the social/personality psychology program.

He further developed his previous research on self-discrepancy theory, exploring the gaps individuals perceive between their actual selves and the standards set by their "ideal" or "ought" self-guides.

[8] Also in 2000, Higgins and Arie Kruglanski developed regulatory mode theory, which describes two complementary self-regulatory functions: assessment and locomotion.