Advanced Social psychology, The Self and self-awareness

The self

We are different from animals by reflexive thought, basically the ability to reflect on the way we think, this allows us to think about the type of person we are and how we are perceived by others. The self is part of every person and it reflects an awareness of our own identity.

 Self awareness.

Self-awareness is a psychological state in which people are aware of their traits, feelings and behaviour. There is two types of self-awareness, private and public.

Infants are not born with self-awareness. Instead, they develop [e the ability over time. Develops around 18 month (Lewis and Brookes exp), why is this? Children show a rapid growth of spindle cells, specialized neurones in the anterior cingluate, an area of the frontal lobe in the cerebral cortex of the brain thought to be responsible for the monitored and controlling intentional behaviour, evidence amongst adults that this part of the brain becomes activated when they are self aware. Not the only part which is linked to self awareness however it plays an important role.

Temporary differences in self awareness

Private self awareness refers to when an individual temporarily becomes aware private, personal aspects of self e.g. see their own face in a mirror or have a experience which leads them to reflect on there own emotional state, it has 3 important consequences for how people act.

1. it intensifies an emotional response e.g. if someone is happy feel even happier if feeling sad may feel worse and keep in that certain state of mind. Studied were done to prove this by Scheier and Carver.

2. Privately self-aware people are likely to experience clarification of knowledge. BY focusing on internal events individuals are able to record them with greater accuracy. Gibbons, Carber Scheier and Hormuth gave pp's were given a drug (placebo) and sat in front of mirror, those sat in mirror reported less side effects because the control group based there knowledge on perceptions on drug they had taken whereas self aware ignored placebo effect and concentrated on how they are really feeling.

3. People who are privately self aware are more likely to adhere to personal standards of behaviour. As they are more aware of their true beliefs they will act in line with those beliefs rather than be influenced by normative pressures.

public self awareness  is when public aspects of themselves that can be seen and evaluated by others-watched by others. fear of being negatively judged etc can lower confidence and self esteem if the persons perceived self does not match there desired image. Public self awareness leads to adhering to group norms is they are aware of their groups perceptions of them.

Chronic differences in self awareness

Some people are chronically more likely to experience self-awareness, some people can be described as p[possessing the personality trait of self-consciousness. seen as same as awareness but chronically to be one or the other(public or private)

high in Private self-consciousness-  heightened self awareness so more intense emotions and remain true to their personal beliefs and have more accurate self-perceptions, less liekly to suffer from ill health, know when there’s a problem but more likely to suffer from depression.

high in public consciousness-more likely to conform to group norms and more likely to avoid embarrassing situations-more concerned with appearance and judge others on this.