Self-consciousness

Last updated March 17, 2024

Self-consciousness is a heightened sense of awareness of oneself. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. Historically, "self-consciousness" was synonymous with "self-awareness", referring to a state of awareness that one exists and that one has consciousness.^[1] While "self-conscious" and "self-aware" are still sometimes used interchangeably, particularly in philosophy, "self-consciousness" has commonly come to refer to a preoccupation with oneself, especially with how others might perceive one's appearance or one's actions. An unpleasant feeling of self-consciousness may occur when one realizes that one is being watched or observed, the feeling that "everyone is looking" at oneself. Some people are habitually more self-conscious than others. Unpleasant feelings of self-consciousness sometimes become associated with shyness or paranoia.

Impairment

When feeling self-conscious, one becomes aware of even the smallest of one's own actions. Such awareness can impair one's ability to perform complex actions. Adolescence is believed to be a time of heightened self-consciousness. A person with a chronic tendency toward self-consciousness may be shy or introverted.^[4]

Psychology

Unlike self-awareness, which in a philosophical context is being conscious of oneself as an individual, self-consciousness – being excessively conscious of one's appearance or manner – can be a problem at times.^[5] Self-consciousness is often associated with shyness and embarrassment, in which case a lack of pride and low self-esteem can result. In a positive context, self-consciousness may affect the development of identity, for it is during periods of high self-consciousness that people come the closest to knowing themselves objectively. Self-consciousness affects people in varying degrees, as some people are constantly self-monitoring or self-involved, while others are completely oblivious about themselves.^[6]

Psychologists frequently distinguish between two kinds of self-consciousness, private and public. Private self-consciousness is a tendency to introspect and examine one's inner self and feelings. Public self-consciousness is an awareness of the self as it is viewed by others. This kind of self-consciousness can result in self-monitoring and social anxiety. Both private and public self-consciousness are viewed as personality traits that are relatively stable over time, but they are not correlated. Just because an individual is high on one dimension does not mean that he or she is high on the other.^[7]

Different levels of self-consciousness affect behavior, as it is common for people to act differently when they "lose themselves in a crowd". Being in a crowd, being in a dark room, or wearing a disguise creates anonymity and temporarily decreases self-consciousness (see deindividuation). This can lead to uninhibited, sometimes destructive behavior.^{[ citation needed ]}

Emotions

Related Research Articles

Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as "reasonable self-esteem" or "confidence and satisfaction in oneself". Oxford defines it as "the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's own importance." Pride may be related to one's own abilities or achievements, positive characteristics of friends or family, or one's country. Richard Taylor defined pride as "the justified love of oneself", as opposed to false pride or narcissism. Similarly, St. Augustine defined it as "the love of one's own excellence", and Meher Baba called it "the specific feeling through which egoism manifests."

Self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth, abilities, or morals. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Mackie define it by saying "The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, is the positive or negative evaluations of the self, as in how we feel about it ."

Feelings are subjective self-contained phenomenal experiences. According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, a feeling is "a self-contained phenomenal experience"; and feelings are "subjective, evaluative, and independent of the sensations, thoughts, or images evoking them". The term feeling is closely related to, but not the same as, emotion. Feeling may for instance refer to the conscious subjective experience of emotions. The study of subjective experiences is called phenomenology. Psychotherapy generally involves a therapist helping a client understand, articulate, and learn to effectively regulate the client's own feelings, and ultimately to take responsibility for the client's experience of the world. Feelings are sometimes held to be characteristic of embodied consciousness.

Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness.

The psychology of self is the study of either the cognitive, conative or affective representation of one's identity, or the subject of experience. The earliest form of the Self in modern psychology saw the emergence of two elements, I and me, with I referring to the Self as the subjective knower and me referring to the Self as a subject that is known.

Psychosynthesis is an approach to psychology that expands the boundaries of the field by identifying a deeper center of identity, which is the postulate of the Self. It considers each individual unique in terms of purpose in life, and places value on the exploration of human potential. The approach combines spiritual development with psychological healing by including the life journey of an individual or their unique path to self-realization.

In philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one's own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one's body and environment, self-awareness is the recognition of that consciousness. Self-awareness is how an individual experiences and understands their own character, feelings, motives, and desires.

In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism is an unconscious psychological operation that functions to protect a person from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts and outer stressors.

In the psychology of self, one's self-concept is a collection of beliefs about oneself. Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to the question "Who am I?".

Self-reflection is the ability to witness and evaluate our own cognitive, emotional, and behavioural processes. In psychology, other terms used for this self-observation include 'reflective awareness', and 'reflective consciousness', which originate from the work of William James.

Self-knowledge is a term used in psychology to describe the information that an individual draws upon when finding answers to the questions "What am I like?" and "Who am I?".

Vedanā is an ancient term traditionally translated as either "feeling" or "sensation." In general, vedanā refers to the pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sensations that occur when our internal sense organs come into contact with external sense objects and the associated consciousness. Vedanā is identified as valence or "hedonic tone" in psychology.

Social comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, centers on the belief that individuals drive to gain accurate self-evaluations. The theory explains how individuals evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others to reduce uncertainty in these domains and learn how to define the self. Comparing oneself to others socially is a form of measurement and self-assessment to identify where an individual stands according to their own set of standards and emotions about themselves.

In psychology and psychotherapy, existential crises are inner conflicts characterized by the impression that life lacks meaning or by confusion about one's personal identity. Existential crises are accompanied by anxiety and stress, often to such a degree that they disturb one's normal functioning in everyday life and lead to depression. This negative attitude towards life and meaning reflects various positions characteristic of the philosophical movement known as existentialism. Synonyms and closely related terms include existential dread, existential vacuum, existential neurosis, and alienation. The various aspects associated with existential crises are sometimes divided into emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. Emotional components refer to the feelings they provoke, such as emotional pain, despair, helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or loneliness. Cognitive components encompass the problem of meaninglessness, the loss of personal values or spiritual faith, and reflections about one's own mortality. Outwardly, existential crises often express themselves in addictions, anti-social and compulsive behavior.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the human self:

Self-acceptance is acceptance of self.

Animal consciousness, or animal awareness, is the quality or state of self-awareness within an animal, or of being aware of an external object or something within itself. In humans, consciousness has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, qualia, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind. Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is.

Envy is an emotion which occurs when a person lacks another's quality, skill, achievement, or possession and wishes that the other lacked it.

Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person over time. Discussions regarding personal identity typically aim to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time can be said to be the same person, persisting through time.

Objective self-awareness is attention focused on the self as a socially evaluable object, as defined by Shelley Duval, Robert Wicklund, and other contemporary social psychologists.

References

Laing, R.D. (1960) The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. Harmondsworth: Penguin (this book has a chapter explaining self-consciousness).

↑ Richard P. Lipka/Thomas M. Brinthaupt Self-perspectives Across the Life Span, p. 228, SUNY Press, 1992 ISBN 978-0-7914-1003-5
↑ Cowlishaw, Brian (2004). "View-hunting". In Cumming, Mark (ed.). The Carlyle Encyclopedia. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 481. ISBN 9780838637920 . Retrieved 21 October 2023. Thomas Carlyle disagreed with the maudlin self- consciousness of British Romanticism.
↑ Timko, Michael (18 June 1988) [1988]. "Prophetic Utterances". Carlyle and Tennyson (reprint ed.). Basingstoke: Springer. p. 175. ISBN 9781349093076 . Retrieved 21 October 2023. '[...] Carlyle's work-ethic and his concomitant insistence on self-forgetfulness were only the most extreme of Victorian reactions to an immobilizing self-consciousness. [...] Carlyle's principle of anti-self-consciousness was one of the discoveries which led him out of his mental crisis.'
↑ W. Ray Crozier Shyness: Development, Consolidation, and Change, p. 71, Routledge, 2000 ISBN 978-0-415-22432-1
↑ Campbell, J (1995). "The body image and self-consciousness. In J. L. Bermúdez, A.J. Marcel, & N. Eilan (Eds.)". The Body and the Self: 29–42 – via Cambridge, MA, U.S: The MIT Press.
↑ Nathaniel Branden The Psychology of Self-Esteem , p. 42, Nash Publishing Corp., 1969 ISBN 0-8402-1109-0
↑ Bernd Simon Identity in Modern Society, p. 30, Blackwell Publishing, 2004 ISBN 978-0-631-22747-2

External links

"Self-Consciousness" by Md. Uriah Kriegel, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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[1] Richard P. Lipka/Thomas M. Brinthaupt Self-perspectives Across the Life Span, p. 228, SUNY Press, 1992 ISBN 978-0-7914-1003-5

[2] Cowlishaw, Brian (2004). "View-hunting". In Cumming, Mark (ed.). The Carlyle Encyclopedia. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 481. ISBN 9780838637920 . Retrieved 21 October 2023. Thomas Carlyle disagreed with the maudlin self- consciousness of British Romanticism.

[3] Timko, Michael (18 June 1988) [1988]. "Prophetic Utterances". Carlyle and Tennyson (reprint ed.). Basingstoke: Springer. p. 175. ISBN 9781349093076 . Retrieved 21 October 2023. '[...] Carlyle's work-ethic and his concomitant insistence on self-forgetfulness were only the most extreme of Victorian reactions to an immobilizing self-consciousness. [...] Carlyle's principle of anti-self-consciousness was one of the discoveries which led him out of his mental crisis.'

[4] W. Ray Crozier Shyness: Development, Consolidation, and Change, p. 71, Routledge, 2000 ISBN 978-0-415-22432-1

[5] Campbell, J (1995). "The body image and self-consciousness. In J. L. Bermúdez, A.J. Marcel, & N. Eilan (Eds.)". The Body and the Self: 29–42 – via Cambridge, MA, U.S: The MIT Press.

[6] Nathaniel Branden The Psychology of Self-Esteem , p. 42, Nash Publishing Corp., 1969 ISBN 0-8402-1109-0

[7] Bernd Simon Identity in Modern Society, p. 30, Blackwell Publishing, 2004 ISBN 978-0-631-22747-2

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