Self Awareness and Identity Quiz

Impulsiveness vs Self-Awareness

• Impulsiveness is associated with private self-consciousness, which leads to more intense emotions, accurate self-perception, and adherence to personal beliefs.
• Heightened public self-consciousness, on the other hand, is linked to nervousness, loss of self-esteem, and concern with physical appearance.

Self Knowledge

• Self-awareness allows access to information about oneself, including self-schemas (how we act, think, feel, and behave).
• Self-schemas are an important part of one's self-concept, and being self-schematic is crucial for understanding oneself.

Control Theory of Self-Regulation

• According to Carver and Scheier (1981, 1998), self-awareness is used to assess whether goals have been met and to alter behaviors using the test-operate-test-exit process.
• This process involves both public and private standards.

Self-Discrepancy Theory

• Higgins (1987) proposed that there are three variations of self: actual, ideal, and ought.
• Discrepancies between these selves lead to emotions that motivate change, and failure to achieve these ideals can result in dejection or agitation.

Social Comparison Theory

• Festinger (1954) introduced the concept of social comparison, where individuals seek objective benchmarks to compare themselves to others.
• Downward social comparison is often preferred, as seen in the example of bronze medal winners being happier than silver medal winners (Medvec et al., 1995).

Self-Evaluation Maintenance

• Tesser (1988) explained that upward social comparison can lead to self-evaluation maintenance, which involves exaggerating the target's ability, changing the target, distancing oneself from the target, or devaluing the comparison dimension.

Types of Self

• Brewer and Gardener (1996) identified three types of self: individual, relational, and collective.
• The individual self refers to traits that distinguish one from others, the relational self refers to dyadic relationships, and the collective self refers to group membership.

Self-Awareness and Identity

• Self-awareness is a psychological state involving reflexive thought over one's traits, feelings, and behavior.
• The mirror test (Gallup, 1970) is a way to assess self-awareness, which involves recognizing oneself as an individual.

Private vs Public Self

• The private self consists of thoughts, feelings, and attitudes, while the public self is one's social image that can be seen and evaluated by others.
• Chronic self-awareness can be stressful, leading to avoidance behaviors, while reduced self-awareness can result in deindividuation and a lack of self-monitoring.

Test your knowledge on self-awareness, identity, and the 3 types of self according to Brewer and Gardner. Explore concepts like individual, relational, and collective self as well as private and public self.