Several self theories explore the effects of discrepant self-beliefs on motivation and emotion. This research intersected two self theories: self-discrepancy theory and objective self-awareness theory. Self-discrepancy theory predicts that ideal and ought discrepancies cause different negative emotions; objective self-awareness theory predicts that high self-awareness will strengthen the relationship between self-discrepancies and emotions. People (N =112) completed measures of self-discrepancies and emotions (dejection, agitation, positive affect, and negative affect). Self-focused attention was manipulated with a large mirror. When self-awareness was low, self-discrepancies had weak, nonsignificant relations to emotion. When self-awareness was high, however, self-discrepancies strongly predicted emotional experience. These effects were general-ideal and ought discrepancies affected emotions because of their substantial shared variance, not their unique variance. Implications for theories of self-discrepancies and emotions are considered.
Abstract:Recent years have seen several new models of individual-differences in self-consciousness. The present research evaluated self-reflection and insight as types of self-focused attention. In the self-reflection and insight model, both traits represent metacognitive individual differences that aid self-regulation. In a sample of 233 young adults, both self-reflection and insight covaried with many different self-conscious traits (public and private self-consciousness, rumination, reflection), which suggests that they crosscut past typologies. Insight, but not self-reflection, covaried with many markers of affect and well-being: people high in insight had lower depression and anxiety symptoms, lower NA, higher PA, and higher self-esteem. On the whole, the evidence is consistent with the self-reflection and insight model, and the findings suggest that self-reflection and insight are distinct from each other and from other self-conscious traits.self-reflection | insight | rumination | reflection | self-awareness | self-focused Keywords: attention | personality | psychology Article:
Objective self-awareness theory contends that focusing attention on the self initiates an automatic comparison of self to standards. To gain evidence for automatic self–standard comparison processes, two experiments manipulated attention to self with subliminal first-name priming. People completed a computer-based parity task after being instructed that the standard was to be fast or to be accurate. Subliminal first name priming increased behavioral adherence to the explicit standard. When told to be fast, self-focused people made more mistakes and had faster response times; when told to be accurate, self-focused people made fewer mistakes. A manipulation of conscious self-awareness (via a mirror) had the same self-regulatory effects. The findings suggest that comparing self to standards can occur automatically and that it is attention to self, not awareness of the self per se, that evokes self-evaluation.
The present research examined when self-evaluation influences creativity. Based on objective self-awareness theory, the authors predicted that feeling able to improve would buffer against the detrimental effects of self-evaluation on creativity. Two experiments manipulated self-evaluation (varying self-awareness, Study 1; providing objective performance standards, Study 2) and perceived ability to improve potential failure on the creativity task. Self-evaluation reduced creativity (generating remote associates, finding unusual uses for a knife) in both experiments, but only when people did not expect to improve. When people felt able to improve, self-evaluation did not affect creativity. Connections between self-motives, creativity, and defensiveness are discussed.
. (2005). Are rumination and reflection types of self-focused attention? Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 871-881. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2004.06.011 Made available courtesy of Elsevier: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01918869 ***Note: Figures may be missing from this format of the document Abstract:The study of self-focused attention explores both state self-focus (objective self-awareness) and individualdifferences in trait self-focus (self-consciousness). Trapnell and Campbell (1999) proposed a motivational model of individual-differences in self-focused attention, based on rumination and reflection as types of selffocus. Two studies, with Internet-based (Study 1, n = 101) and college student samples (Study 2, n = 115), assessed the construct validity of rumination and reflection. Self-focus was measured by recognition latencies for self-relevant words (Study 1) and the completion of ambiguous sentences with first-person pronouns (Study 2). Neither rumination nor reflection predicted self-focused attention in either study. Rumination and reflection seem to be types of self-relevant motivation, not types of self-focused attention.
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