Explaining personality or explaining variance? A comment on Creed and Funder (1998)

Self-consciousness concept and assessment in self-report measures

“…Thus, it should be expected that Insight would load in the same factor as Self-Reflection. According to Grant et al (2002) Insight was a synonym for an internal state of awareness ( Anderson et al, 1996 ; Creed and Funder, 1998 ; Silvia, 1999 ). This state has clear theoretical similarities to what the Awareness subscale claims to measure, which suggests a need for further studies to clarify the differences between the Awareness and Insight, and determine which measure accounts for the internal state of awareness, as noted ( Creed and Funder, 1998 ).…”

“…The SRIS ( Grant et al, 2002 ) was originally constructed based on the Private Self-Consciousness dimension from the SCS ( Scheier and Carver, 1985 ), and its authors claim that it is an updated version of its Private Self-Consciousness subscale. The authors added the Insight dimension based on findings that had shown another dimension related to Private Self-Consciousness, called the internal state of awareness ( Anderson et al, 1996 ; Creed and Funder, 1998 ; Silvia, 1999 ). This dimension was related to a state of internal understanding that one has toward one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.…”

Shining the light on private self-consciousness: a response to Silvia (1999)

“…Surprisingly, Silvia (1999) attributed to us an ignorance of the implications of such an accumulation of empirical ®ndings, but the clari®cation of these implications is a central impetus for our research. The current operationalization of PRVSC is insucient.…”

“…All of the studies just cited revealed a troubling multidimensional structure to the private self-consciousness scale that upon further examination demonstrates two clusters of items that correlate in opposite directions with some important personality constructs. Surprisingly, Silvia (1999) attributed to us an ignorance of the implications of such an accumulation of empirical ®ndings, but the clari®cation of these implications is a central impetus for our research. The current operationalization of PRVSC is insucient.…”

The Self-Reflection and Insight Scale: A New Measure of Private Self-Consciousness

“…The database PsycINFO lists over 280 papers related to the PrSCS, yet only 12 of these have discussed the distinction between internal state awareness and selfreflection and there has been some disagreement as to the specific items that comprise each subscale (Anderson, Bohon, & Berrigan, 1996;Burnkrant & Page, 1984;Chang, 1998;Conway & Giannopoulos, 1993;Creed & Funder, 1998;1999;Kingree & Ruback, 1996;Mittal & Balasubramanian, 1987;Piliavin & Charng, 1988;Ruganci, 1995;Silvia, 1999;Watson, Morris, Ramsey, & Hickman, 1996).…”