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Objective self‐awareness and individuation: An empirical link 1
Author(s) -
Ickes William,
Layden Mary Anne,
Barnes Richard D.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1978.tb00607.x
Subject(s) - individuation , psychology , self awareness , social psychology , self , self concept , developmental psychology , test (biology) , psychoanalysis , paleontology , biology
A bstract An experiment was conducted to determine whether the phenomenal experiences associated with the states of objective and subjective self‐awareness are those which typically are associated with the states of individuation and deindividuation. In order to test this hypothesis, 20 male and 20 female matched pairs of subjects completed 15 self‐descriptive statements on a Who Am I questionnaire under conditions of experimentally manipulated self‐awareness (high vs. low). The obtained responses were then coded on 21 dimensions of self‐conception, including several suggested by Gordon (1968). Converging results from a number of different measures indicated that increased objective self‐awareness led to a more individuated conception of self. More specifically, objective self‐awareness appeared to increase responding on dimensions which reflect individuation but to decrease responding on dimensions which reflect deindividuation. The analysis of a more global measure of individuation suggested that this effect held strongly for low self‐monitoring subjects. The self‐descriptions of high self‐monitoring subjects, however, appeared to be relatively unaffected by situationally induced self‐awareness.