Work

Self-awareness Without Awareness? Implicit Self-focused Attention and Behavioral Self-regulation

Year: 2012

Type: article

Abstract: 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.

Source: Self and Identity

DOI: 10.1080/15298868.2011.639550

Authors: Paul J. Silvia, Ann G. Phillips

Institutions: University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Huntingdon College

Language: English

Topic: Behavioral Health and Interventions

Subfield: Applied Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health

Award: Self-Focused Attention and Nonconscious Self-Evaluation