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

Based on factor analyses of the private self‐consciousness scale, Creed and Funder (1998) posit ‘two faces of private self‐consciousness’: self‐reflectiveness, which relates to negative outcomes, and internal state awareness, which relates to positive outcomes. The significance of this distinction is questioned. I contend (i) that the existence of two subfactors is a fatal deficiency in the private self‐consciousness scale, not a benefit; (ii) that factor analysis can never discover aspects of personality; (iii) that only an underlying theoretical network, not unique variance, makes a scale useful; and (iv) that the SR and ISA distinction exemplifies the undesirable Aristotelian approach (Lewin, 1931) to personality. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Facets of private and public self‐consciousness: construct and discriminant validity

The construct and discriminant validity of proposed facets of private self‐consciousness (Self‐Reflectiveness and Internal State Awareness) and public self‐consciousness (Style Consciousness and Appearance Consciousness) was examined in two studies. In study 1 an exploratory factor analysis of 367 subjects' responses to a translated version of the Self‐Consciousness Scale (SCS) of Fenigstein, Scheir, and Buss confirmed the existence of two factors of private and public self‐consciousness. Confirmatory factor analysis of 199 university students' responses to the SCS confirmed the results from study 1. A two‐dimensional model of private and public self‐consciousness respectively represented a significant improvement in fit to data over single‐factor models. Further, the two facets of private and public self‐consciousness were related differently to measures representing different aspects of adjustment/maladjustment. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐consciousness,friendship quality,and adolescent internalizing problems

The correlates between public and private self‐consciousness and internalizing difficulties were examined during early adolescence. Friendship quality was assessed as a possible moderator of the relation between self‐consciousness and maladjustment. One hundred and thirty‐seven young adolescents (N=87 girls; M age=13.98 years) reported on their self‐consciousness, internalizing problems, and the quality of their best friendship. Results indicated stronger associations between private self‐consciousness and internalizing correlates than between public self‐consciousness and internalizing problems, suggesting that private self‐consciousness may be a stronger risk factor during adolescence. Contrary to expectations, evidence revealed that positive friendship quality may exacerbate some difficulties associated with self‐consciousness. Results pertaining to friendship quality add to the growing literature on the ways in which friendships can contribute to adjustment difficulties.     

Individual differences in children's understanding of social evaluation concerns

Recent research suggests that children's understanding of self‐presentational behaviour—behaviour designed to shape social evaluation—is a function of both cognitive and motivational variables. Furthermore, the motivational factors involved are likely to reflect individual differences in the salience of concerns about social evaluation. The present research represents a first effort to determine whether measures of such differences are indeed associated with the understanding of self‐presentational behaviour. In a first experiment, a teacher rating measure of self‐monitoring was found to be positively associated with the understanding of self‐presentational motives. In a second experiment, a more narrowly specified self‐report measure of public self‐consciousness was found to have a similar association with the understanding of self‐presentation, with no such association found for private self‐consciousness. These preliminary results make it clear that our formulations of development in social cognition must indeed include a consideration of individual differences in motivational orientations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Early Sartre on Freedom and Ethics

This paper offers a revisionary interpretation of Sartre's early views on human freedom. Sartre articulates a subtle account of a fundamental sense of human freedom as autonomy, in terms of human consciousness being both reasons‐responsive and in a distinctive sense self‐determining. The aspects of Sartre's theory of human freedom that underpin his early ethics are shown to be based on his phenomenological analysis of consciousness as, in its fundamental mode of self‐presence, not an object in the world (Section 1). Sartre has a multi‐level theory of the reasons‐sensitivity of consciousness. At one level, consciousness's being alive to reasons is a matter of the affective perception of values and disvalues as features of phenomenal objects (Section 2). This part of his theory, a development of Scheler's, is, however, situated within a broader phenomenological analysis resulting in the claim that the ultimate reasons acknowledged by consciousness neither are nor justifiably could be values adequately presentable as intentional objects. Consciousness's ultimate reasons are, in this sense, not given by the world but by itself (Section 3). Section 4 reconstructs and assesses Sartre's argument that consciousness cannot rationally have an ultimate end other than self‐transparent (‘authentic’) freedom itself.     

The Moral Insignificance of Self‐consciousness

In this paper, I examine the claim that self‐consciousness is highly morally significant, such that the fact that an entity is self‐conscious generates strong moral reasons against harming or killing that entity. This claim is apparently very intuitive, but I argue it is false. I consider two ways to defend this claim: one indirect, the other direct. The best‐known arguments relevant to self‐consciousness's significance take the indirect route. I examine them and argue that (a) in various ways they depend on unwarranted assumptions about self‐consciousness's functional significance, and (b) once these assumptions are undermined, motivation for these arguments dissipates. I then consider the direct route to self‐consciousness's significance, which depends on claims that self‐consciousness has intrinsic value or final value. I argue what intrinsic or final value self‐consciousness possesses is not enough to generate strong moral reasons against harming or killing.     

The negative impact of perceiving discrimination on collective well‐being: the mediating role of perceived ingroup status

Previous research has found that, among stigmatized group members, perceiving discrimination against the ingroup simultaneously yields a positive indirect effect on self‐worth (mediated by ingroup identification) and a negative direct effect (Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999). This study not only replicated these effects with a sample of women, but also revealed that the negative direct effect was mediated by perceived status of the ingroup: as perceived discrimination increased, perceived ingroup status decreased, which in turn lowered collective self‐worth. Perceiving discrimination also increased the accessibility of the stigmatized group's devalued status. A new direction for future research may be to consider when stigmatized group members might affirm the ingroup rather than protect self‐worth. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changing One's Mind: Self‐Conscious Belief and Rational Endorsement

Self‐consciously attempting to shape one's beliefs through deliberation and reasoning requires that one stand in a relation to those beliefs that might be signaled by saying that one must inhabit one's beliefs as one's own view. What does this amount to? A broad swath of philosophical thinking about self‐knowledge, norms of belief, self‐consciousness, and related areas assumes that this relation requires one to endorse, or be rationally committed to endorsing, one's beliefs. In fact, however, fully self‐conscious adherence to epistemic norms requires the ability to self‐consciously hold a belief without endorsing that belief as true, as well‐supported by the evidence, or as meeting some other epistemic standard, and there are cases in which no such commitment is rationally required. This ability is necessary if there is to be any such thing as a fully self‐conscious process of changing one's mind.     

Opening to the otherwise: The discipline of listening and the necessity of free‐association for psychoanalytic praxis

It is argued that only free‐association methodically opens the discourse of self‐consciousness (the representations available to reflective awareness) to the voicing of the repressed. The method is key to Freud's originality and the sine qua non of any genuinely psychoanalytic process. Clinical procedures which do not prioritize a steadfast and ongoing commitment to this method (instead emphasizing either interpretative formulations, as decisive acts that appear to fix and finalize the meaning of a particular lived experience, or the vicissitudes of transference‐countertransference in the immediate treatment situation) all too readily entrap the treatment, limiting its capacity to divulge the power of unconscious processes. Influenced by Laplanche, Freud's 1920 principles of lifefulness and deathfulness (the binding and unbinding of psychic energy in representations) facilitate an understanding of the unique significance of free‐associative discourse in opening the representational textuality of self‐consciousness to the voicing of that which is otherwise than representationality and reason. The ‘otherwise’ is intimated as the returning force of the repressed, as the ‘unfathomable navel’ of ‘thing‐presentations,’ experienced and expressed within the text of awareness, yet not translatable into the law and order of its logical and rhetorical reflections. Free‐associative discourse thus affects self‐consciousness in a way that is radically different from other creative procedures (‘psychosynthetic’ or integratively interpretive). In this respect, the status of free‐associative praxis as necessary for a genuinely psychoanalytic process is justified.     

Secondary self‐deception

According to doxastic accounts of self‐deception, self‐deception that P yields belief that P. For doxastic accounts, the self‐deceiver really believes what he, in self‐deception, professes to believe. I argue that doxastic accounts are contradicted by a phenomenon that often accompanies self‐deception. This phenomenon – which I term ‘secondary deception’ – consists in the self‐deceiver's defending his professed (deceit‐induced) belief to an audience by lying to that audience. I proceed to sketch an alternative, non‐doxastic account of how we should understand self‐deception in terms of the self‐deceiver's misrepresentation of himself as believing that P.     

Luther's Radical Conception of Faith: God,Christ, and Personhood in a Post‐Metaphysical Age

Luther's exposition of Paul's letter to the Galatians offers a premier window into a deconstruction of the tandem God, ego and symbolic order of the law by proposing a radical “technology of the self,” a new understanding of what it means to be a person in light of God's own becoming in the flesh—a new subjective perspective. This places the event of belief as a displacement of a socially and ecclesiastically constructed ego‐consciousness and the emergence of a new (social) center of subjectivity—Christ consciousness, that is, faith. For Luther the “person” emerges as a radical break with the self‐referentiality of the ego and through the perspectival assimilation of God's own subjective experience in the flesh.     

Maternal beliefs concerning young children's private speech

The goal of this study was to understand maternal reports, beliefs, and attitudes about their young children's use of private speech. Mothers of 48 children between the ages of 3 and 5 participated in a semi‐structured interview in which they reported on the frequency and context of their child's use of private speech, maternal responses toward such speech use in children, and beliefs about the utility of such speech for children. Interviews were transcribed and responses coded. Mothers also completed surveys on children's self control and parenting style. Results indicated that practically all parents reported that their child engaged in private speech and that such speech was more likely to appear during fantasy play than during problem‐solving activities. Parents varied in their personal responses to children's self talk and, as a group, do not appear to actively discourage or encourage its use. Ignoring/allowing child private speech use was common and this response was positively associated with authoritative parenting. Parental reports of the frequency with which their child talks to himself were negatively associated with parental reports of children's self‐control. Crib speech, or bedtime monologue, was reported to be very common and was negatively associated with children's self‐control and positively associated with children's private speech use. Parents were uniformly positive in their belief that private speech serves important functions and that it helps young children during task activities. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consciousness and Self in Animals: Some Reflections

In this essay I argue that many nonhuman animal beings are conscious and have some sense of self. Rather than ask whether they are conscious, I adopt an evolutionary perspective and ask why consciousness and a sense of self evolved—what are they good for? Comparative studies of animal cognition, ethological investigations that explore what it is like to be a certain animal, are useful for answering this question. Charles Darwin argued that the differences in cognitive abilities and emotions among animals are differences in degree rather than differences in kind, and his view cautions against the unyielding claim that humans, and perhaps other great apes and cetaceans, are the only species in which a sense of self‐awareness has evolved. I conclude that there are degrees of consciousness and self among animals and that it is likely that no animal has the same highly developed sense of self as that displayed by most humans. Many animals have a sense of “body‐ness” or “mine‐ness” but not a sense of “I‐ness.” Darwin's ideas about evolutionary continuity, together with empirical data (“science sense”) and common sense, will help us learn more about consciousness and self in animals. Answers to challenging questions about animal self‐awareness have wide‐ranging significance, because they are often used as the litmus test for determining and defending the sorts of treatments to which animals can be morally subjected.     

Action orientation overcomes the ego depletion effect

It has been consistently demonstrated that initial exertion of self‐control had negative influence on people's performance on subsequent self‐control tasks. This phenomenon is referred to as the ego depletion effect. Based on action control theory, the current research investigated whether the ego depletion effect could be moderated by individuals' action versus state orientation. Our results showed that only state‐oriented individuals exhibited ego depletion. For individuals with action orientation, however, their performance was not influenced by initial exertion of self‐control. The beneficial effect of action orientation against ego depletion in our experiment results from its facilitation for adapting to the depleting task.     

The weariness of the hero: depression and the self in a civilization in transition

According to the World Health Organization, depression is currently the leading cause of disability, which is of great concern worldwide; however there is much dispute about depression and its causes. This article raises the hypothesis that depression could be related to an increase or inflation of ego‐consciousness, which, in turn, is inseparable from the development of modernity. The ‘hero’, symbol of this historical process of self‐consciousness and autonomy, stands now wearied and disoriented. The paper outlines how, in this cultural scene, certain ideas from Carl Jung's and James Hillman's depth psychologies may be useful in addressing the issue: the rediscovery of figures of the other through the analysis of the unconscious (Jung) and associating with others in groups imbued with communal sense (Hillman) could help the depressed individual to mitigate his or her inflated ego‐consciousness. These are two complementary ways of experiencing the conglomerate nature of the self, thus promoting the process of individuation.     

Working with chronic and relentless self‐hatred,self‐harm and existential shame: a clinical study and reflections

This paper is the first of a two‐part series which explores some of the theoretical and experiential reference points that have emerged in my work with people whose relationship to their body and/or sense of self is dominated by self‐hatred and (what Hultberg describes as) existential shame. The first paper focuses on self‐hatred and the second paper focuses on shame. This first paper is structured around vignettes taken from a 14‐year analysis with a woman who was bulimic, self‐harmed and repeatedly described herself as ‘feeling like a piece of shit’. It draws together elements of Jung's concepts of the complex and symbol, and Laplanche's enigmatic signifier to focus on experiences of ‘inner otherness’ around which we are unconsciously organized. It also brings Jung's understanding that emotion is the chief source of consciousness into conversation with Laplanche's approach to the transference which is that by being aware that they do not ‘know’, the analyst provides a ‘hollow’ in which the patient's analytic process can evolve. These combinations of ideas are linked speculatively to emerging understandings of the neuroscience of perception and throughout the paper clinical material is used to illustrate these discussions.     

A Qualitative Exploration of Relational Consciousness in Christian Children

Nye's (1998) core construct of relational consciousness in child spirituality embraces a wider dialogue with social and personality psychology. Relatedness in spirituality implies the importance of language, mind, and the self as guideposts for development. In this research we seek to qualitatively expand our understanding of relational consciousness around recent work in these three domains. Twelve school-age children are given detailed interviews dealing with spirituality framed by the relational consciousness core construct. Transcribed responses are analysed using grounded theory methodology. Theoretical categories are assembled into a preliminary framework for relational consciousness as a social and contextual phenomenon. The relationships between categories in the framework are outlined in terms of mental representation and self/other orientation in the child. We conclude that relational consciousness and its social framework commends a pedocentric, community-based approach to religious education.     

Reverie‐informed research interviewing

Drawing on Thomas Ogden's notion of ‘reverie’, the role of self‐reflection in research interviewing is explored. Ogden views reverie as a co‐created intersubjective phenomenon, a ‘third’, distinct from both analyst and patient. Two face‐to‐face research interviews with adolescent depression sufferers are described, showing how reverie can be used to help overcome impasse, and develop research hypotheses. Participant‐centred research interviews were thus shown to be enhanced by psychoanalytically informed self‐reflection as accessed through reverie. The role of reverie in research interviewing, in part spontaneous and ineffable, in part defined and systematic, is discussed.     

Consciousness avoided

In Consciousness Explained, Dennett systematically deconstructs the notion of consciousness, emptying it of its central and essential features. He fails to recognize the self‐intimating nature of experience, in effect reducing experiences to reports or judgments that so‐and‐so is the case. His information‐processing model of meaning is unable to account for semantics, the way in which speakers and hearers relate strings of symbols to the world. This ability derives ultimately from our animal nature as experiencers, though culturally supplemented in various ways. But Dennett, while successful in rebutting Cartesianism about the mind, fails to take into account our natural history. He claims descent from Wittgenstein in his philosophy of mind, but he shows awareness only of Wittgensteinian's demolition of the private object of experience and overlooks the equally Wittgensteinian theme of humans as products of nature.