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What is self awareness definition


What Is Self-Awareness, and Why Is It Important?

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September 14, 2022 - 18 min read

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What is self-awareness?

Two states of self-awareness

Why is self-awareness important?

Benefits of self-awareness

What's the self-awareness gap?

How do I know if I'm a self-aware person?

How to become more self-aware

Do you want to be happier, have more influence, be a better decision-maker, and be a more effective leader? Self-awareness, then, is the most important muscle you need to develop. It's what will keep you on target to be the best version of yourself and the best leader you can be.

The benefits of self-awareness are as varied as each individual, and examples include increased influence, greater perspective, and stronger relationships. Let's dig into what self-awareness is and ways to develop it.

What is self-awareness?

Psychologists Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund proposed this definition:

"Self-awareness is the ability to focus on yourself and how your actions, thoughts, or emotions do or don't align with your internal standards. If you're highly self-aware, you can objectively evaluate yourself, manage your emotions, align your behavior with your values, and understand correctly how others perceive you."

Put simply, those who are highly self-aware can interpret their actions, feelings, and thoughts objectively. 

It’s a rare skill, as many of us spiral into emotion-driven interpretations of our circumstances. Developing self-awareness is important because it allows leaders to assess their growth and effectiveness and change course when necessary.

Two states of self-awareness

There are two distinct kinds of self-awareness, public and private.

Public self-awareness: Being aware of how we can appear to others. Because of this consciousness, we are more likely to adhere to social norms and behave in ways that are socially acceptable.

While there are benefits to this type of awareness, there is also the danger of tipping into self-consciousness. Those who are especially high in this trait may spend too much time worrying about what others think of them. 

Private self-awareness: Being able to notice and reflect on one’s internal state. Those who have private self-awareness are introspective, approaching their feelings and reactions with curiosity.

For example, you may notice yourself tensing up as you are preparing for an important meeting. Noticing the physical sensations and correctly attributing them to your anxiety about the meeting would be an example of private self-awareness.

When self-awareness tips into self-consciousness, we are reluctant to share certain aspects of ourselves. We develop a persona that lacks authenticity.

Why is self-awareness important?

The Eurich group has researched the nature of self-awareness. Their research indicates that when we look inward, we can clarify our values, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses. We are able to recognize the effect that we have on others. Eurich's research finds that people with self-awareness are happier and have better relationships. They also experience a sense of personal and social control as well as higher job satisfaction.

When we look outward, we understand how people view us. People who are aware of how people see them are more likely to be empathetic to people with different perspectives. Leaders whose self-perception matches others' perceptions are more likely to empower, include, and recognize others.

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Benefits of self-awareness

As we mentioned earlier, strengthening self-awareness has a variety of benefits. The specifics of each one depends on the individual.

Here are some examples of common benefits of self-awareness:

  • It gives us the power to influence outcomes
  • It helps us to become better decision-makers It gives us more self-confidence — so, as a result, we communicate with clarity and intention
  • It allows us to understand things from multiple perspectives
  • It frees us from our assumptions and biases
  • It helps us build better relationships
  • It gives us a greater ability to regulate our emotions
  • It decreases stress
  • It makes us happier

What's the self-awareness gap?

Self-awareness is a staple in contemporary leadership jargon. Although many leaders will brag about how self-aware they are, only 10 to 15 percent of the population fit the criteria.

Many of us grew up with the message that you should not show your emotions, so we attempt to ignore or suppress them. With negative emotions, that doesn't go very well for us. We either internalize them (resulting in anger, resentment, depression, and resignation) or we externalize them and blame, discount, or bully others.

Lack of self-awareness can be a significant handicap in leadership. A study conducted by Adam D. Galinsky and colleagues at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management found that often, as executives climb the corporate ladder, they become more self-assured and confident. On the downside, they tend to become more self-absorbed and less likely to consider the perspectives of others. 

In a separate study, Canadian researchers looked at brain activity in people who are in positions of power. They found physiological evidence to conclude that as power increases, the ability to empathize with others decreases. They become less able to consider the needs and perspectives of others. Fundamentally these leaders don't think they need to change and instead require a change from everyone else.

How do I know if I'm a self-aware person?

Don't despair if you don't make the 10-15 percent self-awareness cut. If you want to know how self-aware you are, the iNLP Center has 12 multiple-choice questions that will tell you the level of your self-awareness and what you can do to improve it. The assessment is research-based and developed by Mike Bundrant, a neuro-linguistic trainer and life coach. 

The Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) is a great tool for you to use to identify your dominant strengths and is free on the VIA website. It measures your answers across six broad categories with a total of 24 strengths. Take the assessment, and you'll generate a report identifying your top 5 strengths and how to begin to optimize them.

How to become a more self-aware person

Envision yourself

Visualize the best version of yourself. "Ideal selves reflect our hopes, dreams, aspirations, and speak to our skills, abilities, achievements, and accomplishments that we wish to attain. ” (Higgins, 1987; Markus & Nurius, 1986.) As you lean into your strengths to become the better version of yourself, you can use this idealized self to keep moving in the right direction and not be distracted by setbacks and other obstacles.

Ask the “what” questions

At the core of self-awareness is the ability to self-reflect. However, the Eurich group contends that most people are going about reflection in the wrong way. The trouble is, we ask ourselves the wrong questions. In our attempt to resolve internal conflict, we ask, "Why?" Yet there’s no way to answer that question since we don’t have access to our unconscious. Instead, we make up answers that may not be accurate.

The danger of the "why" question is that it sends us down the rabbit hole of our negative thoughts. We focus on our weaknesses and insecurities. Consider Amy, a new junior executive who has difficulty speaking up at meetings. She may explain her experience to herself by thinking, "I don't speak up at meetings because I fall too low in the corporate food chain. No one's going to listen to me."

Asking the "what question" puts us into the objective and open space of considering all the factors influencing a particular outcome. For example, instead of “Why don't I speak up at meetings?” we could ask: 

  • "What were the interpersonal dynamics in the room?" 
  • "What was I experiencing in my body at the time?" 
  • "What happened that caused me to go into my old story of not being good enough?” 
  • “What can I do to overcome my fear of speaking up?" 

This kind of introspection allows us to look at behaviors and beliefs for what they are. With self-awareness, we can examine old patterns and stories that do not serve us, and then we can move on. Asking the right questions empowers us to make different choices that bring different results.

Amy decides to make a plan because now she understands that she has a chance at overcoming her problem. 

  • She's going to find out more about the content and goals of an upcoming meeting to become more confident in how she can contribute.  
  • Rather than being consumed by imagining what others are thinking about her, she'll actively listen for cues to ask meaningful questions that move the conversation forward. 
  • With a heightened awareness of the cues her body is giving her signaling fear and anxiety, she’ll name the emotion at the moment and choose not to be overwhelmed by it — one giant step to self-awareness.

Strengthen your brain

The amygdala, also called the primitive brain, was the first part of the brain to develop in humans. It functioned as a kind of radar signaling the need to run away or fight back. That part of the brain is skilled at anticipating danger and reacts before we can even name a negative emotion. Our heart races, our stomach tightens, and our neck muscles tense up. 

Your body's reaction is a tripwire signaling the pre-frontal cortex to register or name a negative emotion. If you bring awareness to your physical state, you can, at the moment, recognize the emotion as it is happening. Becoming skillful at this rewires your brain. 

Naming your feelings is critical in decision-making. When we let our feelings overwhelm us, we can make bad decisions with unintended consequences. Naming your emotions allows us to take a "third-person" perspective to stand back and more objectively evaluate what's going on.

Let's bring this home with an example. You, a self-aware person, are having a conversation with someone and receiving some negative feedback. Your heart starts to race, and you're feeling threatened. You say to yourself, "I feel like this person is attacking me." But, before you cry or go ballistic, you stop yourself and hear the person out. You discover that this person had at least one good point and start up a different conversation, one that is mutually satisfying and productive.

Ask others about their perception of you

Now that you've discovered that feedback doesn't have to be scary, ask other people how they perceive you in certain situations. Getting specific will help to give you the most concrete feedback. Get brave and ask them how they would like to see you behave.

Exercise: Pick out a scenario(s) you would like to receive feedback on and list them.

Make two columns.  

Column A: How I see myself

Column B: How others see me

In Column A make a list of words to describe your attitude and behaviors at the time.

Then, ask your feedback partner to do the same and record those responses in Column B.

Look out for discrepancies. You may have some blind spots that need attending.

Keep a journal

Journalling is a great way to pay attention to what's going on in your private and public self. It will also help you to recognize patterns that either serve you or not. You may use these prompts:

  1. What did I do well today?
  2. What challenges did I face?
  3. What was I feeling?
  4. How did I respond? In retrospect, would I have responded differently?
  5. What strengths did I use to keep me focused on the best version of myself?
  6. What is my intention for tomorrow?

Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is a practice. It helps you be aware of what's going on in your mind, body, and environment. Meditation is one of a few practices that you can insert into your daily life, and practicing mindfulness is a wonderful tool for developing greater self-control.

Here are some ideas of mindfulness activities to get you started:

  • Practice deep breathing
  • Name you surroundings
  • Organize your space
  • Draw or paint

The road to self-awareness is a journey. The most self-aware people see themselves on a quest to mastery rather than at a particular destination. As you move forward in developing your self-awareness, ask yourself regularly, “How will you move toward the best version of yourself today?”

Published September 14, 2022

Betterup Fellow Coach, M.S.Ed, M.S.O.D.

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What Is Self-Awareness? (+5 Ways to Be More Self-Aware)

Self-awareness is the ability to see yourself clearly and objectively through reflection and introspection.

While it may not be possible to attain total objectivity about oneself (that’s a debate that has continued to rage throughout the history of philosophy), there are certainly degrees of self-awareness. It exists on a spectrum.

Although everyone has a fundamental idea of what self-awareness is, we don’t know exactly where it comes from, what its precursors are, or why some of us seem to have more or less than others.

This is where the self-awareness theory comes in, offering some potential answers to questions like these.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Self-Compassion Exercises for free. These detailed, science-based exercises will not only help you increase the compassion and kindness you show yourself but will also give you the tools to help your clients, students, or employees show more compassion to themselves.

This Article Contains:

  • What Is Self-Awareness Theory?
  • Research on the Topic
  • 4 Proven Benefits of Self-Awareness
  • 3 Examples of Self-Awareness Skills
  • 5 Ways to Increase Your Self-Awareness
  • Importance in Counseling and Coaching
  • Meditation, Mindfulness, and Self-Awareness
  • Self-Awareness & Emotional Intelligence
  • 4 Tips for Improving Self-Awareness in Relationships
  • Role in the Workplace and Leadership
  • Self-Awareness in Students and Children
  • A Take-Home Message
  • References

What Is Self-Awareness Theory?

Self-awareness theory is based on the idea that you are not your thoughts, but the entity observing your thoughts; you are the thinker, separate and apart from your thoughts (Duval & Wicklund, 1972).

We can go about our day without giving our inner self any extra thought, merely thinking and feeling and acting as we will; however, we also can focus our attention on that inner self, an ability that Duval and Wicklund (1972) termed “self-evaluation.”

When we engage in self-evaluation, we can give some thought to whether we are thinking and feeling and acting as we “should” or following our standards and values. This is referred to as comparing against our standards of correctness. We do this daily, using these standards as a way to judge the rightness of our thoughts and behaviors.

Using these standards is a major component of practicing self-control, as we evaluate and determine whether we are making the right choices to achieve our goals.

Research on the Topic

This theory has been around for several decades, giving researchers plenty of time to test its soundness. The depth of knowledge on self-awareness, its correlates, and its benefits can provide us with a healthy foundation for enhancing self-awareness in ourselves and others.

According to the theory, there are two primary outcomes of comparing ourselves against our standards of correctness:

  1. We “pass,” or find alignment between ourselves and our standards.
  2. We “fail,” or find a discrepancy between ourselves and our standards (Silvia & Duval, 2001).

When we find a discrepancy between the two, we find ourselves with two choices: to work toward reducing the discrepancy or avoid it entirely.

Self-awareness theory (and subsequent research) suggests that there are a couple of different factors that influence how we choose to respond. Basically, it comes down to how we think it will turn out. If we believe there’s little chance of actually changing this discrepancy, we tend to avoid it. If we believe it’s likely that we can improve our alignment with our standards of correctness, we take action.

Our actions will also depend on how much time and effort we believe that realignment will take; the slower progress will be, the less likely we are to take on the realignment efforts, especially if the perceived discrepancy between ourselves and our standards is large (Silvia & Duval, 2001).

Essentially, this means that when faced with a significant discrepancy that will take a lot of consistent and focused work, we often simply don’t bother and stick to avoiding self-evaluation on this particular discrepancy.

Further, our level of self-awareness interacts with the likelihood of success in realigning ourselves and our standards to determine how we think about the outcome. When we are self-aware and believe there is a high chance of success, we are generally quick to attribute that success or failure to our efforts.

Conversely, when we are self-aware but believe there is a low chance of success, we tend to think that the outcome is more influenced by external factors than our efforts (Silvia & Duval, 2001). Of course, sometimes our success in realignment with our standards is driven in part by external factors, but we always have a role to play in our successes and failures.

Interestingly, we also have some control over our standards, such that we may alter our standards if we find that we don’t measure up to them (Dana, Lalwani, & Duval, 1997).

This is more likely to happen if we’re focused more on the standards than on ourselves; if we fail when we are focused on the standards more than our performance, we are more likely to blame the standards and alter them to fit our performance (Dana et al., 1997).

Although it may sound like merely shifting the blame to standards and, therefore, letting yourself off the hook for a real discrepancy, there are many situations in which the standards are overly strict. Therapists’ offices are filled with people who hold themselves to impossibly high standards, effectively giving themselves no chance of success when comparing themselves to their internal standards.

It’s clear from the research on self-awareness that it is an important factor in how we think, feel, act, and react to our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

4 Proven Benefits of Self-Awareness

Now, let’s shift our attention to research on the outcomes of being self-aware.

As you might imagine, there are many benefits to practicing self-awareness:

  • It can make us more proactive, boost our acceptance, and encourage positive self-development (Sutton, 2016).
  • Self-awareness allows us to see things from the perspective of others, practice self-control, work creatively and productively, and experience pride in ourselves and our work as well as general self-esteem (Silvia & O’Brien, 2004).
  • It leads to better decision making (Ridley, Schutz, Glanz, & Weinstein, 1992).
  • It can make us better at our jobs, better communicators in the workplace, and enhance our self-confidence and job-related wellbeing (Sutton, Williams, & Allinson, 2015).

These benefits are reason enough to work on improving self-awareness, but this list is by no means exhaustive. Self-awareness has the potential to enhance virtually every experience you have, as it’s a tool and a practice that can be used anywhere, anytime, to ground yourself in the moment, realistically evaluate yourself and the situation, and help you make good choices.

3 Examples of Self-Awareness Skills

So we know that self-awareness is good, but what does it look like? How does one practice self-awareness?

Below are three examples of someone practicing self-awareness skills:

Bob at work

Bob struggles with creating a quarterly report at work, and he frequently produces subpar results. He notices the discrepancy between his standards and performance and engages in self-evaluation to determine where it comes from and how to improve.

He asks himself what makes the task so hard for him, and he realizes that he never seems to have trouble doing the work that goes into the report, but rather, writing it up cohesively and clearly.

Bob decides to fix the discrepancy by taking a course to improve his writing ability, having a colleague review his report before submitting it, and creating a reusable template for future reports so he is sure to include all relevant information.

Monique at home

Monique is having relationship problems with her boyfriend, Luis. She thinks Luis takes her for granted and doesn’t tell her he loves her or share affection enough. They fight about this frequently.

Suddenly, she realizes that she may be contributing to the problem. She looks inward and sees that she doesn’t show Luis appreciation very often, overlooking the nice things he does around the house for her and little physical touches that show his affection.

Monique considers her thought processes when Luis misses an opportunity to make her feel loved and notes that she assumes he purposely avoids doing things that she likes. She spends time thinking and talking with Luis about how they want to show and receive love, and they begin to work on improving their relationship.

Bridget on her own

Bridget struggles with low self-esteem, which causes depressive symptoms. She doesn’t feel good enough, and she doesn’t accept opportunities that come her way because of it. She begins working with a therapist to help her build self-awareness.

The next time an opportunity comes her way, she thinks she doesn’t want to do it and initially decides to turn it down. Later, with the help of some self-awareness techniques, Bridget realizes that she is only telling herself she doesn’t want to do it because of her fear that she won’t be good enough.

Bridget reminds herself that she is good enough and redirects her thoughts to “what if I succeed?” instead of “what if I fail?” She accepts the opportunity and continues to use self-awareness and self-love to improve her chances of success.

These three stories exemplify what self-awareness can look like and what it can do for you when you tap into it. Without self-awareness, Bob would have kept turning in bad reports, Monique would have continued in an unsatisfying relationship or broken things off, and Bridget would never have taken the opportunity that helped her grow.

If you look for them, you can find these stories everywhere.

5 Ways to Increase Your Self-Awareness

Now we have some clearcut examples of self-awareness in mind. We know what it looks like to embrace self-awareness and grow. But how do you do it? What did our leading characters do to practice self-awareness?

There are many ways to build and practice self-awareness, but here are some of the most effective:

1. Practice mindfulness and meditation

Mindfulness refers to being present in the moment and paying attention to yourself and your surroundings rather than getting lost in thought or ruminating or daydreaming.

Meditation is the practice of focusing your attention on one thing, such as your breath, a mantra, or a feeling, and letting your thoughts drift by instead of holding on to them.

Both practices can help you become more aware of your internal state and your reactions to things. They can also help you identify your thoughts and feelings and keep from getting so caught up in them that you lose your hold on your “self.”

2. Practice yoga

Yoga is a physical practice, but it’s just as much a mental practice. While your body is stretching and bending and flexing, your mind is learning discipline, self-acceptance, and awareness. You become more aware of your body and all the feelings that manifest, and you become more aware of your mind and the thoughts that crop up.

You can even pair yoga with mindfulness or meditation to boost your self-awareness.

3. Make time to reflect

Reflecting can be done in multiple ways (including journaling; see the next tip) and is customizable to the person reflecting, but the important thing is to go over your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to see where you met your standards, where you failed them, and where you could improve.

You can also reflect on your standards themselves to see if they are good ones for you to hold yourself to. You can try writing in a journal, talking out loud, or simply sitting quietly and thinking, whatever helps you to reflect on yourself.

4. Journal

The benefit of journaling is that it allows you to identify, clarify, and accept your thoughts and feelings. It helps you discover what you want, what you value, and what works for you. It can also help you find out what you don’t want, what is not important to you, and what doesn’t work for you.

Both are equally important to learn. Whether you like to write free-flowing entries, bulleted lists, or poems, writing down your thoughts and feelings helps you to become more aware and intentional.

5. Ask the people you love

It’s vital to feel we know ourselves from the inside, but external feedback helps too. Ask your family and close friends about what they think about you. Have them describe you and see what rings true with you and what surprises you.

Carefully consider what they say and think about it when you journal or otherwise reflect. Of course, don’t take any one person’s word as gospel; you need to talk to a variety of people to get a comprehensive view of yourself.

And remember that at the end of the day, it’s your self-beliefs and feelings that matter the most to you!

Importance in Counseling and Coaching

Self-awareness is a powerful tool that, when practiced regularly, can do more good for coachees and clients than anything else a professional can share with them. To make real, impactful, and lasting change, people need to be able to look inward and become familiar with that internal environment.

Building self-awareness should be a top priority for virtually all clients, after which the more traditional coaching and counseling work can begin. For example, you can counsel someone on their bad habits and give 1,000 ways to break their habits.

Still, if they don’t understand why they tend toward these bad habits in the first place, it’s almost a guarantee that they will either never break those habits or will quit for a while and simply pick up where they left off when things get tough.

Self-awareness is not only vital for the coachee or client; it is also important for the coach or counselor. In fact, self-awareness is prioritized as a core standard in the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs Standards (2017) for the profession, as both a requirement for counselors and a necessary skill to build in clients.

It takes a good amount of self-awareness to give competent counsel and provide actionable advice. Plus, self-awareness will help the caring counselor from getting too wrapped up in their client’s problems or seeing the issues through their own skewed lens.

To truly help someone, it’s essential to see things from their perspective, and that requires being self-aware enough to put our thoughts and feelings aside sometimes.

Meditation, Mindfulness, and Self-Awareness

The link between meditation, mindfulness, and self-awareness is clear, meaning it’s no surprise that practicing the first two will naturally lead to more of the third.

When we meditate or practice mindfulness, we are paying attention to the things that can often get ignored in our busy day-to-day: the present moment and our own internal experience. Those who get to know their thought processes and patterns are more able to adapt and improve them, both by simply being aware of their processes and patterns and by giving themselves a mechanism for practicing and improving.

Indeed, a program intended to enhance self-awareness (among other things) through yoga and meditation resulted in a range of improvements, including more positive affect, less stress, greater mindfulness, enhanced resilience, and even greater job satisfaction (Trent et al., 2019).

Self-Awareness & Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence can be defined as the cluster of abilities that allow us to recognize and regulate emotions in ourselves and others (Goleman, 2001).

According to the most popular theory of emotional intelligence from psychologist and author Daniel Goleman (2001), self-awareness is not only crucial for emotional intelligence; it’s one of the five components.

These five components are:

  1. Self-awareness
  2. Self-regulation
  3. Social skills
  4. Empathy
  5. Motivation

Other popular theories of emotional intelligence also include self-awareness as a core component, making it one of the factors that virtually all researchers and experts agree on (Goleman, 2001).

Self-awareness is a necessary building block of emotional intelligence; it is the building block upon which the rest of the components are built. One must have self-awareness to self-regulate, and social skills will be weak and of little use if you are not aware enough about when and how to use them.

If you’re looking to build your emotional intelligence, self-awareness is the first step. Make sure you have developed strong skills in self-awareness before giving the other elements your all.

4 Tips for Improving Self-Awareness in Relationships

If you want to be more like post-reflection Monique than pre-reflection Monique (referring to examples of self-awareness skills in action above), or if you’re going to help your clients with their relationship woes, here are some excellent tips for introducing more self-awareness within the context of a relationship:

  1. Practice mindfulness, especially when interacting with your loved ones. Pay attention to the words they say, their tone, their body language, and their facial expressions. We often communicate far more information with the latter three than we do with our words alone. Give your loved ones your full attention.
  2. Have regular discussions about the relationship. It’s important to keep things in perspective and ensure that nothing is falling between the cracks. When you have regular conversations about your relationship with your loved ones, it’s much harder to avoid or ignore things that can turn into problems. It also helps you reflect on your part and come prepared to discuss your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors with your loved ones.
  3. Spend quality time together and apart. This is especially important for romantic relationships, as we often find ourselves spending most or even all of our free time with our spouse or partner. However much you love and enjoy spending time with your partner, everyone needs some quality time alone. Make sure you and your partner are both getting some quality “me” time to think about what you want, what you need, and what your goals are. This will help you keep yourself from merging too much into your partner and maintaining your independence and stability. Then, since there will be two independent, stable, and healthy adults in the relationship, it will be even more fulfilling and satisfying to both partners when they spend quality time together.
  4. Share your perspective and consider theirs. It’s easy to get too caught up in our perspective on things; however, healthy relationships require that we consider others’ needs in addition to our own. To know what our loved ones need and to deliver on those needs, we must first identify and understand them. We do this by practicing our self-awareness and sharing that awareness with our friends and family.If you never check in with your loved ones on their views or feelings, it can cause you to drift apart and inhibit real, satisfying intimacy. Ask your loved ones for their perspective on things and share your perspective with them.

Role in the Workplace and Leadership

As noted earlier, self-awareness improves our communication, confidence, and job performance (Sutton et al. , 2015).

It’s easy to see how self-awareness can lead to these outcomes in the workplace, as better self-evaluation naturally leads to improving the alignment between our actions and our standards, resulting in better performance.

According to Tasha Eurich (2018), self-awareness can be divided into two categories or types: internal self-awareness and external self-awareness.

Internal self-awareness is about how well we see ourselves and our strengths, weaknesses, values, etc., while external self-awareness is understanding how others view us with those same factors (Eurich, 2018). Good managers and leaders need both to perform well in their roles.

Although you might think that more experience as a leader and greater power in one’s role lead to better self-awareness, that may not be the case. Experience can be positive or negative in terms of learning and improving the self. Even positive experiences can lead one to attribute success to themselves when it may have had more to do with the circumstances, leading to false confidence.

In fact, only 10–15% of those in Eurich’s (2018) study displayed self-awareness, although most of us believe we are self-aware.

To improve self-awareness, Eurich (2018) recommends introspection, but with a focus on asking oneself the right questions. She notes that asking “why” might not always be effective, as many of our internal processes remain shrouded in our subconscious or unconscious minds; instead, asking “what” may lead to better introspection.

For example, instead of asking, “Why do I fail at this task so often?” you might ask yourself, “What are the circumstances in which I fail at this task, and what can I do to change them?” It’s not a foolproof method, but it can aid you in improving your self-awareness and increasing your alignment with your standards on certain activities.

Self-Awareness in Students and Children

Self-awareness isn’t just for managers and employees; it can also substantially benefit students, children, and adolescents. The same benefits that make us more productive in the workplace can make students more productive in the classroom and at home: better communication with teachers and peers, more confidence, and more satisfaction with performance can all lead to happier, healthier students.

These benefits also apply to advanced students. Increased self-awareness leads to more self-care in medical students (Saunders et al., 2007) and a better understanding of one’s strengths and capabilities along with a boost to emotional intelligence in law students (James, 2011).

A Take-Home Message

In short, a little extra self-awareness can be of great benefit to anyone with the will to improve. This piece includes a description of self-awareness, an exploration of the theory of self-awareness, examples, and tips and tools you can use to boost your self-awareness. We hope you find this information helpful in increasing your self-awareness or that of your clients.

What exercises do you use to help build self-awareness? What are some other benefits you’ve noticed? Let us know in the comments section below.

If you liked this post, head on over to our post about self-awareness books to further help you increase reflection.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Self Compassion Exercises for free.

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  • Dana, E. R., Lalwani, N., & Duval, S. (1997). Objective self-awareness and focus of attention following awareness of self-standard discrepancies: Changing self or changing standards of correctness. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 16, 359–380.
  • Duval, S., & Wicklund, R. A. (1972). A theory of objective self-awareness. Academic Press.
  • Eurich, T. (2018, January 4). What self-awareness really is (and how to cultivate it). Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it
  • Goleman, D. (2001). Emotional intelligence: Issues in paradigm building. In C. Cherniss & D. Goleman (Eds.) The emotionally intelligent workplace. Jossey-Bass.
  • James, C. (2011). Law student wellbeing: Benefits of promoting psychological literacy and self-awareness using mindfulness, strengths theory, and emotional intelligence. Legal Education Review, 21(2).
  • Ridley, D. S., Schutz, P. A., Glanz, R. S., & Weinstein, C. E. (1992). Self-regulated learning: The interactive influence of metacognitive awareness and goal-setting. The Journal of Experimental Education, 60, 293–306.
  • Saunders, P. A., Tractenberg, R. E., Chaterji, R., Amri, H., Harazduk, N., Gordon, J. S., … Haramati, A. (2007). Promoting self-awareness and reflection through an experiential mind–body skills course for first-year medical students. Medical Teacher, 29, 778–784.
  • Silvia, P. J., & Duval, T. S. (2001). Objective Self-Awareness Theory: Recent progress and enduring problems. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 230–241.
  • Silvia, P. J., & O’Brien, M. E. (2004). Self-awareness and constructive functioning: Revisiting “the Human Dilemma.” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23, 475–489.
  • Sutton, A. (2016). Measuring the effects of self-awareness: Construction of the Self-Awareness Outcomes Questionnaire. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 12, 645–658.
  • Sutton, A., Williams, H. M., & Allinson, C. W. (2015). A longitudinal, mixed-method evaluation of self-awareness training in the workplace. European Journal of Training and Development, 39, 610–627.
  • Trent, N. L., Borden, S., Miraglia, M., Pasalis, E., Dusek, J. A., & Khalsa, S. B. S. (2019). Improvements in psychological and occupational wellbeing in a pragmatic controlled trial of a yoga-based program for professionals. Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine, 25, 593–605.

what is it in psychology and philosophy

Updated October 9, 2022 Views: 56 791 Author: Dmitry Petrov

Hello, dear readers of the KtoNaNovenkogo.ru blog. How do you distinguish yourself from other people and objects, understand that you are you? That your emotions and behavior are yours, and not someone else's, etc.? All this happens thanks to self-awareness . What it is and why we need it - find out below.


What is self-awareness

In simple words, self-awareness is a clear understanding that I am a separate person. To do this, I have to constantly direct my attention inward, thanks to which I know my needs, dreams, desires. I am aware of my own habits, character traits, ways of responding to the world around me. I listen to my feelings and emotions. I am me, and no one can be me instead of me. nine0005

For example, my nose is itchy and my stomach is growling. I rejoice at the first snow and hate autumn. And I love pies with potatoes and cherries. I also study, control, evaluate, transform my activity through individual motives. And all this is an endless process, since the human psyche is in constant motion.

So, self-consciousness is the consciousness of oneself as a person with a unique worldview, values, aspirations, self-esteem, etc. In this process, the "I-image" or "I-concept" is formed - a person's idea of ​​himself, a specific image of himself. nine0005

The concept of individual self-consciousness applies to every individual. However, the same phenomenon can be observed within the framework of an entire community, an ethnic group.

In the social sciences, it is called national self-consciousness - this is a set of traditions, history, ideological character, culture, stereotypes, ideas of the nation. The main function of the phenomenon is to create unity between people living side by side.

In philosophy

The study of self-consciousness in philosophy began from the time of Socrates, for whom this process was is closely related to self-knowledge (he put equality between them). Kant believed that self-consciousness is determined by preexperiential structures (a priori).

Today, the totality of old and new views on self-consciousness can be conditionally divided into two camps:

  1. some define this phenomenon as a part of consciousness, born together with a person and dying with him. This is any self-reflection of an individual in the form of emotions, sensations, thoughts, etc.
  2. the second argue that the basis of self-consciousness is reflection , due to the ability to think and receive the products of one's thinking - knowledge. From this point of view, the ability to be aware of oneself is the highest form of manifestation of consciousness and it exists only in adults.

Self-awareness in psychology

From the point of view of psychology, the ability to be aware of oneself is not innate. It is formed along with the physical and mental development of the child. This process is closely related to upbringing, the influence of authoritative adults, interaction with peers, learning, etc. ..

In other words, self-consciousness develops in contact with the world. After all, it is through contact with him that the individual receives knowledge of who he is at a given moment in time and in general. We read the reactions of others and our own to them.

Imagine a child who is constantly drawing something. He is praised, they say what a fine fellow he is. If such a reaction to his work is repeated many times, a knowledge about himself is formed in the head of a young artist: “I love to draw, it works out great for me. And I also like to receive praise.” And who will be aware of himself as an adult who has been told all his childhood that his hands are growing from the wrong place and his head is full of holes? nine0005

Development of self-consciousness

So, let's consider 4 stages of development of self-consciousness:

  1. Before the age of 1, a child develops his bodily "I". He actively studies his body parts, and from about 9 months old he begins to recognize himself in the mirror, smile at his own reflection;
  2. by the age of three, a child becomes aware of himself as a doer. This period is also called "I myself" (crisis of 3 years). Children are actively capricious and want to do everything on their own. It is important not to interfere with them, since it is at this age that the attitude “I can, I do, I cope”, self-confidence should be laid in self-consciousness; nine0036
  3. it is believed that self-esteem is formed by the age of 7;
  4. a teenager is actively looking for himself, his individual communication styles. This stage ends with the formation of personal values, based on which a person will evaluate the world in the future.

Functions

Why does a person need self-awareness? It performs 3 important functions :

  1. with its help we get to know ourselves – who am I, what am I, what am I, why am I doing this, etc.;
  2. in turn, self-knowledge gives us the ability to control our behavior; nine0036
  3. an emotional-valuable attitude towards oneself is formed.

If we combine these 3 points, we can say that we need the ability to be aware of ourselves in order to understand our internal activity and how it affects external interaction.

Based on this knowledge, we can make our existence as comfortable as possible and develop as a species (here I see natural intent).

Criteria

What specifically of mental activity is self-consciousness? In psychology, this phenomenon is confirmed by the following criteria:

  1. separating myself from the environment as a separate unit - I am an autonomous subject;
  2. I am active and can manage my activity;
  3. reflection – I can notice and analyze inner experiences;
  4. I can be aware of myself through another person. In others, I notice everything that is in me (whether I realize it or not).

Self-awareness in adolescence

A large number of external and internal transformations occur precisely in adolescence. These changes actively influence the formation of the "I-concept" of the individual (self-image). Features of personality self-awareness in adolescence reflect two points:

  1. the physiology noticeably changes - the restructuring of the hormonal background leads to the fact that the girls "round off", becoming feminine. The boys grow rapidly, their voice breaks, vegetation appears on the body. Children outwardly suddenly become like adults. And how to realize and accept it even "yesterday's child"? This is a huge stress for the whole organism;
  2. the first paragraph entails mental changes . From the point of view of psychology, a child needs adolescence in order to mentally separate from his parents, to feel like an adult and autonomous (separation). This is difficult and often painful, since the process of secession forces me to seek an understanding of who I am, what is my place in the sun, what rules I want to live by and what values ​​to rely on (remember the “Development” block?) And all this within the framework of national self-consciousness. The adolescent is forced to form his inner support, just as a chick flying out of its nest must learn to use its own wings. nine0036

A huge role in this period is played by self-esteem, which, as already mentioned, is formed up to 7 years.

Children with negative self-perception do not believe in themselves, do not want to grow up (unconsciously, of course). They are scarier than others. This often results in rejection of oneself, one's new body, teenage depression, problems with studies, exposure to chemicals in bad company, and other difficulties.

And vice versa. Adequate positive self-esteem gives the child the opportunity to be active, interested in life, addicted and striving to learn about himself and the world. He is not afraid to try something new, he is not destroyed by mistakes. He tries to assert himself. nine0005

Self-consciousness disorders

Self-consciousness disorders are based on psychological and/or physiological causes (mental disorders, congenital or acquired brain injuries). There are 4 types of violations :

  1. depersonalization (from Latin “lack of personality”) – a person seems to lose himself, his “I”. He perceives what is happening to him as what is happening to someone else. Feelings, thoughts, emotions become “foreign”, and therefore inaccessible and uncontrollable. People with depersonalization watch their mental activity from the outside, feeling only emptiness inside themselves; nine0036
  2. splitting of the personality core into two or more persons who deny each other. Watch "Split" - a film based on real events about a man who had 23 different personalities in his head;
  3. violation of bodily identification - a person does not recognize his reflection in the mirror, and body parts seem alien. For example, people complain that their arms or legs seem to have a life of their own;
  4. derealization – not only self-awareness of the person is disturbed, but also the sense of reality. For example, grass seems artificial, and houses are made of plasticine, smells are distorted, time flows unrealistically quickly or slowly, etc. Everything around is unreal, unnatural. nine0036

And finally. Self-consciousness has different degrees of manifestation. The more clearly an individual is aware of himself, the more opportunities he has to change, at the same time changing his reality.


Author of the article: Kovalenko Liliya Sergeevna (psychologist)

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog KtoNaNovenkogo.ru

Human consciousness and self-consciousness. Definition and functions

In psychology and philosophy, the subject of study is self-consciousness. The core of the study of consciousness is also the consciousness of one's own "I". nine0005

Modern philosophy defines self-consciousness as the main and most important characteristic of consciousness. In other words, the acceptance as a subject of oneself or the states of one's body, the facts of consciousness, one's "I". In this case, one's own "I" is understood as one's appearance, character traits, a system of values ​​inherent in oneself, taste preferences, one's own aspirations. In some situations, self-consciousness is presented so extensively that it also includes self-esteem. nine0005

Consciousness and self-consciousness of the individual

Psychology presents self-consciousness as a mental phenomenon.

Definition 1

Self-consciousness is a person's understanding of himself as a subject of activity, where the phenomenon determines a person's understanding of himself, which is formed into a subconscious "I-Image".

Definition 2

Self-consciousness is a mental process at a high level of self-organization, which ensures the unity, integrity and constancy of the individual.

nine0002 The expression of self-consciousness occurs in the person's awareness of himself, his character traits and qualities, his "I".

Self-consciousness is the result of the development of a person who is in the system of social relations. Relationships, in turn, serve as a source for the formation of consciousness and self-awareness.

Concepts of the emergence of self-consciousness

There are several approaches that determine the origin of self-consciousness. According to the visions of the outstanding scientist psychologist and philosopher S. L. Rubinshtein, self-consciousness is the highest form of consciousness that arises as a development that precedes consciousness. He explained his theory by the fact that self-consciousness can arise only as the personality develops and accepts itself as an independent subject. nine0005

Another concept was proposed by I. M. Sechenov, he is the founder of the Russian physiological school, as well as the creator of a completely new direction in psychology - natural science. He believed that self-consciousness and cognition of the external world simultaneously in the human personality originate and develop parallel to each other under the influence of the same factors.

Sechenov says that a person acquires the basis of self-consciousness literally immediately after birth. The source of self-consciousness is systemic feelings, which are revived in the process of human development. Systemic feelings, in turn, are formed under the influence of external factors and subjective characteristics of the state of one's own body, in other words, self-perceptions. nine0005

Due to the interaction of such sensations, ideas about the external world and about oneself are born and develop. The result of such a synthesis of sensations is a person's knowledge of himself and an understanding of his place in society. In the course of personality development, knowledge about the external world is separated from knowledge about oneself.

The formation of self-consciousness

The process of becoming self-consciousness is usually divided into two main stages:

  • The first stage is intended for the formation of the scheme of one's own body and the feeling of "I" is formed. "I" is a single system of self-determination on a sensual level. It is based on a sense of "I" with established social prerequisites, they are necessary in order to form this feeling, which is based on the reaction of society. nine0036
  • The second stage serves to improve intellectual abilities, as well as the formation and development of conceptual thinking. Thus, self-consciousness moves to a new reflective level.
Definition 3

Reflection is any mental process of a person, which is aimed at knowing himself and analyzing his actions and his own states.

The meaning of reflection is that a person can separate himself from the outside world, feel it. In addition, comprehend these experiences at the conceptual level. nine0005

A characteristic feature of the level of self-consciousness is that it is in its centers that a feeling is formed that gives the individual the concept of inner integrity and constancy. The ability to remain yourself in any situation arises at this stage.

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