How Self-Awareness Influence The Way We Think And The Emotion We Feel.

Mushafau Ade Kukoyi
Social Psychology
09-14-05

How Self-Awareness Influence The Way We Think And The Emotion We Feel.

The reflection of self starts from the very beginning, once a child can identify his or her name repeatedly, this allow them to gradually see them-self as a distinct and recurrent point of reference and this is later to be followed by awareness of independent status within the social group.

In the first instance, self is the individual viewed as both the source and the object of reflexive behavior (pg.81). However, the concept of self identity is represented both in active and passive aspects of our life in the form of ‘I’ and ‘me’ and it is created as a result of meanings attached to the self by one’s self and others. Thus, the minute we can distinguish our physical and intellectual features from that of others, we recognize that our perspective of viewing the world is different from that of others.

Furthermore, one of the factors that help to confirm self-awareness is self-evaluation; this involves the way others evaluate or judge our actions, which could lead to a positive self-concept or a negative self-concept. For example, a creative artist will pursue opportunities to exhibit his paintings in art galleries once he can sees himself as talented rather that if he consider himself as not good enough.

However, acceptance of membership within a social categories base on criteria such as nationality, gender, sexuality, race/ ethnicity helps to create within every human being what we define as social identities; these characteristics becomes standards for individual’s thoughts, feelings and actions. For example -real men don’t cry in public- once an individual can identify with the characteristics of this group (men), he manifest the qualities, traits and values of that group as part of his self-identity. According to the book “if your interaction with other group members confirms the importance of these attributes, they become part of the self you know” (pg.86).

In other to understand how self-awareness influence the way we think and the emotion we feel, it is important to note that “self-schema influences the speed and certainty with which we process information, how we interpret feedback from others and the storage in and retrieval from memory of information” (pg.94). For example, the way a military man will respond to a terrorist attack in an airplane will be different from the way a pastor will respond to the same situation. The military man is likely to respond more quickly, aggressive, confidently, risky manner, defensive, brave or violent; whereas the pastor might be more peaceful, compassionate, forgiving, gentle and slow to react to the situation. According to the book ”people are quicker and more certain when judging and interpreting information related to their important identities or qualities” (pg. 94).

Author's Contact: http://kukisart.com