Self-awareness is the capacity for
introspectionIntrospection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious and purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul...
and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. Self-awareness, though similar to
sentienceSentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
in concept, includes the experience of the
selfThe self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness. The self has been studied extensively by philosophers and psychologists and is central to many world religions.-Philosophy:...
, and has been argued as implicit to the
hard problem of consciousnessThe hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why we have qualitative phenomenal experiences. David Chalmers contrasts this with the "easy problems" of explaining the ability to discriminate, integrate information, report mental states, focus attention, etc...
.
A philosophical view
While reading Descartes, Locke began to relish the great ideas of philosophy and the scientific method. On one occasion, while in a meeting with friends, the question of the "limits of human understanding" arose. He spent almost twenty years of his life on the subject until the publication of
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, a great chapter in the History of Philosophy.
John LockeJohn Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
's chapter XXVII "On Identity and Diversity" in
An Essay Concerning Human UnderstandingFirst appearing in 1690 with the printed title An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke concerns the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. He describes the mind at birth as a blank slate filled later through experience...
(1689) has been said to be one of the first modern conceptualizations of consciousness as the repeated self-identification of
oneselfThe philosophy of self defines the essential qualities that make one person distinct from all others. There have been numerous approaches to defining these qualities. The self is the idea of a unified being which is the source of consciousness. Moreover, this self is the agent responsible for the...
, through which
moral responsibilityMoral responsibility usually refers to the idea that a person has moral obligations in certain situations. Disobeying moral obligations, then, becomes grounds for justified punishment. Deciding what justifies punishment, if anything, is a principle concern of ethics.People who have moral...
could be attributed to the
subjectIn philosophy, a subject is a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness or a relationship with another entity . A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed...
—and therefore punishment and
guiltGuilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that...
iness justified, as critics such as Nietzsche would point out, affirming "...the psychology of conscience is not 'the voice of God in man'; it is the instinct of cruelty ... expressed, for the first time, as one of the oldest and most indispensable elements in the foundation of culture." John Locke does not use the terms
self-awareness or
self-consciousnessSelf-consciousness is an acute sense of self-awareness. It is a preoccupation with oneself, as opposed to the philosophical state of self-awareness, which is the awareness that one exists as an individual being; although some writers use both terms interchangeably or synonymously...
though.
According to Locke, personal identity (the self) "depends on consciousness, not on
substanceSubstance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears....
" nor on the
soulA soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
. We are the same person to the extent that we are conscious of our past and future thoughts and actions in the same way as we are conscious of our present thoughts and actions. If consciousness is this "thought" which doubles all thoughts, then personal identity is only founded on the repeated act of consciousness: "This may show us wherein personal identity consists: not in the identity of substance, but ... in the identity of consciousness". For example, one may claim to be a
reincarnationReincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
of Plato, therefore having the same soul. However, one would be the same
personA person is a human being, or an entity that has certain capacities or attributes strongly associated with being human , for example in a particular moral or legal context...
as Plato only if one had the same consciousness of Plato's thoughts and actions that he himself did. Therefore, self-identity is not based on the soul. One soul may have various personalities.
Self-identity is not founded either on the body or the substance, argues Locke, as the substance may change while the person remains the same: "animal identity is preserved in identity of life, and not of substance", as the body of the animal grows and changes during its life. Take for example a prince's soul which enters the body of a cobbler: to all exterior eyes, the cobbler would remain a cobbler. But to the prince himself, the cobbler would be himself, as he would be conscious of the prince's thoughts and acts, and not of the cobbler's life. A prince's consciousness in a cobbler body: thus the cobbler is, in fact, a prince. But this interesting border-case leads to this problematic thought that since personal identity is based on consciousness, and that only oneself can be aware of his consciousness, exterior human judges may never know if they really are judging—and punishing—the same person, or simply the same body. In other words, Locke argues that you may be judged only for the acts of your body, as this is what is apparent to all but God; however, you are in truth only responsible for the acts for which you are conscious. This forms the basis of the insanity defense: one can't be held accountable for acts in which one was
unconsciouslyUnconsciousness is the condition of being not conscious—in a mental state that involves complete or near-complete lack of responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli. Being in a comatose state or coma is a type of unconsciousness. Fainting due to a drop in blood pressure and a...
irrational, mentally ill—and therefore leads to interesting philosophical questions:
Or again:
Henceforth, Locke's conception of personal identity found it not on the substance or the body, but in the "same continued consciousness", which is also distinct from the soul. He creates a third term between the soul and the body—and Locke's thought may certainly be meditated by those who, following a
scientistA scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
ideology, would identify too quickly the brain to consciousness. For the brain, as the body and as any substance, may change, while consciousness remains the same. Therefore personal identity is not in the brain, but in consciousness. However, Locke's theory also reveals his debt to
theologyTheology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
and to
ApocalypticAn Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
"great day", which by advance excuse any failings of human justice and therefore humanity's miserable state.
Self-Awareness Theory
Self-Awareness Theory states that when we focus our attention on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our current behavior to our internal standards and values. We become self-conscious as objective evaluators of ourselves. However self-awareness is not to be confused with
self-consciousnessSelf-consciousness is an acute sense of self-awareness. It is a preoccupation with oneself, as opposed to the philosophical state of self-awareness, which is the awareness that one exists as an individual being; although some writers use both terms interchangeably or synonymously...
. Various emotional states are intensified by self-awareness, and people sometimes try to reduce or escape it through things like television, video games, drugs, etc. However, some people may seek to increase their self-awareness through these outlets. People are more likely to align their behavior with their standards when made self-aware. People will be negatively affected if they don't live up to their personal standards. Various environmental cues and situations induce awareness of the self, such as mirrors, an audience, or being videotaped or recorded. These cues also increase accuracy of personal memory. In Demetriou's theory, one of the
neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive developmentJean Piaget's theory of cognitive development has been criticized on many grounds. One criticism is concerned with the very nature of development itself. It is suggested that Piaget's theory does not explain why development from stage to stage occurs. The theory is also criticized for ignoring...
, self-awareness develops systematically from birth through the life span and it is a major factor for the development of general inferential processes. Moreover, a series of recent studies showed that self-awareness about cognitive processes participates in general
intelligenceIntelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....
on a par with processing efficiency functions, such as
working memoryWorking memory has been defined as the system which actively holds information in the mind to do verbal and nonverbal tasks such as reasoning and comprehension, and to make it available for further information processing...
, processing speed, and reasoning.
In theater
Theater also concerns itself with other awareness besides self-awareness. There is a possible correlation between the experience of the theater audience and individual self-awareness. As actors and audiences must not "break" the fourth wall in order to maintain context, so individuals must not be aware of the artificial, or the constructed perception of his or her
realityIn philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
. This suggests that self-awareness is an artificial continuum just as theater is. Theatrical efforts such as
Six Characters in Search of an AuthorSix Characters in Search of an Author is a play by the Italian writer Luigi Pirandello.The play is a satirical tragicomedy. It was first performed in 1921 at the Teatro Valle in Rome, to a very mixed reception, with shouts from the audience of "Manicomio!" .Subsequently the play enjoyed a much...
, or
The Wonderful Wizard of OzThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...
, construct yet another layer of the fourth wall, but they do not destroy the primary illusion. Refer to
Erving GoffmanErving Goffman was a Canadian-born sociologist and writer.The 73rd president of American Sociological Association, Goffman's greatest contribution to social theory is his study of symbolic interaction in the form of dramaturgical perspective that began with his 1959 book The Presentation of Self...
's
Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience.
In animals
The concept of self-awareness, identified by the recognition of an image of oneself in a mirror, only relates to a limited number of species in the animal world. Researchers continue to find more species that have this ability. In order to test for self-awareness or mirror self-recognition (MSR), a variety of experiments have been conducted. In most of the experiments, a mark is placed somewhere on the body of the animal to be tested, which the animal cannot see without the use of a mirror. After being released into the yard, the animal must show a heightened interest in the mark, either by exploring it visually or physically in order to be considered self-aware. Variables of the experiment include the open mirror, covered mirror, the regular mark and the sham mark, which equates to the regular mark but cannot be seen.
Knowing that humans have mirror the self-recognition capability, and that “chimpanzees are physiologically the most similar to humans”, chimps exemplify the next logical candidates for testing. Before the mark test even took place the chimps showed heightened interest in the mirror. This heightened interest is marked by “grooming parts of the body which would otherwise be visually invisible without the mirror, picking bits of food from between the teeth... making faces at the mirror, blowing bubbles and manipulating food wads with the lips all while watching the reflection”. The chimpanzees did pass mark test, as they inspected the mark visually and physically. After chimps displayed behavior of interaction with their “reflective self” counterparts or self-awareness, researchers broadened their horizons.
As of 1981, experimenters knew of only two species which showed mirror self-recognition: humans and chimpanzees. Even monkeys, a close relative to the chimp failed the mark test, “with no incidence of social behavior directed toward the mirror”. In this year, three researchers, Robert Epstein, Robert P. Lanza and B. F. Skinner conducted a successful mirror self-recognition trial on pigeons. The experiment revealed that a “pigeon can use a mirror to locate an object on its body which it cannot see directly”. This shows that other species capable of MSR do exist.
Reports from 2005 oppose Epstien, Lanza and Skinner’s idea that monkeys do not have the capability of MSR. Although capuchin monkeys do not pass the mark test, something special happens when a capuchin monkey sees its own mirror image. While studying capuchin monkeys Frans B.M. de Waal recorded stark differences in how monkeys treat their own image versus the sight of another monkey. While looking at another monkey, the test monkeys exhibited lack of eye contact, anxiety and intimidating actions. While looking at their own images, female monkeys and male monkeys showed very different behaviors. Female monkeys gazed into their own eyes, making kind gestures at themselves. Male monkeys make more eye contact, but continued the anxious behavior and intimidating actions toward their reflection. Although monkeys do not pass the mark test, this does not mean they do not perform some sort of MSR.
After finding that an increasing number of species may have the capability of MSR, researchers became more interested in what might lead to that capability. High levels of “encephalization and behavioral and cognitive complexity” put dolphins next on the list to be explored. This factor allowed researchers to explore aspects such as “social ecology, cognition and neurobiology of the species”. Congruent with chimpanzees and pigeons, dolphins also exhibited behavior of using the mirror in a way to investigate marked parts of their body, or self-awareness.
With the connection between MSR and compassion and selflessness in animals in place, Elephants, which are known for this type of behavior along with apes and dolphins, were tested next. Only one of three elephants passed the mark test, touching the marked area forty-seven times. This fact is not disheartening as results such as physical inspection and repetitive mirror-testing behavior, show that behavior of all three elephants equates to the behavior of other species that have demonstrated MSR. The strong similarities between apes, dolphins and elephants provide convincing evidence that there may be a link between compassion and “cognitive complexity” in animals and MSR.
All of these experiments display the true intelligence of animals. MSR exemplifies a special quality, the ability to recognize a mirror image and become self-aware. This quality has been linked with “cognitive complexity” and compassion of species it has been found upon. Even though the number of species is still limited, the rapid expansion of findings shows the possibility of even more species capable of MSR.
In science fiction
In
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, self-awareness describes an
essentialIn philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described...
human property that bestows "personhood" onto a non-human. If a
computerArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
,
alienExtraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
or other object is described as "self-aware", the reader may assume that it will be treated as a completely human character, with similar rights, capabilities and desires to a normal human being. A computer that is self-aware has the ability to think for itself, rather than thinking what is predetermined by its code. The words
sentienceSentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
, sapience and
consciousnessConsciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
are used in similar ways in science fiction.
In psychology
In psychology, the concept of "self-awareness" is used in different ways:
- As a form of intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....
, self-awareness can be an understanding of one's own knowledge, attitudes, and opinions. Alfred BinetAlfred Binet was a French psychologist who was the inventor of the first usable intelligence test, known at that time as the Binet test and today referred to as the IQ test. His principal goal was to identify students who needed special help in coping with the school curriculum...
's first attempts to create an intelligence test included items for "auto-critique" – a critical understanding of oneself. Surprisingly we do not have a privileged access to our own opinions and knowledge directly. For instance, if we try to enumerate all the members of any conceptual category we know, our production falls much short of our recognition of members of that category.
- Albert Bandura
Albert Bandura is a psychologist and the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University...
has created a category called self-efficacy that builds on our varying degrees of self-awareness.
- Our general inaccuracy about our own abilities, knowledge, and opinions has created many popular phenomena for research such as the better than average effect
Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others. This is evident in a variety of areas including intelligence, performance on tasks or tests, and the possession of...
. For instance, 90% of drivers may believe that they are "better than average" (Swenson, 1981) Their inaccuracy comes from the absence of a clear definable measure of driving ability and their own limited self-awareness; and this of course underlines the importance of objective standards to inform our subjective self-awareness in all domains. Inaccuracy in our opinion seems particularly disturbing, for what is more personal than opinions. Yet, inconsistency in our opinion is as strong as in our knowledge of facts. For instance, people who call themselves opposite extremes in political views often hold not just overlapping political views, but views that are central to the opposite extreme. Reconciling such differences proves difficult and gave rise to Leon Festinger's theory of Cognitive DissonanceCognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying,...
.
- Experimental psychologist who perform procedures on animals often use the Mirror test
The mirror test is a measure of self-awareness, as animals either possess or lack the ability to recognize themselves in a mirror.The test was developed by Gordon Gallup Jr. in 1970, based in part on observations made by Charles Darwin. While visiting a zoo, Darwin held a mirror up to an orangutan...
to measure self-awareness and self-recognition.
See also