Many researchers agree that self-awareness, or self-consciousness, affects how a

person thinks or behaves in different situations and that self-consciousness can be

successfully manipulated by creating a self-focused situation (as cited in Phemister &
Crewe, 2004). Duval and Wicklund's landmark 1972 study formulated the theory of
objective self-awareness to better explain why individuals conform their behaviors,
appearance, and beliefs to those of others (as cited in Phemister & Crewe, 2004). Duval
and Wicklund argued that individuals have one innate consciousness with directional
properties; attention can be focused either outward toward the environment or inward
toward oneself, but not simultaneously outward and inward (Phemister & Crewe, 2004).
They also experimentally demonstrated that a state of self-focused attention causes one to
engage in self-examination and self-evaluation (as cited in Fenigstein, 1979). In addition,
many studies have demonstrated that situation factors (such as the presence of a mirror)
can affect that proportion of attention focused internally. Underlying this approach to
self-consciousness are two important assumptions: (a) When attention is self-directed,
the person becomes conscious of the self as an object of attention to others; conversely,
when attention is directed away from the self toward external stimuli, there is little
consciousness of the self as a social object. And (b) a major consequence of selfconsciousness is an increased concern with the presentation of self and the reactions of
others to that presentation (Fenigstein, 1979). The present study will focus primarily on
the latter of these assumptions.
Several studies have been able to successfully manipulate self-awareness to study
positive or negative effects that a hightened state of self-awareness may yield. Many

researchers choose to induce self-awareness by exposing subjects to their own image in a

mirror (as cited in Scheier, 1976). Fenigstein and Coll (1973) found that when female
subjects were presented with favorable or unfavorable feedback in the context of an
interview, and self-attention was experimentally manipulated by exposing half of the
subjects to their images in a mirror, self-awareness increased the negative response to the
negative evaluation. The empirical findings in this study demonstrate that when persons
become more aware of the self due to the reflection of their images in a mirror, there is an
increased responsiveness to the evaluations of others (Fenigstein & Coll, 1973). Scheier
(1976), when examining angry aggression in relation to self-awareness and selfconsciousness, found that increased awareness of one's affective state enhances the
tendency to respond to that state. In Scheier's study, high and low self conscious persons
were either angered or not angered by an experimental accomplice. They then aggressed
against the accomplice with or without the presence of a mirror. When angered, high
self-conscious persons aggressed more than low self-conscious persons, and the presence
of a mirror increased angry aggression (Scheier, 1976).
Sentyrz and Bushman (1998) tested whether self-focusing situations influence
people to avoid fatty food and used a mirror for their manipulation of self-focus. In their
first study, college students tasted full, reduced, and no-fat cream cheese spreads on
bagelettes with a large mirror present for some students and absent for the remainder. In
Study 2, shoppers at large supermarkets tasted full, reduced, and no-fat spread margarine
spread on bread. For both studies, participants in the mirror group ate less of the full-fat
product than did those in the no-mirror group (Sentyrz & Bushman, 1998). In both
studies, it was made difficult for participants to escape the self-focusing situation.

Participants remained self-focused and inhibited their eating of high fat foods (Sentyrz &
Bushman, 1998).
Private, public and trait self-consciousness (the characteristic difference between
individuals in the amount of attention they tend to focus on themselves in private and
public situations) have also been studied and were shown to be affected by the presence
of a mirror (Kimble, Hirt, & Arnold, 2001). Findings suggest that public self-awareness
occurring in a normal introduction situation made a subject less likely to remember
others' names. However, mirror-induced private self consciousness did not affect the
subject's memory score. Despite this, a manipulation check showed that the presence of a
mirror did make subjects more self-aware. Similarly, Carver and Scheier's (1978) found
that the tendency to make self-focus sentence completions to be greater overall in a
mirror than in a no-mirror condition was supported. The results of this study provide a
strong validation for the mirror as an external manipulation of self-focus and selfawareness. Furthermore, Martin Ginis, Burke and Gauvin (2006) examined the effects of
mirrored exercise environments and the presence of other exercisers on sedentary
women's exercise-induced feeling states. Women in a not alone/mirrored condition
reported greater self-consciousness and more social comparisons than participants in the
alone/mirrored condition. The findings are consistent with previous studies that have
tested Objective Self Awareness Theory (as cited in Martin Ginis, Burke, & Gauvin),
which found that women report feeling worse after exposure to manipulations that
increase self-awareness.
Mirror presence can also have a negative effect on women's self-efficacy (Katula,
McAuley, Mihalko, & Bane, 1998). Participants in this study exercised in three

environments: (a) a standard laboratory condition, (b) in the same laboratory but in front
of a full-length mirror, and (c) an exercise location of the partcipant's choice. Results
indicated that women's efficacy expectations relative to exercise significantly declined in
the mirror condition (Katula, McAuley, Mihalko, & Bane, 1998).
The purpose of the present study will be to directly examine the validity of the use
of a mirror as a means of manipulating self-attention by loosely emulating Martin Ginis,
Burke, and Gauvin's (2006) study. However, the present study will seek to increase
external validity by utilizing both male and female participants. Consistent with Martin
Ginis, Burke, and Gauvin (2006) and other literature that suggests that a mirror can be
used as a manipulation of self-focus, and that increased self-focus may cause a person to
negatively evaulate his or herself, I hypothesize that the mirror will prove to be a
successful manipulator of participant self-awareness, and that participants who exercise
in the mirrored condition will report feeling 'worse' about themselves than those who
exercise in the no mirror condition.
Method
Participants
A sample of convenience, consisting of at least at 60 participants, will be recruited
from undergraduate psychology courses at Eastern Kentucky University using the EKU
research sign-up system (Sona System). Each of the participants will be required to
participate in this study (if they choose this particular study) for credit.
Materials
The exercise protocol for each session will consist of an instruction sheet that asks
the participant to complete a series of simple exercises. Similar to the Martin Ginis,

Burke, and Gauvin (2006) study, the instruction sheet asks the participant to perform a 3
min warm-up (jumping jacks), 5 min of jogging in place, and a 3 min cool down in which
the participant may stretch or jog at a light intensity (see Appendix A). Selfconsciousness will be assessed with a post-exercise sheet containing two semanticdifferential items, identical to those used by Martin Ginis, Burke, and Gauvin (2006),
which asks how participants felt while exercising: self-conscious of my
appearance/unconcerned with my appearance and self-conscious of my fitness
level/unconcerned with my fitness level (see Appendix B). These items are rated on 7point scales ranging from -3 (unconcerned) to +3 (self-conscious).
Procedure
Interested participants will be able to sign up for one of four experimental
sessions,