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Self Jawareness is a central concept in sev- and the effects of motor activity and external
eral divergent approaches to behavior and life. distractions that move attention away' from
In psychoanalysis, increased awareness of the the self (Duval & Wicklund, 1972). These
self is both a tool and a goal. Self-examination manipulations have affected such diverse be-
enables the person to recognize his uncon- haviors as aggression (Scheier, Fenigstein, &
scious thoughts, motives, and defenses; one Buss, 1974), attribution (Duval & Wicklund,
result of the therapy is increased insight, i.e., 1973), and self-esteem (Ickes, Wicklund, &
greater self-awareness. Rogerian therapy, Ferris, 1973).
existential analysis, and a variety of other The unifying thread in the aforementioned
insight therapies have also emphasized the therapies, philosophies, and laboratory stud-
importance of attending to and understanding ies is the process of self-focused attention:
one's inner thoughts and feelings. Relatively when the person is focusing on his thoughts,
newer traditions, such as transactional analy- feelings, behaviors or appearance; when he is
sis, encounter groups, and sensitivity training, reflecting, fantasizing, or daydreaming about
have stressed the value of "getting in touch himself; or when he is making decisions or
with oneself" and recognizing how one's be- plans that involve himself. However, none of
havior affects others. The quest for self-insight the previous approaches considers individual
may also be seen in the widespread interest differences. Some persons constantly think
in the practice of meditation. about themselves, scrutinize their behavior,
Previous interest in self-awareness has de- and mull over their thoughts—to the point of
rived from either a therapeutic orientation or obsessiveness. At the other extreme are per-
a philosophical approach to life. Recently, sons whose absence of self-consciousness is so
self-awareness has been approached from an complete that they have no understanding of
entirely different perspective—that of social either their own motives or of how they ap-
psychology. Argyle (1969) has speculated pear to others.
about the impact of self ^awareness on social The consistent tendency of persons to di-
interaction, and Duval and Wicklund (1972) rect attention inward or outward is the trait
have elaborated an entire theory of self- of self-consciousness. Self-awareness refers to
awareness. Laboratory research generated by a state: the existence of self-directed atten-
Duval and Wicklund's theory has examined tion, as a result of either transient situational
both the effects of stimuli that direct atten- variables, chronic dispositions, or both. Indi-
tion toward the self (mirrors and cameras) vidual differences in self-consciousness may
Allan Fenigstein is now at Kenyon College, Gam-
have implications for many of the previously
bier, Ohio, and Michael F. Scheier is now at Car- mentioned phenomena. Meditation may be
negie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. more easily accomplished by high self-con-
Requests for reprints should be sent to Arnold
H. Buss, Department of Psychology, University of scious persons who have had previous experi-
Texas, Austin, Texas 78712. ence in turning inward. Persons high in self-
522
PUBLIC AND PBIVATE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 523
consciousness may readily fit into insight discarded, new items were added, and the inven-
therapy, whereas others may be refractory, tory went through several revisions. Prior to two
final administrations, the revised scales were given
Also, there may be differences between high to nine different samples, with a total N of 1,821.
and low self-conscious persons in their sus- The same three factors consistently emerged.
ceptibility to the effects of a mirror, a cam-
era, or an audience. Given this background, RESULTS
individual differences in self-consciousness Self-Consciousness Scale
should be assessed. To that end, we devised a
scale. The final version of the scale consisted of
23 items. Each item was rated on a scale of 0
METHOD (extremely uncharacteristic) to 4 (extremely
Pilot Work characteristic). The scale was first adminis-
The first step in constructing the scale was to tered to a sample of 179 male and 253 fe-
identify behaviors that constitute the domain of male college students. Analyses were initially
self-consciousness. The following classification was performed separately for men and women,
constructed: (a) preoccupation with past, present,
and future behavior; (b) sensitivity to inner feel-
and the factor loadings and the norms were
ings; (c) recognition of one's positive and nega- highly similar for both genders. Therefore the
tive attributes; (d) introspective behavior; (e) a male and female data were combined.
tendency to picture or imagine oneself; (f) aware- Factor analysis. The results of a principal-
ness of one's physical appearance and presentation; components analysis using varimax rotation
and (g) concern over the appraisal of others.
Thirty-eight items were devised to sample this are presented in Table 1. Three factors were
domain, and the scale was administered to 130 retained for final rotation. The loadings of
undergraduate women and 82 undergraduate men. the items lined up closely with a priori ex-
A principal-components factor analysis using vari- pectations. (In addition to the orthogonal ro-
max rotation was performed on the data (Nie,
Bent, & Hull, 1970). A large proportion of the tation, an oblique rotation was performed on
variance (43%) was accounted for by the first the data, yielding highly similar results.)
three factors that emerged. The remaining factors Those items retained from previous versions
contained only a few items each and were unin- of the scale loaded in essentially the same
terpretable. The first two factors suggested that
self-consciousness has two major components—one way as they did earlier, and all items loaded
private and one public. The private self-conscious- above .40 with their appropriate factor. Item
ness factor was concerned with attending to one's analyses indicated that none of the items was
inner thoughts and feelings, e.g., "I reflect about endorsed in one direction by more than 85%
myself a lot." The public self-consciousness factor of the sample.
was defined by a general awareness of the self as a
social object that has an effect on others, e.g., Norms. Subscale means and standard devi-
"I'm very concerned about the way I present my- ations are presented separately for men and
self." The third factor, social anxiety, was defined women so that they may be used in subse-
by a discomfort in the presence of others, e.g., "I quent research (see Table 2). The distribu-
feel anxious when I speak in front of a group."
Public and private self-consciousness refer to a tion of scores on each subscale for both
process of self-focused attention; social anxiety re- genders approximated normality, with the
fers to a reaction to this process. When attention is only exception being women's scores on pub-
turned inward, a person may find something to be lic self-consciousness; they were negatively
anxious about. It seems reasonable, then, for an
anxiety factor to emerge as a by-product of self- skewed. In general, the data show an absence
consciousness. Clearly, the three factors have theo- of gender differences. These college norms are
retical implications for the nature of self-con- the only ones available, and norms for other
sciousness and were pursued in subsequent con- age, class, and clinical populations are obvi-
structions of the scale.
Further revisions of the scale were needed for
ously needed.
several reasons. A few of the original items loaded Replication. Since a few new items were
highly on more than one factor; other items were included in this final version, it seemed neces-
endorsed either too frequently or too infrequently; sary to check the stability of the factors and
a few items were reported by some subjects as the reliability of the norms. Consequently, the
being ambiguous; and, above all, there was a clear
need for replication to make sure that the three scale was administered to another sample of
factors were stable. Accordingly, some items were 152 college undergraduates. Factor loadings
524 A. FENIGSTEIN, M. F. SCHEIER, AND A. H. Buss
TABLE 1
ITEMS AND FACTOR LOADINGS or THE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS SCALE
Factor loading*
Private self- Public self- Social
A priori scale assignment consciousness consciousness anxiety
Private self-consciousness
Public self-consciousness
Social anxiety
Note. The numbers in parentheses indicate the sequence of items on the scale.
•b Only factor loadings greater than .20 are listed.
Item was reversed for scoring.
and norms were essentially the same for this across both samples. The correlation of private
sample as • for the major sample. self-consciousness with social anxiety fluctu-
Subscale correlations. In order to determine ated around zero.
the relationship among the three factors, cor- Reliability. One remaining issue was the
relations were computed using the raw sub- stability of individual scores over time. A
scale scores. The subscale correlations for the new sample of 84 subjects completed the scale
final two samples are presented in Table 3. twice, with a 2-week interval between admin-
Public self-consciousness correlated moder- istrations. Testjretest correlations for the
ately with both private self-consciousness and subscales were: public self-consciousness, .84;
social anxiety; these correlations were stable private self-consciousness, .79; social anxiety,
PUBLIC AND PSIVATE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 525
consistently directing the person's attention nal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1973, 9,
toward himself, might raise private self-con- 17-31.
Fenigstein, A. Self-consciousness, self-awareness and
sciousness. Other types of therapy, particu- rejection. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Uni-
larly those involving role playing and psycho- versity of Texas, 1974.
drama, might affect public self-consciousness Ickes, W. J., Wicklund, R. A., & Ferris, C. B. Ob-
by heightening the person's awareness of his jective self-awareness and self-esteem. Journal
impact on others. In brief, a person's endur- of Experimental Social Psychology, 1973, 9, 202-
219.
ing disposition to be self-conscious (public or Jung, C. G. Psychological types. New York: Har-
private) would seem to be an important issue court, Brace, 1933.
in both the choice and the goal of therapy. Mead, G. H. Mind, self and society. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1934.
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Press, 1969. Scheier, M. S., Fenigstein, A., & Buss, A. H. Self-
Carver, C. S. Aggression as a function of objective awareness and physical aggression. Journal of Ex-
self-awareness and attitudes toward punishment. perimental Social Psychology, 1974, 10, 264-273.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wicklund, R. A. Objective self-awareness. In L. Ber-
Texas, 1974. kowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social
Duval, S., & Wicklund, R. A. A. theory of objective psychology (Vol. 9). New York: Academic Press,
self-awareness. New York: Academic Press, 1972. in press.
Duval, S., & Wicklund, R. S. Effects of objective
self-awareness on attribution of causality. Jour- (Received December 13, 1974)