Self-Focused Attention and Nonconscious Self-Evaluation

University Of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro NC

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Humans are unique in their ability to represent the self conceptually and to evaluate and judge their self concept. Objective self-awareness theory (Duval & Wicklund, 1972; Silvia & Duval, 2001), a central theory in the study of self and identity, examines how focusing attention on the self affects self-evaluation. This theory assumes that self-focused attention initiates self-evaluation, and that this should occur regardless of whether people are consciously aware of the process of self-evaluation. The proposed experiments examine whether the dynamics of self-evaluation can operate nonconsciously. They will show that conscious and nonconscious self-evaluation processes share basic antecedents (self-focused attention) and consequences (mood, state self-esteem, behavioral self-regulation). Objective self-awareness theory predicts that directing attention to self outside of awareness, accomplished with subliminal first-name priming, will affect diverse markers of self-regulation: consciously-experienced mood and state self-esteem (Experiment 1), behavioral self-regulation to performance standards (Experiments 2 and 3), and the convergence of implicit and explicit self-esteem (Experiment 4). These findings will (1) cast doubt on theories of self-evaluation that assume qualitative differences between automatic and controlled self-evaluation processes, (2) illustrate that implicit and explicit self-processes share fundamental social-cognitive dynamics, and (3) demonstrate the generality of objective self-awareness theory as a model of self-evaluation and self-motivation. This research will inform psychological disorders that involve unintended self-critical thoughts, such as the "automatic negative thoughts" that occur in depression and the disparaging thoughts about one's social performance that occur in social phobia. Examining the cognitive processes that give rise to automatic self-evaluation will enhance psychology's understanding of how to prevent, treat, and regulate maladaptive and self-defeating patterns of thought.