Levels Of Public Self-consciousness Research Articles

The price of social status desire and public self-consciousness in luxury consumption

This study examines the factors that influence what is an acceptable price for a luxury product. It considers how much people are prepared to pay for different categories of luxury products to satisfy their desire for status and to avoid public embarrassment that may result from their level of public self-consciousness. The effects of these factors, together with price consciousness, income, attachment to luxury products, and the extent to which the consumer uses price to infer the luxury level of a product, are empirically tested. Using data from U.S. consumers, the model is tested with latent moderated structural equations across nine luxury product categories. The results show that desire for status, price consciousness, and price-luxuriousness inferences influence price acceptability levels based on the product type. A series of mediating effects highlight the importance of public self-consciousness and attachment to price acceptability mainly through the price-luxuriousness inferences consumers make.

Samoświadomość jako moderator wpływu dokonanej autoprezentacji na percepcję siebie po podjęciu decyzji w grze „dyktator”

Research shows that under certain conditions even forced self-presentation may lead to changes in self-knowledge. Several factors play an important role in this relationship, the level of self-consciousness being one of them. The purpose of our experiment was to test whether the self-presentation made while playing the dictator game (DG) would change self-perception in a direction consistent with such self-presentation. The participants were asked to behave (1) as altruistic people (a trait associated with behaviour in the DG), (2) as communicative people (unrelated to DG behavior), and (3) in a natural way (control group). The results show that the people from the “altruism group” rated themselves the most altruistic of the three groups. The higher the level of prosocial behaviour grew in the DG, the stronger was the internalisation of that trait. We also demonstrated that the internalisation of prosocial behaviour was stronger when the level of public self-consciousness was higher. These results indicate the important role self-consciousness plays in the context of changes in perception of self, as self-presentation would suggest.

Who wants to be “friend-rich”? Social compensatory friending on Facebook and the moderating role of public self-consciousness

The present research aims to provide insight into social compensatory friending on social network sites by investigating the effects of self-esteem and self-consciousness on number of friends in the context of Facebook use. It was hypothesized that Facebook users low in self-esteem, when compared with high-self-esteem individuals, would engage in friending more actively and thereby accumulate a large number of friends as a way to compensate for the deficiency in self-esteem. We also hypothesized that the relationship between self-esteem and number of Facebook friends would vary depending on the levels of public self-consciousness. Data were collected from a college student sample in the United States (N=234) based on an online cross-sectional survey. The results supported the hypothesis on social compensatory friending, demonstrating a negative association between self-esteem and number of Facebook friends. Furthermore, the data yielded support for the hypothesized moderating role of public self-consciousness in social compensatory friending: the negative association between self-esteem and number of Facebook friends was significant only for Facebook users who are high in public self-consciousness but not for those who are low in public self-consciousness. Implications for understanding social network site users’ friending behavior in light of social compensation motives are discussed.

Social Anxiety and the Cued Activation of Relational Knowledge

A cued activation procedure was used to examine the hypothesis that social anxiety involves an expectation of being rejected or evaluated negatively by others, combined with a concern about impression management. Participants underwent a conditioning procedure in which distinctive computer tones were paired with thoughts of social rejection and acceptance, respectively. In a pilot study, a lexical decision task established that when these tone cues were played later, they differentially activated expectations of rejection. In the main study, female participants interacted with a male confederate while one of the tones, or a control tone, sounded repeatedly in the background. Several indicators of social anxiety showed an interaction between level of public self-consciousness and the nature of the tone played. High-self-conscious individuals tended to be affected by the cues, whereas low-self-conscious people were not affected.

Individual Differences in Hand Movements During Deception

This article addresses the influence of 2 personality traits on making hand movements during deception, namely public self-consciousness and ability to control behavior. It was hypothesized that especially individuals with high public self-consciousness and individuals who are skilled in controlling their behavior would make fewer hand movements during deception compared to truth-telling. A total of 56 participants were interviewed twice; in one interview they told the truth and in the other interview they lied. Before the interviews the participants completed a personality inventory to measure their levels of public self-consciousness and ability to control their behavior. The results supported the hypotheses. Some implications of these findings are discussed.

What's in a name? The moderating role of public self-consciousness on the relation between brand label and brand preference.

Products with bargain-brand labels are generally considered to be cheap or inferior in comparison with products with national brand labels. Publicly self-conscious individuals might accept products with national brand labels and reject products with bargain brand labels to enhance their public images. A field experiment was conducted to test this hypothesis. Three hundred twenty adults, frequenting public locations, tasted and rated either national brand or bargain brand peanut butters that had either national brand or bargain brand labels. They also completed the Public Self-Consciousness scale (A. Fenigstein, M. F. Scheier, & A. H. Buss, 1975). Ratings of products with national brand labels were expected to be positively correlated with level of public self-consciousness, whereas ratings of products with bargain brand labels were expected to be negatively correlated with level of public self-consciousness. The author's results confirmed both predictions.

Effects of self-consciousness and social anxiety on self-disclosure among unacquainted individuals: an application of the social relations model.

Recent research has demonstrated a positive relationship between private self-consciousness and the tendency to self-disclose. These studies have relied exclusively upon self-reports of disclosure. In the present study, Kenny's Social Relations Model (Kenny & La Voie, 1984) was employed to examine the relationship between a subject's self-reports and others' reports of a subject's level of self-disclosure and the relationship of these reports to private self-consciousness, as well as the other traits measured by the self-consciousness scale: public self-consciousness and social anxiety. Unacquainted college women (N = 102) participated in one-on-one interactions in a round-robin design. Subject's self-reports of disclosure and their levels of private self-consciousness correlated positively. The partners' reports of an individual's disclosure, however, were not related to the individual's level of private self-consciousness. The discrepancy between these correlations emphasizes the necessity to ground research in personal relationships on interacting pairs and not only on the self-reports of one member. Future research that would explore this difference is discussed. The examination of the self- and partner reports and subjects' levels of public self-consciousness and social anxiety demonstrated that these two traits significantly influence the acquaintance process. Public self-consciousness related positively to subjects' beliefs that they had created consistent impressions upon their partners. Social anxiety correlated negatively with partners' reports of a subject's dyadic involvement and openness.

Individual Differences in Men's Perceptions of and Reactions to Thinning Hair

Data obtained from 91 American male respondents, ranging in age from 23 to 66 years of age, indicated that a personality trait, public self-consciousness, pertaining to habitual attention to and concern for public self-aspects, was related to both perceptions of men with thinning hair and reactions to one's own thinning hair. Men with high public self-consciousness were not only more likely to believe that balding men were less attractive, but were also more likely to believe that balding men were less desirable romantic partners for women. Furthermore, faced with their own hair loss, they expressed greater concern and were more willing to try prescription hair remedies to grow thicker hair than were their low self-consciousness counterparts. Despite the concern that hair loss appears to cause many men, there was no evidence that the onset of hair loss caused changes in level of public self-consciousness.

Dysfunctional attitudes, mild depression, views of self, self-consciousness, and social perceptions

In this research we propose that certain individuals display a cognitive vulnerability to depression, centering around their dysfunctional attitudes for evaluating self-worth. In Study 1, participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS), and the Self-Consciousness Questionnaire. Participants also indicated which adjectives, in a set of depressed and nondepressed content adjectives, were self-descriptive. Depressed individuals, relative to nondepressed, endorsed fewer nondepressed and more depressed content adjectives, and also reported higher levels of public self-consciousness, social anxiety, and private self-consciousness. As predicted by the self-worth model, vulnerable individuals (those scoring high on the DAS) evidenced increased levels of public self-consciousness and social anxiety, even when nondepressed. In contrast, and again as predicted by the self-worth model, an increase in private self-consciousness and an overall decrease in positive self-schema content were found to be concomitants of depression (and thus not evident in vulnerable individuals when nondepressed). In Study 2, participants completed the BDI, the DAS, the Assertion Inventory, the Social Support Questionnaire, and a Social Skills Rating form. As expected, increasing levels of depression were associated with increased perceptions of assertion problems, poorer social skills, and diminished available social support and satisfaction. In further accord with the self-worth model, vulnerable individuals, even when nondepressed, reported assertion and social skills difficulties, and provided lower perceived satisfaction ratings for social relationships. Taken together, these findings were then discussed in terms of a self-worth contingency model of depression.