Self-aware Subjects Research Articles

A Study of Dalit Literature: Giving Voice to the Unvoiced

The word "Dalit" connotes people who are impoverished, oppressed, abused, and in need. The origin of the Indian caste system is not a widely accepted theory. There are several forms of inequality that give rise to social prejudice in every civilised community. Additionally, it is dressed in "Casteism" in India. The subaltern literary voices of the tribals, Dalits, and other minority groups were absent from discourses tailored to the tastes of the nobility. The dalits are denied their basic rights to equality, property ownership, and education. Dalit literature thus arises as a voice for all those marginalised, oppressed, and exploited populations who have long suffered from societal injustice and exploitation. The liberation of Dalits from this never-ending slavery is the central theme of Dalit literature. Dalits, who feel that the social order is to blame for their downfall, utilise their works as a weapon to express their rage. They have finally awakened from their extended sleep and are aware of their identities as humans. The Dalit awareness of their identity and self-realization has been a major theme in a variety of colourful and diverse creative writings. It is also highly praised in the works of many other authors, including Mahasweta Devi, Bama, Arjun Dangle, D. Gopi, and many more. The suffering that the Dalit writers depict is not unique to them; rather, it is the suffering of the entire marginalised community. The main goal of this article is to demonstrate, how Dalit writers break the taboo around the unreported exploitation of Dalits in our nation through their literary works. And how these silenced voices are now being unleashed through Dalit literature. This paper attempts to understand the vision and voice of the Dalits and their transformation from silent, helpless objects of history to active, self-aware subjects. The reasons behind the growth of Dalit literature, its effects on contemporary society, the socioeconomic status of Dalits in India, and how they create their own history will all be examined in this paper.

A Genuine Monotheism for Christians, Muslims, Jews, and All

Today's conflicts between religions are grounded largely in historical injustices and grievances but partly in serious conceptual disagreements. This essay agrees with Miroslav Volf that a nontritheistic Christian account of the Trinity is highly desirable. Three traditional models of the Trinity are examined. In their pure, unmixed form, two of them should logically be acceptable to Jews, Muslims, and strict monotheists who regard Christianity as inherently tritheistic, despite lip service to one God. In the social model, three distinct self-aware subjects are unified by being in perfect harmony with each other. Despite Volf's best defense of this, to conceive of three gods, this is how one would go about it. In the psychological model, one divine subject has three psychological capacities—memory, understanding, and will. In the functional model, one subject relates to the world in three different ways—as creator, redeemer, and companion. These two are genuinely monotheistic. Finally, a monotheistic account of the unity of Jesus with God is proposed for consideration.

Self-Awareness and Attitude Change: Seeing Oneself on the Central Route to Persuasion

On the basis of the elaboration likelihood model and self-awareness theory, it was reasoned that self-awareness should stimulate thoughtful resistance to attacks on personally important attitudes. In Experiment 1, mirror-induced self-awareness increased resistance to a message that was counterattitudinal, personally important, and based on direct experience, but it failed to increase resistance to a message that lacked those qualities. In Experiment 2, self-aware subjects showed greater resistance to weak persuasive arguments than to strong arguments, unlike subjects who were not made self-aware. These results support the view of self-awareness as a cause of biased central route processing and (hence) of selective, judicious resistance to persuasion.

Effect of repetition on grammaticality judgments under objective and subjective self-awareness conditions

Three experiments were performed to investigate the differential effect of repeated presentation of sentences on judgments of grammaticality under the two mental states of objective and subjective self-awareness. In Experiment 1, 22 students judged the relative grammaticality of sentences twice, receiving a repetition treatment between the two judgments. During the repetition phase, they were exposed to a repeated presentation of sentences. The findings showed that repetition makes a judgment criterion more stringent on judgments after repetition than on those before repetition for the subjectively self-aware subjects, while it does not influence the judgments for the objectively self-aware subjects. Experiment 2 was run using a revised procedure with 26 students. The findings showed the expected, interaction, such that the repetition makes a criterion stringent for the subjectively self-aware subjects while it makes the criterion lenient for the objectively self-aware subjects. Experiment 3 examined with 12 students whether the finding for the latter subjects could be explained, by divided attention theory in a concurrent task condition. The findings showed no change of judgment criterion. These findings indicate that repeated exposure to the sentences exerts differential effects on grammaticality judgments dependent on whether the subjects are objectively or subjectively self-aware.

Salient private audiences and awareness of the self.

University of Waterloo , Ontario CanadaWe used self-awareness and cognitive priming methodologies to test the hypothesis that importantaspects of the experience of self derive from the way one would be perceived and responded to by aprivate audience of internally represented significant others. In the first study, 40 undergraduatewomen visualized the faces of either two acquaintances from campus or two older members of theirown family. Later, when they rated the enjoyableness of a sexually permissive piece of fiction, theytended to respond in ways that would be acceptable to their salient private audience. There was someevidence that this effect was especially pronounced for subjects made self-aware by the presence of asmall mirror, whose responsivity to self-image concerns was presumably heightened. In the secondstudy, 60 undergraduate men were exposed to a failure experience, and their resulting self-evalua-tions were assessed. Self-aware subjects' responses reflected the evaluative style of a recently visual-ized private audience. Strong negative self-evaluative reactions on a number of measures were evi-dent when the salient audience tended to make acceptance contingent on successful performances,but not when the audience manifested relatively noncontingent acceptance. These results demon-strate the influence of internally represented significant relationships on the experience of self.A unique aspect of human cognition is the ability of peopleto be aware of themselves, develop theories about who they are,and evaluate those self-images. Many models have been pro-posed from diverse theoretical perspectives, identifying factorsthat shape the self-evaluation process and the related cycle ofbehavioral self-regulation. One idea that has formed the corner-stone of a number of approaches is that a person's experienceof self often takes the form of imagining how the self would beperceived and responded to by significant other people. Thisidea is most prevalent in the writings of the symbolic interac-tionists (e.g., Cooley's, 1902, looking-glass self; Mead's, 1934,generalized other), but it is also central to diverse other theories(cf. Sullivan's, 1940, reflected appraisals; Kohut's, 1984, selfob-jects; Higgins, Klein, & Strauman's, 1985, standpoints on theself; reference-group theory, e.g., Kelley, 1952, Shibutani, 1955;impression management theory, e.g., Goffman, 1959, Schlen-This research was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Re-search Council of Canada doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships toMark W. Baldwin and was the basis for his doctoral dissertation at theUniversity of Waterloo. Some of the data reported in this article werepresented at the June 1984 meeting of the Canadian Psychological Asso-ciation, Ottawa, Ontario, and at the August 1984 meeting of the Ameri-can Psychological Association, Toronto, Ontario.We would like to thank Janet Hunt for serving as an experimenter inStudy 2. Michael Ross an d Mark Zanna for valuable conversations dur-ing the earlier phases of the research, and Aaron Brower, Nancy Cantor,John Ellard, Eric Lang, Mary Miller, Paula Niedenthal, Julie Norem,Carolin Showers, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful com-ments on drafts of the article.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to MarkW. Baldwin, Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies Unit, Clarke Insti-tute of Psychiatry, 250 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T1R8.ker, 1980, 1985; object relations theory, e.g.. Eagle, 1984,Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983, Guntrip, 1961, 1971).The common ground shared by these models is the proposi-tion that the self is ultimately a social construction, developedand maintained via inference from experiences with others. Asense of self is experienced in relation to some audience,whether it be of people who are present or only imagined, spe-cific or generalized, actual or fantasized. Some perspectives(e.g., impression management) focus discussion on the publicaspects of self observable to actual other people in the immedi-ate environment. Most other writers (including some impres-sion management theorists, e.g., Schlenker, 1985) also stress theimportant influence of internally represented audiences. Ourresearch is concerned primarily with the impact of such inter-nal referents. For the sake of convenience, we will refer to theserepresentations of others as a private audience.One major domain of self-construal, which is the focus of thiswork, concerns issues of evaluation. The particular standardsof comparison used in the self-evaluation process (e.g., ideals,values, norms), as well as the more general style of evaluation(e.g., a vulnerability to basing global inferences and emotionalreactions on single behavioral outcomes), may reflect theevaluative standards and styles associated with some privateaudience.The actual process whereby the experience of self is shapedthrough reference to a private audience may take a range offorms. Self-perceptio n an self-evaluatio may ofte involve adeliberate process of consciously imagining the reactions of sig-nificant others (e.g., Cooley, 1902). At other times, private-audi-ence dynamics may be quite unconscious: Self-relevant infor-mation may simply be processed and elaborated according toemotional and cognitive structures representing how such in-formation would be dealt with in those significant relationships(e.g., Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983). As a general statement of1087

Focus of attention and placebo utility

The effects of focus of attention and expected drug effects on reactions to a placebo were examined in two experiments. In the first experiment self-aware and non-self-aware subjects were given a placebo that was said to be either performance-facilitating or inhibiting and then they worked on a set of arithmetic problems. It was expected that the non-self-aware subjects, but not the self-aware subjects, would display a self-serving bias in their attributions regarding the effects of the placebo. Specifically, it was predicted that non-self-aware subjects would attribute more arousal to the performance-inhibiting drug than the performance-facilitating drug since such attributions would be more psychologically beneficial or “useful” in the sense that they would make actual performance on the task look more impressive. Consistent with these predictions, there was evidence of a self-serving bias in drug reactions only among the non-self-focused subjects. Those who were made self-aware did not respond differentially to the two types of drug information. Instead, they appeared to respond in line with their actual (aroused) internal states by attributing some arousal to both drugs. In the second experiment arousal was reduced by eliminating the task, and this time self-focused subjects again appeared to be more aware of their actual internal states, as they reported less reaction to the placebo, regardless of the effects ascribed to it. Two conclusions are drawn from these results: (a) perceived drug utility does effect placebo responsiveness, and (b) self-focused attention increases awareness of internal states, but not necessarily the causes of those states.

Self-focused attention and reactions to conflicting standards

A fundamental postulate of self-awareness theory that has received considerable empirical support is that self-focused attention increases behavioral consistency with “standards of correctness.” This appears to be true whether the standards are internal (such as attitudes or values) or external (e.g., norms). There is some question, however, as to what happens in situations in which an important personal standard conflicts with a salient external standard. Research by E. Diener and T. K. Srull ( Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1979 , 37, 413–423) has suggested that under such circumstances the social standard is likely to predominate. However, there is reason to believe that the standards employed in their study may not have been very salient nor very important to the subjects. In the present experiment, subjects with either conservative or liberal sexual attitudes were exposed to information suggesting a prevailing norm of sexual liberalism. They were then asked to respond to a number of sexual and nonsexual attitude measures while their attention was or was not self-directed by means of a mirror. Primary results indicated that self-awareness enhanced conformity to the social standard (as in Diener & Srull, 1979) for the conservative subjects; however, correlational analyses within the self-focused and non-self-focused conditions indicated that self-aware subjects did not “abandon” their personal standards when responding to the conformity pressure. Instead, their responses tended to be more in line with their previously expressed attitudes than did the responses of the non-self-focused group. Results are discussed in terms of the effects of self-awareness on reactions to potent, but conflicting behavioral standards.

Salience of arousal as a mediator of misattribution of transferred excitation

An experiment was conducted to test Zillmann's hypothesis that misattribution of residual arousal in the excitation transfer paradigm is influenced by the salience of perceived arousal symptoms at the point of potential misattribution. Eighty subjects in a 2 x 2 x 2 design were either physiologically aroused or not aroused, and were subsequently subjected to a procedure designed to induce either positive mood (elation) or negative mood (depression). Simultaneously, they were either made self-aware or not. It was reasoned that self-focused attention wouM lead to heightened awareness of resMual arousal and that, if the salience of arousal hypothesis is correct, this wouM prevent misattribution of arousal and the resultant intensification of experienced emotion from occurring. In accord with this reasoning, it was found that aroused and self-aware subjects experienced residual arousal significantly more intensely, were less prone to misattribute it, and did not show an excitation transfer effect. These results were, however, obtained only for subjects in the negative mood condition. Research on emotion during the last two decades has been strongly influenced by Schachter's two-factor theory of emotional state (Schachter, 1964; Schachter & Singer, 1962). Basic to this theory is the assumption that an emotional state is the result of the interaction of two components: (a) diffuse physiological arousal, which influences the intensity, but not the quality, of the emotional state, and (b) a cognition that characterizes the situation in an "emotional" way and, by providing the individual with a

Self-awareness and access to material rated as self-descriptive or nondescriptive

Subjects selected as high or low in self-consciousness rated trait adjectives for self-descriptiveness, meaningfulness, and familiarity, and then were given an unannounced recall test. High self-aware subjects were clearly faster at making self-descriptiveness judgments, relative to low self-aware subjects, a difference that was not significant for meaningfulness or familiarity decisions. These results support the hypothesis that subjects who are more self-aware access personal information more rapidly than less self-aware subjects. There were no self-awareness differences in total recall or the organization of recall, apparently because three successive encoding tasks eliminated such differences. Self-reference decisions were faster than nonself decisions for high self-aware subjects, but slower for less self-aware subjects.

Reactions to objective self-awareness

In order to determine reactions to objective self-awareness, 96 female undergraduates received either positive or negative feedback on a “creativity” task prior to being given an opportunity to write a response to a visual cue. Half of the subjects were made objectively self-aware, via a mirror, during the visual cue task; half were not. In addition, half of the subjects were led to believe that the visual cue task was highly related to creativity, while half learned that the task was low in relevance. A “longer the response, the better” standard of correctness was established for all subjects. As predicted, the results indicated that when made objectively self-aware, subjects who received negative feedback wrote more in response to the visual cue than did those who received positive feedback, a difference which was not obtained for the subjectively self-aware subjects. The task relevance manipulation also produced a significant main effect. A similar pattern of results was obtained on a measure of the time spent on the task. The implications of the results for objective self-awareness theory are considered.

Self-focused attention and the placebo effect: Fooling some of the people some of the time

An experiment tested the hypothesis that mirror-induced self-awareness would minimize a “placebo” effect. Some subjects were led to believe that a drug that they were about to ingest would produce arousal symptoms as a side effect. Self-aware subjects in this condition subsequently reported experiencing less arousal from the placebo, and fewer of the side effects ascribed to it, than did less self-aware subjects. Discussion centered on the implications of these findings for placebo research and implications for two common alternative interpretations of self-awareness effects.

Objective self-awareness, standards of evaluation, and moral behavior

In a performance setting, subjects were given an opportunity to cheat without fear of detection on puzzle problems. Subjects were led to believe that successful performance was due to ability in some conditions, but to luck in other conditions. In fact, most of the problems were insolvable, so that success was impossible without cheating. Self-awareness was induced in half the subjects by having them sit in front of a mirror and listen to a tape recording of their own voice as they worked on the puzzle problems; the remaining subjects were not exposed to a mirror and listened to a tape of someone else's voice as they worked on the problems. It was predicted that cheating frequency would be higher under ability attribution conditions than under luck attribution conditions, and that this effect of performance attribution would be greater among self-aware subjects than among non-self-aware subjects. Results confirmed these hypotheses. Discussion centered on the differential use of morality and competence standards for behavior when in a state of self-awareness.