Self-focus is one mechanism that may account for the social-evaluative anxiety of individuals high in neuroticism. The present two studies (total N = 183) sought to cognitively model interpersonal self-focus. The cognitive task was a simple one in which participants simply categorized dyadic interpersonal pronouns, with reaction times as the dependent measure. When others engage us, the pronoun “me” refers to the other and the pronoun “you” refers to the self. Study 1 found a neuroticism by pronoun interaction on categorization time consistent with implicit interpersonal self-focus at high (but not low) levels of neuroticism establishing a basal tendency. Study 2 examined boundary conditions. Individuals high in neuroticism exhibited implicit self-focus particularly to the extent that they had been primed to think of themselves as submissive rather than dominant in their interpersonal interactions. Implications for understanding neuroticism, self-focus, and relationship functioning are discussed.
Neuroticism is predictive of numerous negative emotional states (Watson, 2000) and clinical conditions characterized by negative emotional states (Widiger, Verheul, & van den Brink, 1999). Neuroticism is also predictive of substance abuse and suicide attempts (Lahey, 2009). Many of the outcomes predicted by neuroticism might be understood in terms of higher levels of self-focus, sometimes labeled self-consciousness or self-awareness. Self-focus is typically aversive and tends to magnify negative emotional states (Mor & Winquist, 2002). Tendencies related to self-focus – such as rumination – predispose individuals toward clinical levels of anxiety and depression (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). Substance abuse may be precipitated by aversive self-focus (Arnett, 2005) and suicide attempts may represent the ultimate escape from aversive self-focus (Baumeister, 1990).
Consistent with such points, trait measures of self-focus often load onto a neuroticism factor (McCrae & Costa, 1999). Further results are consistent with this mapping. Neuroticism is a positive predictor of trait worry (Muris, Roelofs, Rassin, Franken, & Mayer, 2005), conceptualized in terms of repetitive self-focused processing concerning possible future events (Borkovec & Sharpless, 2004). Neuroticism is a positive predictor of trait measures of rumination (Trapnell & Campbell, 1999), conceptualized in terms of repetitive self-focused thinking about past events (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). Finally, there is some evidence for the idea that trait measures of worry and rumination mediate at least some of the pernicious consequences of neuroticism (Muris et al., 2005).
Whether trait measures capture the dynamics of self-focus is arguable, however. As originally conceived, self-focus is a state, not a trait (Duval & Wicklund, 1972). There is considerable evidence for this idea, in that several manipulations of self-focus have been shown to alter momentary levels of it (Carver & Scheier, 1981). From an assessment-related perspective, it is doubtful that individuals can accurately report on whether they are self-focused or environment-focused at any point in time as such states are likely to be too fleeting and mercurial to be amenable to self-report methods (Dehaene et al., 2006 and Posner and Rothbart, 2007). For such reasons, we developed a novel cognitive assessment of self-focus, one that sought to model interpersonal dynamics.
When others communicate, they use the pronoun “me” to represent themselves and the pronoun “you” to reference the recipient of the communication – i.e., the self (Burgoon, Johnson, & Koch, 1998). One only has to think about dyadic partners using the word “you” to appreciate this point. Following precedent (Fetterman and Robinson, 2010 and Fetterman et al., submitted for publication), we therefore designed a simple cognitive task in which individuals were asked to quickly categorize such pronouns. The computer was essentially the interaction partner, consistent with a large body of work showing that people conceptualize computers in such terms (Nass & Moon, 2000). This is of course advantageous in cognitively modeling self-focus. Momentary self-focus in this task would thus consist of faster categorizations of the pronoun “you” relative to “me” when presented on a computer screen.
