خودآگاهی و پریشانی روانی: مطالعه با استفاده از یونانی SCS

This study examined the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Greek Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS), and investigated the role of self-consciousness (SC), and personality in psychological distress. Factor analytic results partially supported the factor structure of the SCS. Self-consciousness, particularly the Self-reflectiveness aspect of private-SC, was widely implicated in psychological symptomatology. Neuroticism may exacerbate this association, whereas other aspects of personality, such as Openness and Extraversion may buffer the role of SC in distress.

Self-consciousness (SC) is the dispositional tendency to attend to aspects of the self, such as emotions and public image (Panayiotou, 2004). Fenigstein, Scheier, and Buss (1975) developed the Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS) to assess it, which contains 23 items forming 3 dimensions: Private Self-Consciousness (PrSC, 10 items), Public Self-Consciousness (PuSC, 7 items) and Social Anxiety (SA, 6 items). PrSC refers to attention directed to covert or personal aspects of the self, such as feelings and beliefs; PuSC describes attention to public aspects of the self, such as appearance and manners. Finally, SA represents apprehensiveness about negative evaluation. The instrument has demonstrated good construct validity in many cultures (e.g. Chang, 1998, Nystedt and Smari, 1989 and Ruganci, 1995). High levels of SC characterise many psychopathological states. PuSC is involved in social anxiety, whereas PrSC has been implicated in depression, as it heightens awareness of negative affect (Pyszczynski and Greenberg, 1987, Wood et al., 1990, Woody, 1996 and Woody and Rodriguez, 2000). The debate is still ongoing as to whether SC constitutes a non-specific feature, common to many disorders (Ingram, 1990) or a specific feature of only some disorders (Jostes, Pook, & Florin, 1999). Self-consciousness is also associated with normal traits. Highly self-conscious individuals are aware of their attitudes (Gibbons, 1983 and Scheier, 1980) and prone to dissonance effects (Gibbons and Wright, 1983 and Scheier and Carver, 1980). Being aware of one’s feelings and thoughts is essential to well-being as part of self-regulation (Lischetzk and Eid, 2003 and Trudeau and Reich, 1995). Hence, SC presents a paradox: How can the same construct be predictive of both psychopathology and well-being? Researchers are converging on the idea that SC may represent a multi-faceted construct with several underlying dimensions that are moderately correlated but represent different personality attributes. Trudeau and Reich (1995) found that whereas psychological mindedness is predictive of well-being, PrSC negatively predicts happiness. They concluded that PrSC may represent excessive rumination and self-scrutiny, which distract one from healthy social functioning. Similarly, Trapnell and Campbell (1999) proposed that PrSC may reflect two different types of motivation, i.e. rumination (motivated by perceived threat) and reflection (motivated by intellectual curiosity about the self). Controversy still remains about the sub-factors of SC. The distinction between PrSC and PuSC (Buss, 1980) has received criticism by Wicklund and Gollwitzer (1987) who do not consider that PuSC measures changes in the direction of attention at all, but rather reflects emotional aspects of personality, such as social dependency. Next, the unidimensionality of the public/private scales has been questioned (Watson, Morris, Ramsey, Hickman, & Waddell, 1996), since the exploratory factor analyses (EFA) used to derive them do not exclude items that poorly fit the construct (Mittal & Balasubramanian, 1987). Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) have in part supported that PrSC may in fact be two-dimensional, including a component of Self-Reflectiveness (SR) and one of Internal State Awareness (ISA—Burnkrant and Page, 1984, Nystedt and Ljungberg, 2002 and Piliavin and Charng, 1988), and that PuSC may be divided into Style and Appearance Consciousness (Mittal and Balasubramanian, 1987 and Watson et al., 1994). The ISA versus SR distinction is further supported by validation data, showing that they are predictive of different personality features: SR predicts shame, guilt and social anxiety, whereas ISA predicts self-awareness and mental health (Watson et al., 1996). Thus, whether SC predicts well-being or psychopathology may depend on other factors, such as underlying normal personality dimensions. The association between SC and psychopathology, may be attributed to aspects of SC reflecting Neuroticism (Flett and Blankstein, 1987 and Monfries and Kafer, 1994), whereas the healthy correlates of SC may be due to aspects reflecting Openness to Experience (Lischetzk and Eid, 2003, Reeves et al., 1995 and Turner et al., 1978). SC paired with Neuroticism may increase worry and self-preoccupation (Trapnell & Campbell, 1999), but coupled with Openness it may enhance intellectual curiosity and self-knowledge. Similarly, conditions where one anticipates success or failure in coping with a stressor could determine whether one’s SC will lead to depression and anxiety or effective coping (Frone & McFarlin, 1989). The purpose of this study is twofold: First, it examines the factor structure of the Greek SCS, adding to the discussion regarding the dimensionality of the construct, by examining the fit of various models using EFA and CFA. It also provides evidence regarding the concurrent validity of the instrument in relation to the Greek NEO-FFI (Panayiotou, Kokkinos, & Spanoudis, 2004) and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; Derogatis, 1993). Secondly, it explores the association between SC, personality and psychological symptoms, examining whether SC is conducive to well-being or to psychological distress, and adding to the debate about the specificity of SC in psychological disorders (Ingram, 1990). With regards to the later goal, we anticipated an association between all SC dimensions and Neuroticism, and between PrSC and Openness. We also expected all SCS scales to be associated with most BSI symptoms, if SC represents a non-specific psychopathological feature (Ingram, 1990). Self-Reflectiveness should be particularly predictive of distress as suggested by prior research. It was predicted that the association between psychological symptomatology and SC would be mediated by personality, (Neuroticism), whereas traits such as Openness and Extraversion would play a protective role against psychological distress.