Academic literature on the topic 'Self-conciousness'

The importance of sexual puberty processes for formatting sexual self conciousness and sexual behaviour are discussed in the article. The peculiarities of distructive manifistation of sexual idendification during puberty period in insufficient gender socialization conditions are presented by the author.

AbstractThis study investigated whether individual differences in obsessive-compulsive symptoms and in thought–action fusion are related to theory of mind abilities. One hundred and ninety-two adult participants completed self-reports of obsessive–compulsive symptoms (OCI-R), thought–action fusion (TAF), private self-consciousness (PSC) and self-reflectiveness (SR) as mentalising abilities, and anxiety and depression. A nonintrospective method examining participants' implicit structure of their lexicon for ‘knowing’ was used to assess theory of mind. Private self-conciousness and SR added to the prediction of OCD symptoms independently of TAF and depression but did not mediate the relationship between TAF and OCD symptoms. Participants high in thought–action fusion gave a greater emphasis to the certainty dimension of the mental lexicon and placed lesser importance on the source of information dimension than those low in TAF. Our results provide preliminary evidence of a relationship between theory of mind and thought–action fusion. People disposed to thought–action fusion are more likely to make a significance judgment about ‘knowing’ based on the degree of certainty than on reference to the source of knowledge. Identifying disruptions to theory of mind abilities in OCD provides links to solid theory and evidence about metacognitive development and may help integrate cognitive processing and cognitive appraisal models of OCD.

Purpose The purpose of this research is to analyse the relationship between entrepreneurial skills and innovation commitment and entrepreneurial skills and environmental commitment as drivers of awareness on sustainable development of higher education students. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 1,318 business and management students out of the 3,535 students of Tecnocampus Pompeu Fabra University in Spain during the 2017-2018 academic year was selected to conduct a survey regarding their entrepreneurial skills and sustainability commitment, resulting in a total number of responses of 515. A structural equation model is proposed to contrast the hypothesis. Findings The statistical analysis showed the existence of a positive relation between the entrepreneurial skill of self-consciousness, innovation and environmental commitment to foster sustainability and sustainable development. It is one of the few studies related to the self-conciousness competence of the entrepreneurial skills which found, as a novelty, that the entrepreneurial skill of self-consciousness is the skill with the greater impact on innovation and environmental commitment. Research limitations/implications The limitations of the study are that it is based on a sample of students taking entrepreneurship courses at a specific Spanish University that is not representative of all entrepreneurs in all universities. Practical implications The research proposes including entrepreneurial skills programmes in higher education and research programmes as a way to assure commitment to innovation and environmental sustainability. Originality/value Promoting entrepreneurial skills among higher education students could act as drivers for sustainable development.

Abstract The present study aims to analyze the conceptual perspective on the metamorphosis of the human under the process of duplication and the restitution of the robotic hypostasis. Following the posthumanist theories, this paper focuses mainly on the literary manifestations that envisage the many-sided topic about the human identity’s surcease, namely Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Machines Like Me. In both cases, the central function of restructuring reality through the symobol of technological alterity is emphasized; the simulacrum comes within the purview of building versions for a universe where creation does not lead to progress, but, to a certain extent, to destruction and the entanglement of human conciousness. This fact implies that the fictional robots have to be interpreted as an integrant part of a system that ecompasses the lost sense of self. Essential for understanding the cited narratives is the questioning of the Cartesian belief that animals do represent a mechanical behaviour. I argue that the reconstruction of a techological identity bears a double scheme of approaching empathy and identity and accordingly the existence is to be interposed within new frames of thought.

Conciousness is decisive in attributing meanings to the manifestations of life. The impact of diabetes mellitus on patients` psychic and psychosocial functionality depends on the understanding of the disease. Objective: to study the dynamics of changes in psychic and psychosocial functionality in patients with diabetes mellitus, before and after diagnosis. Participants: 50 subjects of both sexes, with diabetes mellitus (30 - 88 years) and 50 subjects with the same socio-demographic characteristics, who do not suffer from the disease. Methodology: Clinical-psychological interview; Socio-demographic questionnaire; Clinical-dynamic disease questionnaire; Self-assessment questionnaire on psychic, family, social and work functionality. Results: Diabetes mellitus patients in the period of life “after diagnosis”, compared to the period “before diagnosis”, show statistically significant differences of greater expressiveness psychic functionality (nervousness, anxiety, irritability, depression, pessimism and fatigue) and lower in psychosocial and work activities (work capacity, availability to socialize with friends and family). In the comparison “before diagnosis” and “current moment” there are significant differences in all categories, but if comparing “after diagnosis” and “current moment”, significant differences only exist in work capacity, fatigue, availability to live together with friends; lower values at the present time. Conclusion: The intrusion of diabetes mellitus and the patient's knowledge of the diagnosis cause changes in the dynamics of psychic functionality and psychosocial activity, aggravating the levels of nervousness, anxiety, irritability, depression, pessimism, feeling of fatigue, less work capacity, availability to socialize with friends and family. Diabetes has a negative impact on the functionality of patients, affecting well-being and quality of life.

It is the aim of this thesis to consider two accounts of 1st-person utterances that are often mistakenly conflated - viz. that involving the 'no-reference' view of "I", and that of the non-assertoric thesis of avowals. The first account says that in a large range of (roughly) 'psychological' uses, 'I' is not a referring expression; the second, that avowals of 1st-personal 'immediate' experience are primarily 'expressive' and not genuine assertions. The two views are expressions of what I term 'Trojanism'. This viewpoint constitutes one side of a 'Homeric Opposition in the Metaphysics of Experience', and has been endorsed by Wittgenstein throughout his writings; it has received recent expression in Professor Anscombe's article 'The First Person'. I explore the ideas of these writers in some depth, and consider to what extent they stand up to criticism by such notable 'Greek' contenders as P.F. Strawson and Gareth Evans. I first give neutral accounts of the key-concepts on which subsequent arguments are based. These are the immunity to error through misidentification (IEM) of certain 1st-person utterances, the guaranteed reference of 'I', avowal, and the Generality Constraint. I consider the close relation of Trojanism to solipsism and behaviourism, and then assess the effectiveness of two arguments for that viewpoint - Anscombe's Tank Argument and the argument from IEM. Though each is appealing, neither is decisive; to assess Trojanism properly we need to look at the non-assertoric thesis of avowals, which alone affords the prospect of a resolution of the really intractable problems of the self generated by Cartesianism. In the course of the latter assessment I consider the different varieties of avowal, broadening the discussion beyond the over-used example 'I am in pain'. I explore Wittgenstein's notion of 'expression', and discuss how this notion may help to explain the authority a subject possesses on his mental states as expressed in avowals. My conclusion is that an expressive account of avowals can provide a satisfactory counter to the Cartesian account of authority without our needing recourse to a non-assertoric or even to a non- cognitive thesis. Discussion of self-consciousness is implicit in discussion of the Homeric Opposition, but there is in addition a short chapter on the concept itself.

This thesis is an exploration of the concepts of what the spirituality of consciousness means in several key areas of the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual self. Many students and professionals walk through their educational and professional careers filled with confusion, lack of self-understanding, a yearning for something more but never discovering it in the places we find ourselves for most of our day-to-day interactions. My hope is that this thesis will give insight to how students can overcome obstacles and fears in their lives in order to move forward, and, when necessary, to move past themselves. As a young, Black, immigrant woman who is a first-generation college student and student affairs professional, the methodology of Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) appeals to me the most in exploring the spirituality of consciousness. Therefore, I will be using SPN to highlight a portion of my journey through three lenses: mindfulness counseling, religo-spirituality, and understanding what it means to unlock our minds and its complexities through a spiritually-enriched education. I will also highlight how we can disseminate the knowledge of self-awareness and self-awakening as life teachers, educators, and learners to those who come after us--the next generation. The holistic preservation of self and mind is a vital stage in our human existence. As higher education administrators and teachers, we should be able to take the risk and accept the challenge to delve deeper within ourselves to be able to move beyond the curriculum and see the full humanity of our students, hopefully leading to more joyful, productive, loving, creative and brilliant minds. How do we do this? How do we awaken to life, to learning, to each other, in the midst of chaos? This thesis attempts to point the way.

Self-focused information processing has become a central aspect of cognitive explanations of social anxiety disorder. Indeed, Clark and Wells (1995) theorized that the key feature of the disorder is the processing of the self as a social object. It is proposed that when socially anxious individuals enter feared situations, they shift their attention to a detailed monitoring of themselves. Such self-focused attention triggers recollections of negative experiences from the past and directs attention towards signs of threat. This interferes with the processing of the situation and leads to misinterpretation of others' behaviours. Although there is now considerable support for the Clark and Wells' model from research on imagery, post-event and anticipatory processing, there is surprisingly little evidence for memory disturbance. Unlike mood disorders, to date, deficits in accessing autobiographical memories have not been found for social anxiety. In this thesis it is argued that a possible reason for the lack of evidence of memory deficits in social anxiety is that researchers have not attempted to manipulate participants' levels of self-focus in conducting research on autobiographical memory. The focus of this thesis was on the accessibility and quality of the autobiographical memories of socially anxious and non-socially anxious individuals obtained under conditions of self-focus in comparison to responses obtained when not self-focused. The present research utilized a two-phase quasi-experimental design with a sample of 144 adults taken from an initial pool of 203 volunteers. The final sample comprised 30 men and 114 women, ranging in age from 17 to 67 years (M = 26, SD = 11.91, median age = 20 years). The sample consisted of 292 undergraduates and community participants recruited via advertisements. Group membership was based on selection criteria from a measure of social anxiety, the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI; Turner, Beidel, Dancu & Stanley, 1989b), depression and general anxiety from the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995), and the anxiety disorder interview schedule (ADIS-IV-L; Di Nardo, Brown & Barlow, 1994). Initial respondents were allocated to socially anxious (SA), socially anxious depressed (SAD), and non-socially anxious (NSA) groups, with the SAD group forming a further control group of respondents with high scores in SPAI social anxiety and DASS depression. Approximately half of each group was primed to Self-focus, by making an impromptu speech which was videotaped and replayed to each participant individually, following an adaptation of a priming methodology by Perowne and Mansell (2002). The other half of the participants was not self-focused. Rather, they viewed video tape of a confederate giving a speech so as to Other-focus. The priming was prior to participants' provision of written responses to positive and negative (social anxiety) cue words using Williams' (2002) Autobiographical Memory Test. The quality of the memories was measured according to overgenerality for positive and negative cues. Reaction time was recorded for memories to the same valenced cues. The incidence of anxiety and depression content in the memories was determined using coding schemes devised by Gottschalk and Gleser (1969). As hypothesised, the results confirmed that greater levels of generality and longer reaction time to positive cues (not for negative cues) were evident when comparing self-focused SA with self-focused non-socially anxious (NSA) individuals, reflecting findings for other emotional disorders such as depression. Self-focused socially anxious (SA) individuals responded with greater levels of generality and longer reaction times for memories for valenced cues, particularly positive ones, than other-focused SA individuals. Further analysis for generality found that self-focused SA respondents were more general than other-focused socially anxious with comorbid depression (SAD) individuals for memories for positive cues. However, both groups were similar for negative memory cues. As confirmation for memory deficits as a function of the priming manipulation, greater generality and longer reaction times for memories for positive cues occurred when comparing self-focused SA individuals, to all control groups (NSA groups and other-focused SAD individuals). Without priming, SA individuals did not demonstrate autobiographical memory deficits in quality or accessibility compared to NSA controls. Exploration of the autobiographical memory content indicated that SA (compared to SAD and NSA) individuals, irrespective of focus, reported more depression than anxiety content in their memories. Additionally, self-focused SA in contrast to other-focused SA individuals, experienced heightened depression content in their memories, although none of the individual categories of depression was prominent. Predictions of SPAI social anxiety and DASS depression scores from the significant predictors associated with the memories, were undertaken separately for self- and other-focused individuals. Reaction time to positive cues was found to be the only stable predictor of both social anxiety and depression for the self-focused respondents. For the other-focused condition, only total anxiety content theme was found to predict social anxiety, albeit poorly. Overall, the present thesis established that the self-focusing manipulation unearthed a memory processing deficit in socially anxious individuals, similar to that found in most emotional disorders in terms of quality, accessibility, and content, of the memories. This result was particularly apparent in relation to responses to positive cues. The findings are consistent with the Clark and Wells' (1995) model of the disorder emphasising the role of the views of the self as the core element of the disorder. The results also show that the processing deficits of social anxious individuals are confined to the self-focus condition. It is suggested that more attention should be placed on the self-role in social anxiety and that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, efficacious in mood disorders by reducing the overgenerality effects, is also relevant to social anxiety disorder. Future longitudinal research should be conducted with clinical groups of socially anxious patients, using a self-focus manipulation, to ascertain if the results of the present can be replicated and extended. Pre- and post-treatment measurements of the autobiographical memories of socially anxious patients should be measured and compared, to ascertain whether the deficits can be repaired through the use of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT; Williams, Teasdale, Segal & Soulsby, 2000). Self-focus priming could also be used with other anxiety disordered individuals such as generalised anxiety disorder and panic individuals, as they too, appear to be likely candidates for the ruminative self-focus which has contributed to the memory processing deficits established in the autobiographical memories in social anxiety disorder.

The psychometric properties of a revised body image self-consciousness measure were examined using 11 correlate measures, including a measure of general body image, with a sample of male and female participants. A factor analysis of the BISC-R measure revealed one distinct factor, suggesting there are not male-oriented and female-oriented subscales, as hypothesized. Furthermore, results revealed no significant differences in correlations between body image self-consciousness and body image avoidance and the correlate measures, suggesting body image self-consciousness is essentially a construct similar to body image avoidance. Results provide support for future use of a body image avoidance measure as opposed to a body image self-consciousness measure in research as well as clinical settings.
Department of Psychological Science

This thesis comprises an exploratory study of the dynamic of communication symbols during growth and transcendence cycles of the unique individual. It moreover explores how the quintessence of the individual, the quantum self, transforms itself through the use of intrapsychic communication. The exploration focuses on the confluence of a subjective, inner experiential reality and reality as a social construct. This inner, subjective and experiential reality of the individual relates to the correspondence between the transcendence of consciousness and the creation of meaning derived from the Jungian constructs of archetypal images, symbols and myths. The eclectic nature of the study necessitates a multidisciplinary approach, and consequently, theories and constructs in Depth and Transpersonal Psychology, the New Physics (Quantum Physics), Complexity and Chaos Theories, Mysticism, and Philosophy are explored and integrated with contemporary communication notions of the self, symbols and consciousness. Integration and inclusiveness consequently form the bedrock of this study. Archetypal communication symbols are considered as the derivatives of a subjective, inner reality. The exploration and comprehension of an inner reality are considered to be of prime significance to the transcendence of the self: the individual as a unique multifarious being. An archetypal and mythical semiotic textual analysis of ‘The Alchemist’ by Paolo Coehlo, and an individual case analysis of dream symbols and a self-report based on the interpretation of a dream theme by using active imagination indicate that a transcendental spirituality, and consequently an inner, subjective transcendental reality are imminent in the individual. An intrinsic need for equanimity and unity is reflected in the images, symbols and myths of the Self as archetype of meaning nested in the collective unconscious. Ensuing from the exploration in this study, an experiential and ‘lived’ theory and model of the dynamic process of intrapsychic communication are described and depicted. Moreover, the employment of archetypal images, symbols and myths of the Self during intrapsychic communication are described and contrasted with a complex adaptive system. The relationship between the self, consciousness, and intrapsychic communication is hence depicted and described in terms of an experiential theory of intrapsychic communication as a complex adaptive system iterating between balance and harmony, and chaos. Intrapsychic communication, which represents all the levels of communication within the Self with its corresponding levels of consciousness, facilitates both awareness and integration of the inner subjective reality, and the external socio-cultural reality of the ego which is at the core of the Self. It is asserted that the transcendence of consciousness cannot be experienced as a distinct experience. Rather, intrapsychic communication facilitates a sense and experience of the Self by an individual through the use of archetypal images, symbols and myths as represented in dream experiences of an individual and the text of a modern narrative. The inclusion of the archetypal spiritual dimension of the Self and the indication of an intrinsic need for wholeness, unity and transcendence in intrapsychic communication, alludes to a shared innate and universal heritage which cuts across all cultural and racial boundaries. Since the study is of an exploratory nature suggestions for further study and research are also made.
Dr. H.L. Venter