Overview/ Descriptor of self-awareness

Self-Awareness is a thinking skill in which a child is able to accurately recognize own feelings and behaviour and is able to judge own performance. Self awareness goes beyond the ability to just recognize our feelings. It also involves realising that, those feelings lead to actions which may in turn lead to positive/ negative outcomes. For example, say Komal has to read in front of the class. If Komal had high levels of self awareness, she would recognize the feeling of butterflies in her stomach as a signal that she is nervous based on her past experience. She could then rationalise that if she uses relaxation strategies, her reading quality would be much better.

How does self-awareness develop across age?

Now let us probe into “How do people’s thoughts about themselves change with age? For example, do 6-year olds think of themselves differently than 16-year olds?”

Gender and age appear to be the first characteristics which a child understands about himself/herself. Between 2 to 5 years, most children correctly identify themselves as a boy or a girl, although they may not be fully aware that gender is constant until several years later. At this age, children also tend to describe themselves in terms of concrete, observable characteristics (e.g., I have black hair; I have an older brother) and typical behaviors and activities (e.g., I play games; I like cricket). In short, young children tend to think of themselves in terms of their observable characteristics.

Several changes in self-descriptions occur during middle childhood (7 to 11 years). First, self descriptions become more general. For example, instead of thinking of themselves in terms of specific activities (I like cricket; I like cycling), children start applying broader labels to themselves (I like sports). Children at this age also begin defining themselves (and others) in terms of traits and abilities. Many of these qualities refer to important social characteristics (e.g., nice, likable, or friendly). In addition, children at this age become better at seeing themselves from other people’s point of view. Social comparison also becomes stronger during this age. Children compare themselves with others and draw inferences about themselves on the basis of what these comparisons show (“Rahul has more difficulty solving maths problems than I do, so I must be smart”).

Adolescence (12 to 18 years) brings another shift in self-understanding. Adolescents define themselves in abstract qualities that emphasize their emotions and characteristics. For example, an adolescent may be aware that he is moody or insecure but may or may not express it. This kind of awareness is more sophisticated since it emphasizes qualities not necessarily known to others.

What value does self-awareness hold in an individual’s life?

Self awareness is important because when we have a better understanding of ourselves, we are empowered to make changes, build on our areas of strength as well as identify areas where we would like to make improvements. Self-awareness is often a first step to goal setting. Self-awareness is being conscious of what you’re good at while acknowledging what you still have yet to learn. This includes admitting when you don’t have the answer and owning up to mistakes.

Self-awareness leads to self-reflection—thinking over things that have happened, in order to find ways to make things work better next time. During learning, when children improve their abilities to reflect on, monitor, and evaluate their learning strategies, they become more self-reliant and productive. Self-awareness improves their capacity to weigh choices and evaluate options. When these children have difficulty understanding, they rely on reflective strategies to recognize their difficulties and attempt to rectify them.

Self awareness is also the building block for other life skills like empathy, coping with emotions and stress, self esteem, self confidence and resilience. Without being aware of own feelings, thoughts and behavior a person would not be able to analyse the feelings of other people or put themselves in other people’s shoes. They would also not be able to cope and regulate their emotions to be able to gain confidence in tasks they perform. Further, without self awareness a person might not be aware of the positive traits that he or she possesses and that might affect his/her self esteem. Also their belief in their ability to perform tasks (self confidence) may vary depending on their psychological response to the situation.

As they grow older, individuals with high levels of self-awareness begin to answer questions like: How do I live a happy life? How do I feel good about myself? What are the personal values that I want to follow in life? Through these reflections, they also begin to think about how others might view them and try to behave in socially functional/aware ways.

What is the impact of lack of self awareness skills in individuals?

Without self awareness skills, individuals can have have misleading thoughts and perception about self which in turn can lead them to miscommunicate, and misinform others. If we are not self-aware, we cannot effectively learn about ourselves and our own personal needs, strengths and weaknesses. Individuals, dealing with self-awareness problems blame others around them for things that go wrong and are not able to recognise their own responsibility for the problems they face, thus preventing solutions or progress.

Another behavior which stems from lack of self awareness is an open and uncensored display of emotions. This can range from anger, grief, nervousness, and even happiness. People who are not aware of how they display their emotions can be taken advantage of, manipulated, lose influence over others, and be seen as weak. Controlling emotional reactions is as important as any communication skill.

An example of people who do not control how their emotions are displayed to others is small children. They may scream, kick, cry and make a scene without any care for how they look to others. They have no idea how they look like to others. When an adult reacts like this during a bad situation, they often display some of the same behavior as these children do but to a lesser extent. Some adults display this behavior for very trivial situations which creates a childish image. Many adults create a scene when they don’t get the treatment they perceive they are entitled to when a subordinate makes a small mistake for example. Such an emotional outburst made by adults during these situations, while effective at times (mostly to quiet them up), reduces how others perceive their level of intelligence.

Over emotional, dramatic, and reactive people are hard to communicate with and they usually are unaware of this handicap. This puts up a barrier and hinders the flow of information and ideas between people. It also breeds contempt and lowers respect. Those who aren’t self-aware are clueless to how they look to other people. They often have no idea how their behavior is affecting other people’s perception of them. In a business setting, this might create an unproductive and ineffective environment for others when a person is not aware of how his or her behavior is affecting others.

Building blocks and Indicators of self-awareness

Self awareness is developed through practice of focusing our attention on the details of our personality and behavior. Learning to be mindful and self aware is similar to learning to dance. When learning to dance we have to pay attention to how and where our feet move, our hands and body motion, music, beat, floor space, and other dancers. A dancer needs awareness of their body movements. Similarly, self awareness is what we develop when we pay attention to our expressions of thought, emotions, and behavior. When we become more self aware, we instinctively begin to see aspects of our personality and behavior that we haven’t noticed before.

If we have an emotional reaction of anger or frustration, we would start noticing many of the thoughts and small triggers that build up towards those emotions. We also notice moments when we can change the interpretations of these thoughts. This heightened awareness helps us instinctively make better choices in our thought process long before an emotional outburst or destructive behavior.

Thus, the building blocks of Self awareness are:

Attention to identify own thought, feelings and behavior
Reflection on own thought, feelings and behavior (maybe by self or through feedback from others)
Freedom to choose

Indicators of Self Awareness:

Individuals with high self-awareness are:

Aware of and able to reflect on personal likes and dislikes with rationale
Aware of their strengths and weaknesses leading to reflection of own performance
Guided to action by personal beliefs, strengths, skills, interests, values
Able to seek and consider feedback from others

Able to reflect on things which make them happy or feel good about themselves
Belief in self to plan and achieve goals (Self -Belief) (Internal versus External Locus of control) – Believe that they have strong internal locus of control. Uses knowledge and reflection of personal drivers/ motivators to consistently plan and work towards short term and long term goals

INDICATOR: 1. Awareness and reflection of Likes and Dislikes
Poor	Functional/ Practical	Ideal/Advanced
Mostly expresses strong likes and dislikes without reasons for those likes and dislikes (in terms of material things, values or persons)Leena is terrified of cars but is not able to express why she is scared of them	Mostly able to express reasons for likes and dislikes but those reasons may not be rational (in terms of material things, values or persons) Leena is terrified of cars because the loud horn of a car had scared her once when she was playing at the park	Is always able to express reason for likes and dislikes. (in terms of material things, values or persons) May also be able to reflect on the reason for the dislike and may work towards changing the dislikes or likes which seem irrational Leena is terrified of cars because she had witnessed an accident where an old lady had been run over the car while crossing the road. Because of this she is unable to learn how to drive a car even after she has grown up. However, she realises that it is an irrational fear and works towards mitigating her dislike

INDICATOR: 2. Reflect on things which make them happy or feel good about themselves
Poor	Practical/ Functional	Ideal/ Advanced
Unable to reflect on experiences which make them happy or feel good about themselves	Able to reflect on experiences which make them happy or feel good about themselves and believe that they have control over their lives to choose things which make them happy	Able to reflect on experiences which make them happy or feel good about themselves and believe that they have control over their lives to choose things which make them happy

INDICATOR: 3. Seek and consider feedback from others
Poor	Practical/ Functional	Ideal/ Advanced
Does not seek feedbackfrom others	Occasionally seeks feedbackfrom others butinconsistently incorporatesfeedback into action	Seeks feedback from others andconsistently incorporatesfeedback into action

INDICATOR:4. Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses leading to reflection of performance
Poor	Functional/ Practical	Ideal/ Advanced
Has inaccurate or little insight into personal strengths and weaknesses. Therefore describes ownperformances with generaldescriptors of success andfailure	Has basic insight into personal strengths and weaknesses in skills, abilities and growth areas. Is able to express strengths andchallenges within specificperformances or events toincrease effectiveness indifferent contexts I am nervous to speak in front of new audience but I can speak well in front of known group	Has well developed and accurate insight into personal strengths and weaknesses. Able to reflect on own performance to say what was easy or difficult (strengths/ weaknesses) and knows which areas to focus on (what action to take) in order to learn or do better What was easy for me and why?What was challenging for me and why?What more do I need to do to complete the task?What skills do I need to overcome a weakness?

INDICATOR: 5. Belief in self to plan and achieve goals (Self -Belief) (Internal versus External Locus of control)
Poor	Practical/ Functional	Ideal/ Advanced
Are unable to talk about what they want to become when they grow up	Are able to talk about what they want to become when they grow up	Are able to talk about what they want to become when they grow up
Are unable to talk of ways in which they will achieve their goals in life	Are able to talk of ways in which they will achieve their goals in life but may need guidance on how to go about these ways	Are able to talk of ways in which they will achieve their goals in life draw a plan on how they will go about these ways

Prominent Theories in Self Awareness

Self awareness according to theorists is often defined in terms of person’s ability to engage in reflection. In its most basic form self awareness is visual self recognition and the ability to recognise self in a mirror. In humans this ability is seen to develop at around 12 to 18 months of age. Beyond this ability of self reflection self awareness is also associated with self regulation. A self aware person is often viewed as most controlled and intentional of his/ her actions. Within social psychology, self-awareness is often associated with a theory of objective self-awareness by Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund. According to this theory, situational cues that remind individuals of themselves (e.g., mirrors and video cameras) lead to attention focused on the self and away from the environment. The result is a self-aware state in which individuals are proposed to compare their current selves with ideal self-standards.