Responding to Self-Consciousness: An Examination of Everyday and Dream Episodes

Abstract

Eighty-nine students from the University of Toronto completed a 20-item self-consciousness questionnaire. They also provided a written account of a self-conscious (e.g., embarrassing) episode from everyday life as well as a self-conscious episode from a dream. Factor analysis of the questionnaire responses revealed 6 factors, with public and private self-consciousness emerging as the dominant factors. The everyday and dream episodes were examined qualitatively and 8 categories were derived the frequency of which could be numerically assessed in each protocol and factor analyzed. For the everyday life episodes, 5 factors revealed concerns of undergraduates related to academic performance versus physical appearance, social anxiety, and athletic performance, as well as 2 coping strategies. Three factors emerged from the dream episodes with the first revealing how students imagined coping with negative bodily arousal in order to assert themselves in academic situations. The second factor showed how students imagined withdrawing from social situations so as to avoid negative emotions associated with self-consciousness related to appearance. Meaningful correlations were found relating factors from the everyday episodes with the self-consciousness questionnaire as well as the dream episodes. These findings demonstrate complementary relations between quantitative and qualitative (i.e., narrative-based) assessments of self-consciousness.