When the Self Stands Out: Figure?-?Ground Effects on Self-Focused Attention

Abstract

When do people focus attention on the self? Based on Gestalt notions of figureground assignment, two experiments demonstrated that making self figural against a background induces self-focused attention. In Experiment 1, perceiving figural selfsymbols increased self-awareness relative to perceiving background self-symbols. In Experiment 2, making self figural against the background of a six-person decisionmaking group increased self-awareness. These experiments clarify the antecedents of self-awareness and connect objective self-awareness theory to research on interpersonal deviancy.

Flexible effects of positive mood on self-focused attention

“…The remaining 10 items showed acceptable internal consistency for an implicit measure (a = .48). This level is equivalent to reliability levels in studies with the English version of the scale (around .50: Silvia & Abele, 2002;Snow, Duval, & Silvia, 2004;Wegner & Giuliano, 1980).…”

Noticing The Self: Implicit Assessment Of Self-focused Attention Using Word Recognition Latencies

“…People in the self-focusing task condition completed a writing task that increases self-awareness. One way to increase self-focus is to make people feel Self-Focus 11 distinctive, such as by telling them that they deviate from a reference group or that they have an unusual personal quality (Duval, 1976;Mayer et al, 1985;Snow et al, 2003). The writing task asks people to respond to three questions: "What is it about you that makes you different from your family?/ from your friends?/ from people in general?."…”

“…People in the high self-awareness condition wrote about how they differ from other people; people in control conditions wrote about selfirrelevant topics or wrote nothing at all. Feeling distinctive increases self-awareness because attention gravitates toward distinctive stimuli (Duval, 1976;Snow, Duval, & Silvia, 2003).…”

Masked first name priming increases effort-related cardiovascular reactivity

“…These manipulations pose people with obvious, salient reminders of the self, and they evoke strong feelings of self-consciousness. Common explicit manipulations involve having participants sit in front of a mirror during the experiment (Phillips & Silvia, 2005), videotaping the participants and showing their image on a monitor (Duval, 1976; Silvia & Duval, 2001b; Silvia & Phillips, 2004), or making participants feel distinctive (Silvia & Eichstaedt, 2004; Snow, Duval, & Silvia, 2004). …”