Self-knowledge (psychology)


Self-knowledge is a term in psychology, describing the information needed for an individual to answer the questions "Who am I?" and "What am I like?".
Self-knowledge requires both self-awareness and self-consciousness. While young infants and chimpanzees display some of the traits of self-awareness, agency, and contingency; they are not considered to be self-conscious. At some greater level of cognition, however, a self-conscious component emerges in addition to an increased self-awareness component, and then it becomes possible to ask "What am I like?", and to answer with self-knowledge, though self-knowledge has limits, as introspection has been said to be limited and complex, such as the consciousness of being conscious of oneself.
Self-knowledge is a component of the self or, more accurately, the self-concept. It is the knowledge of oneself and one's properties and the desire to seek such knowledge that guide the development of the self-concept, even if that concept is flawed. Self-knowledge informs us of our mental representations of ourselves, which contain attributes that we uniquely pair with ourselves, and theories on whether these attributes are stable or dynamic, to the best that we can evaluate ourselves.
The self-concept is thought to have three primary aspects:
The affective and executive selves are also known as the felt and active selves respectively, as they refer to the emotional and behavioral components of the self-concept.
Self-knowledge is linked to the cognitive self in that its motives guide our search to gain greater clarity and assurance that our own self-concept is an accurate representation of our true self; for this reason the cognitive self is also referred to as the known self. The cognitive self is made up of everything we know about ourselves. This implies physiological properties such as hair color, race, and height etc.; and psychological properties like beliefs, values, and dislikes to name but a few.
Self knowledge just simply means introspecting your behaviour and actions from a third persons view to the various situations faced in life and then trying to identify the causes of these issues in life.

Relationship with memory

Self-knowledge and its structure affect how events we experience are encoded, how they are selectively retrieved/recalled, and what conclusions we draw from how we interpret the memory. The analytical interpretation of our own memory can also be called meta memory, and is an important factor of meta cognition.
The connection between our memory and our self-knowledge has been recognized for many years by leading minds in both philosophy and psychology, yet the precise specification of the relation remains a point of controversy.

Specialized memory

  • Studies have shown there is a memory advantage for information encoded with reference to the self.
  • Somatic markers, that is memories connected to an emotional charge, can be helpful or dysfunctional - there is a correlation but not causation, and therefore cannot be relied on.
  • Patients with Alzheimer's who have difficulty recognizing their own family have not shown evidence of self-knowledge.

    The division of memory

Self-theories have traditionally failed to distinguish between different sources that inform self-knowledge, these are episodic memory and semantic memory. Both episodic and semantic memory are facets of declarative memory, which contains memory of facts. Declarative memory is the explicit counterpart to procedural memory, which is implicit in that it applies to skills we have learnt; they are not facts that can be stated.

Episodic memory

is the autobiographical memory that individuals possess which contains events, emotions, and knowledge associated with a given context.

Semantic memory

does not refer to concept-based knowledge stored about a specific experience like episodic memory. Instead it includes the memory of meanings, understandings, general knowledge about the world, and factual information etc. This makes semantic knowledge independent of context and personal information. Semantic memory enables an individual to know information, including information about their selves, without having to consciously recall the experiences that taught them such knowledge.
Semantic self as the source
People are able to maintain a sense of self that is supported by semantic knowledge of personal facts in the absence of direct access to the memories that describe the episodes on which the knowledge is based.
  • Individuals have been shown to maintain a sense of self despite catastrophic impairments in episodic recollection. For example, subject W.J., who suffered dense retrograde amnesia leaving her unable to recall any events that occurred prior to the development of amnesia. However, her memory for general facts about her life during the period of amnesia remained intact.
This evidence for the dissociation between episodic and semantic self-knowledge has made several things clear:
  1. Episodic memory is not the only drawing point for self-knowledge, contrary to long-held beliefs. Self-knowledge must therefore be expanded to include the semantic component of memory.
  2. Self-knowledge about the traits one possesses can be accessed without the need for episodic retrieval. This is shown through study of individuals with neurological impairments that make it impossible to recollect trait-related experiences, yet who can still make reliable and accurate trait-ratings of themselves, and even revise these judgements based on new experiences they cannot even recall.

    Motives that guide our search

People have goals that lead them to seek, notice, and interpret information about themselves. These goals begin the quest for self-knowledge.
There are three primary motives that lead us in the search for self-knowledge:
Self-enhancement refers to the fact that people seem motivated to experience positive emotional states and to avoid experiencing negative emotional states. People are motivated to feel good about themselves in order to maximize their feelings of self-worth, thus enhancing their self-esteem.

The emphasis on feelings differs slightly from how other theories have previously defined self-enhancement needs, for example the Contingencies of Self-Worth Model.

Other theorists have taken the term to mean that people are motivated to think about themselves in highly favorable terms, rather than feel they are "good".

In many situations and cultures, feelings of self-worth are promoted by thinking of oneself as highly capable or better than one's peers. However, in some situations and cultures, feelings of self-worth are promoted by thinking of oneself as average or even worse than others. In both cases, thoughts about the self still serve to enhance feelings of self-worth.
The universal need is not a need to think about oneself in any specific way, rather a need to maximize one's feelings of self-worth. This is the meaning of the self enhancement motive with respect to self-knowledge.

Arguments

In Western societies, feelings of self-worth are in fact promoted by thinking of oneself in favorable terms.
  • In this case, self-enhancement needs lead people to seek information about themselves in such a way that they are likely to conclude that they truly possess what they see as a positive defining quality.
See "Self-verification theory" section.

Accuracy

Accuracy needs influence the way in which people search for self-knowledge. People frequently wish to know the truth about themselves without regard as to whether they learn something positive or negative.
There are three considerations which underlie this need:
  • Occasionally people simply want to reduce any uncertainty. They may want to know for the sheer intrinsic pleasure of knowing what they are truly like.
  • Some people believe they have a moral obligation to know what they are really like. This view holds particularly strong in theology and philosophy, particularly existentialism.
  • Knowing what one is really like can sometimes help an individual to achieve their goals. The basic fundamental goal to any living thing is survival, therefore accurate self-knowledge can be adaptive to survival.
Accurate self-knowledge can also be instrumental in maximizing feelings of self-worth. Success is one of the number of things that make people feel good about themselves, and knowing what we are like can make successes more likely, so self-knowledge can again be adaptive. This is because self-enhancement needs can be met by knowing that one can not do something particularly well, thus protecting the person from pursuing a dead-end dream that is likely to end in failure.

Consistency

Many theorists believe that we have a motive to protect the self-concept from change. This motive to have consistency leads people to look for and welcome information that is consistent with what they believe to be true about themselves; likewise, they will avoid and reject information which presents inconsistencies with their beliefs. This phenomenon is also known as self-verification theory.
Not everyone has been shown to pursue a self-consistency motive; but it has played an important role in various other influential theories, such as cognitive dissonance theory.

[|Self-verification theory]

This theory was put forward by William Swann of the University of Texas at Austin in 1983 to put a name to the aforementioned phenomena. The theory states that once a person develops an idea about what they are like, they will strive to verify the accompanying self-views.
Two considerations are thought to drive the search for self-verifying feedback:
  • We feel more comfortable and secure when we believe that others see us in the same way that we see ourselves. Actively seeking self-verifying feedback helps people avoid finding out that they are wrong about their self-views.
  • Self-verification theory assumes that social interactions will proceed more smoothly and profitably when other people view us the same way as we view ourselves. This provides a second reason to selectively seek self-verifying feedback.
These factors of self-verification theory create controversy when persons suffering from low-self-esteem are taken into consideration. People who hold negative self-views about themselves selectively seek negative feedback in order to verify their self-views. This is in stark contrast to self-enhancement motives that suggest people are driven by the desire to feel good about themselves.