1. SELF-
AWARENESS
DONE BY:
ALEENA VINOJI VALLIYAM THADATHIL

2. CONTENT
• I N T R O D U C T I O N
• S E L F - AWA R E N E S S : W H O A M I ?
• D E F I N I T I O N
• S E L F - C O N S C I O U S N E S S A N D S E L F - AWA R E N E S S
• I S S E L F - AWA R E N E S S I M P O R TA N T ?
• M E A S U R I N G S E L F - AWA R E N E S S
• W H AT A R E T H E S I G N S O F S T R E S S ?
• E F F E C T S O F S E L F - AWA R E N E S S
• F U N C T I O N S O F S E L F - AWA R E N E S S
• S T R E S S M A N A G E M E N T T E C H N I Q U E S
• C O N C L U S I O N

3. INTRODUCTION
This seminar we would explore the ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘why’, and ‘when’
of self-awareness. In the end we would also discuss the possible
ways to manage the stress and emotions.
What is self-awareness? How do our brain, cognitive processes, and
social environment give rise to self-awareness? Why we self-aware –
what functions are does self-reflection serve? When, in what
situations, are we most likely to engage in self-observation?

4. SELF-AWARENESS: WHO AM I?
We usually identify our existence with our position in society, our friends and family, the
needs and desires of our body, and the emotional and intellectual expressions of our
mind. For example: We might say ‘I am a student studying engineering, I have two
siblings and live in Kottayam’. We rarely take the time to contemplate the real nature of
our existence; to ask the question, "Who am I?"
Self awareness is about learning to better understand why you feel what you feel and
why you behave in a particular way. Once you begin to understand this concept you
then have the opportunity and freedom to change things about yourself enabling you
to create a life that you want. It’s almost impossible to change and become self-
accepting if you are unsure as to who you are. Having clarity about who you are and
what you want can be empowering, giving you the confidence to make changes.

5. DEFINITION
Self-awareness involves being aware of different aspects
of the self including traits, behaviors, and feelings.
Essentially, it is a psychological state in which oneself
becomes the focus of attention.

6. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS & SELF-AWARENESS
• Self-consciousness is an organism
that can successfully process
incoming information from the
environment and respond to it
adaptively.
• The important distinction here is
as follows: One can perceive and
process stimuli from the
environment (e.g., a color, food)
without explicitly knowing that
one is doing so (consciousness).
• Self-awareness refers to the
capacity of becoming the
object of one’s own attention.
• One becomes self-aware when
one reflects on the experience
of perceiving and processing
stimuli (e.g., I see a blue
object; I am eating food and it
tastes good).

7. I S
S E L F - A WA R E N E S S
I M P O R TA N T ?

8. Self awareness is important because when we have a better understanding of ourselves, we are able
to experience ourselves as unique and separate individuals. We are then empowered to make
changes and to 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.
In our highly competitive culture, this can seem counter-intuitive. In fact, many of us operate on the
belief that we must appear as though we know everything all the time or else people will question
our abilities, and then perhaps judge us. If you're honest with yourself, you'll admit that really the
opposite is true. Because whether you acknowledge your weaknesses or not, everyone still sees
them. So rather than conceal them, the person who tries to hide weaknesses actually highlights
them, creating the perception of a lack of integrity and self-awareness.

9. Measuring Self-Awareness
1.Self-
Consciousness
1.Situational Self-
Awareness Scale
1.Singular
Pronouns

10. Self-Consciousness
Scale
Situational Self-
Awareness Scale
Singular Pronouns
The Self-Consciousness
(SCS) was the first such
questionnaire to be
designed. The SCS consists
three sub-scales: Private and
public self-consciousness,
and social anxiety. The
private self-consciousness
sub-scale actually measures
two different constructs:
reflection and self-
rumination (see Morin,
2002).
Spontaneously occurring
fluctuations in self-
awareness can be measured
with the Situational Self-
Awareness Scale. Any social
environment that
emphasizes a person’s
unique characteristics (e.g.,
being the only female in a
group of males) leads to
individuation and
temporarily enhances self-
focus.
First-person singular
pronouns use in written
documents reflects
self-awareness because
pronouns such as ‘me’,
‘myself’, and ‘mine’ indicate
that the person is thinking
about the self.

11. WHAT ARE
THE SIGNS OF
STRESS?
 Depression or anxiety.
 Anger, irritability, or restlessness.
 Feeling overwhelmed, unmotivated,
or unfocused.
 Trouble sleeping or sleeping too
much.
 Racing thoughts or constant worry.
 Problems with your memory or
concentration.
 Making bad decisions.

12. EFFECTS OD SELF -
AWARENESS
• SELF EVALUATION
• ESCAPE THE SELF

13. Inducing self-awareness with self-focusing
stimuli leads to self-evaluation, whereby the
person compares any given salient self-aspect
to an ideal representation of it. Self-criticism is
then likely to occur, leading to an avoidance of
the state of self-awareness or a reduction of the
real self -ideal self-discrepancy, by either
modifying the target self-aspect or by changing
the ideal itself.
SELF EVALUATION

14. ESCAPE THE SELF
Self-awareness avoidance may take many forms. One of the most
frequent forms of escape from the self is watching television.
Moskalenko and Heine (2003) measured the amount of time
participants watched television after receiving the result of a sham IQ
test. To create a self-discrepancy to motivate participants to avoid
self-awareness, the team told some participants that they did very
poorly on the IQ test. Other participants receive a positive feedback
or no feedback at all. During a 6-minute period in which television
was available after test scores were disclosed, subjects who got back
good scores (no discrepancy) were observed watching TV only 2.5
minutes on average. Those who received no feedback on their score
watched TV for about 3 minutes, and participants who were told that
they had low IQ scores (discrepancy) turned to TV an average of more
than 4 minutes(Pie chart). People also escape the self by drinking
alcohol, taking drugs, overeating, engaging in extreme sexual
behavior, and ultimately committing suicide.
good scores no feedback low scores

15. FUNCTIONS OF SELF-AWARENESS
• Self-regulation
One major adaptive function of self-awareness is self-
regulation, which includes altering one’s behavior, resisting
temptation, changing one’s mood, selecting a response from
various options, and filtering irrelevant information.
• Theory-of-mind
Self-awareness is also related to our ability to engage in
ToM, which constitutes a fundamental component of social
cognition. ToM represents the ability to attribute mental
states such as goals, intentions, beliefs, desires, thoughts,
and feelings to others (Gallagher & Frith, 2003). The
benefits of ToM are the possibility of predicting others’
behavior and, on that basis, helping, avoiding, or deceiving
others as the situation dictates.

16. a) Meditation
b) Journaling
c) Reframing
d) Positive
Thinking
STRESS MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES
Stress management techniques can fall into
two categories: problem-focused coping
and emotion-focused coping. Basically
speaking, problem-focused (or solution-
focused) coping strategies aim to eliminate
sources of stress or work with the stressors
themselves.
Meanwhile, emotion-focused coping
techniques aid you in becoming less
emotionally reactive to the stressors you
face. They alter the way you experience
these situations so they impact you
differently.

17. MEDITATION JOURNALING
Meditation can help you to separate
yourself from your thoughts as you
react to stress. So, you can stand back
and choose a response rather than
react out of panic or fear. Meditation
also allows you to relax your body,
which can reverse your stress
response as well. Those who
practice meditation tend to be less
reactive to stress, too, so meditation is
well worth the effort it takes to
practice.
Journaling allows you to manage
emotions in several ways. It can
provide an emotional outlet for
stressful feelings. It also can enable
you to brainstorm solutions to
problems you face. Journaling also
helps you to cultivate more positive
feelings, which can help you to feel
less stressed. It also brings other
benefits for wellness and stress
management, making it a great
emotion-focused coping technique.

18. REFRAMING
Cognitive reframing allows you to
shift the way you see a problem,
which can actually make the
difference between whether or not
you feel stressed by facing it.
Reframing techniques aren't about
"tricking yourself out of being
stressed," or pretending your
stressors don't exist; reframing is
more about seeing solutions,
benefits, and new perspectives.
Being an optimist involves
specific ways of perceiving
problems—ways that maximize
your power in a situation, and
keep you in touch with your
options. Both of these things
can reduce your experience of
stress, and help you to feel
empowered in situations that
might otherwise overwhelm
you.
POSITIVE THINKING

19. CONCLUSION
To summarize, self-awareness involves (the what question)
being aware of different aspects of the self-including traits,
behaviors, and feelings. We develop and maintain self-focus (the
how question) through social interactions from infancy (e.g.:
Nonverbal face-to-face communication) to adulthood (e.g.:
Reflected appraisals) and forward. Self-awareness is beneficial
(the why question) mostly because it makes self-regulation and
inference about others’ mental states possible. And we especially
tend to focus attention on the self (the when question) when
exposed to self-focusing environments, when differences
between the self and others are made evident, and when we
engage in inner speech or imagery about the self.

20. THANK YOU