The Path For Learning About One’s Self-knowledge: Introspection And Reflected Appraisal

Self-knowledge has been defined as the accurate self-perceptions about how one typically thinks, feels, and behaves, and awareness of how those patterns are interpreted by others. Researchers are more and more interested in which path is the main source for learning about people’s true selves. Previous research has noted that the introspection process and the reflected appraisal process are two main avenues for learning about the self. However, due to the methodological difficulty in linking people’s rating on a trait to their behaviors, accuracy research using a behavioral criterion is quite limited. Vazire proposed a self-other knowledge asymmetry(SOKA) model, which assumed that the introspection process should be more accurate for traits low in observability, and the reflected appraisal process should be more accurate for traits high in observability and evaluativeness traits, Future work could seek to classify the personality traits into different categories in observability and evaluativeness. At last, according to recent research, many aspects of ourselves are hidden from conscious awareness, limiting the effectiveness of introspection in the pursuit of self-knowledge, According to mood-as-a-resource hypothesis, positive mood may act as a buffer against the affective costs of negative information, enabling individuals to focus on the knowledge they can gain from the information. Therefore, positive mood may be a more promising avenue for increasing self-knowledge.so, the current work first aimed to examined the main source of learning about one’s self-knowledge by investigating the time course of attention deployment both to the process of introspection and to the process of reflected appraisal using evaluative traits. And exploring main source of learning about one’s self-knowledge using observability traits; at last, explore the effects of positive mood on the self-protective motives.Study 1, A total of 336 personality-trait adjectives were selected from established personality trait adjective pools, half of the words were positive and the other half were negative. Their electrophysiological data were then collected using the event-related potential(ERP) technology while they judged to which extent(1) an adjective can describe the self,(2) an adjective can describe a familiar other,(3) they agree with an adjective that their classmates believe can describe the self, and(4) they agree with an adjective that their classmates believe can describe a familiar other. Our electrophysiological data showed that classmates’ positive evaluation of one’s own trait elicited larger P2 than the positive self-evaluation of one’s own trait. Further, classmates’ negative evaluation of one’s own trait elicited larger late positive component(LPC) than the negative self-evaluation of one’s own trait.Study 2, A total of 240personality-trait adjectives were selected from the early collection words, half of the words were high observability traits and the other half were low observability. Their electrophysiological data were then collected using the event-related potential(ERP) technology while they judged to which extent(1) an adjective can describe the self,(2) they agree with an adjective that their classmates believe can describe the self. Our electrophysiological data showed that classmates’ evaluation elicited larger LPC than the self-evaluation for high observability traits, but for the low observability. there isn’t any significant differences.Study 3, Through memory, music and video induced subjects mood(Positive /negative /neutral), and a total 0f 160 personality-trait adjectives were selected from established personality trait adjective pools, half of the words were positive and the other half were negative. Participants are asked to judge to which extent an adjective can describe the self. Our behavior data showed that the positive emotional group was significantly more likely to accept negative-trait adjective than the neutral emotional group. Results suggest that people allocate more attention to the process of reflected appraisal compared to the process of introspection, which further suggests that the reflected appraisal process might be the main source in learning about one’s self-knowledge of personality. Positive mood may be a more promising avenue for increasing self-knowledge is to reduce the self-protective motives.