Self-awareness

Self-awareness is the ability to understand your own personality, feelings, and behaviors. It means knowing who you are, what you think, and why you act the way you do. This is different from just being aware of the world around you. While being conscious means knowing what is happening in your body and environment, self-awareness is about recognizing your own thoughts and emotions.

Understanding yourself helps you make better choices and connect better with others. It lets you see why you feel certain ways and what makes you unique. People who are self-aware can understand their strengths and weaknesses, which helps them grow and learn. This idea is studied in both philosophy and psychology, where experts look at different kinds of self-awareness, from knowing your own mind to understanding yourself in social situations.

Definitions and scope

Self-awareness means knowing yourself as a special and unique person. It helps you understand your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. There are two main kinds of self-awareness.

The first kind is called reflective self-awareness. This is when you think about your own thinking. It lets you know that you are feeling, perceiving, and existing. This kind of self-awareness is studied in fields like philosophy and brain science.

The second kind is social self-awareness. This is about how others see you. It helps you understand how your actions and feelings fit with what others expect. This kind is often studied in psychology.

Both kinds of self-awareness work together to help you understand yourself and how you fit in with others.

Neuroscience

Modern science shows that self-awareness is not controlled by one single part of the brain. Instead, it comes from many brain areas working together. Important areas include parts of the brain's default network, such as the medial prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. These areas help us think about ourselves and understand our thoughts and feelings.

Studies show that self-awareness depends on the brain's ability to check its own processes. The brain constantly compares what it expects to happen with what actually happens, helping us understand our own awareness. This creates the feeling of being aware of our own thoughts, like looking in a mirror that shows us ourselves.

Psychology

Self-awareness in psychology is about how people understand and manage their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. It includes being aware of our own thoughts and emotions, as well as noticing our physical body and how it moves.

Body awareness means knowing where our body is and how it feels. Our brain uses signals from our muscles, inside our body, and what we see to understand that our body belongs to us. Sometimes, these signals can change how we feel about our body. For example, in some experiments, people felt like a fake hand was part of their body. This shows that our sense of our body can change.

When we think about ourselves, we compare what we do to the standards we have inside our minds. This makes us more aware of ourselves and can make our feelings stronger. Being aware of ourselves can help us act in ways that match our values. Mirrors, crowds, or being recorded can make us more aware of ourselves. This awareness can also help us remember things better.

Human development

Individuals grow to understand themselves through self-awareness. This means learning about your own body, thoughts, feelings, and how you act and interact with others. Self-awareness does not happen all at once; it develops slowly through many different actions and experiences.

According to Philippe Rochat, there are five levels of self-awareness that children go through as they grow. Starting from not recognizing themselves in a mirror, children gradually learn to see that the mirror shows them, not someone else. They begin to understand that they exist over time and can be seen by others, which helps them realize how others might think about them.

Measurement

There are two main ways to check how well someone understands themselves after a serious brain injury. One way is to use a special list of 30 questions called the Patient Competency Rating Scale (PCRS). The person answers each question by choosing a level from 1 to 5, showing how hard certain tasks are for them. Family or friends who know the person well also answer the same questions. By comparing these answers, doctors can see how well the person understands their own situation. However, this method can be tricky because family members might not always see things clearly.

Another way is to simply ask the person why they are in the hospital or what they think is wrong with their body. Their answers can show how well they are understanding their own condition.

Disorders

Anosognosia

Main article: Anosognosia

Anosognosia is when someone does not realize they have a problem or illness. This can make it hard for them to get treatment or follow medical advice. Many different illnesses can cause anosognosia. For example, someone who is blind due to brain damage might not know they cannot see. People with speech problems might not notice their mistakes. Those with Alzheimer’s disease often lose awareness of their condition as the disease progresses. This lack of awareness can put people at risk because they might not understand their situation.

Autism spectrum disorder

Research shows that people with autism may find it harder to understand themselves in social settings, but when alone, they are often more aware of their own thoughts and feelings. This awareness can fade when they are in demanding social situations. Some with higher abilities on the autism scale report being more aware of themselves when alone, unless they feel overwhelmed by senses or have just been in social interactions.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia involves serious problems with thinking and memory. It is unclear how well people with schizophrenia understand their own difficulties. Studies show that these individuals often do not realize their thinking is affected. This lack of awareness can make following treatment harder and may affect how well the illness progresses. Some people with schizophrenia may experience strong thoughts that feel very real, which can affect their understanding of what is happening around them.

Non-human animals

Main article: Animal consciousness

Scientists have done tests called "mirror tests" on chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, and magpies to study if they can recognize themselves. In these tests, animals are shown their reflection in a mirror and watched for certain behaviors, like touching a mark on their body that they could only see in the mirror.

David DeGrazia says animals might share three kinds of self-awareness with humans. The first is knowing they are separate from their surroundings. The second is understanding social interactions with others of their kind. The third is possibly sensing their own feelings or thoughts.

Chimpanzees and other apes have shown strong signs of recognizing themselves in mirrors. Dolphins have also passed similar mirror tests. In 2006, one out of three elephants passed the mirror test. Magpies, too, showed signs of understanding when marks were placed on their necks and they saw themselves in a mirror. These findings suggest that self-recognition might evolve in similar ways across different animals.

Other uses

Plants

Plants can recognize themselves and avoid growing into parts of themselves, but they will grow near other plants.

Science fiction

In science fiction stories, self-awareness is a special quality that makes a non-human character, like a computer or an alien, act like a person with the same rights and feelings as humans. Words like "sentience," "sapience," and "consciousness" are used in similar ways.

Collective self-awareness

Besides being about an individual, self-awareness can also describe how groups or organizations understand themselves. Leaders need to think about both personal self-awareness and how the group sees itself. Pope Paul VI talked about the Catholic Church needing to understand itself better to stay strong.

Robotics

Some people think robots that can imagine their own actions might be considered self-aware, even if we don't really know if they truly understand themselves.

Main article: Artificial consciousness

Critiques and historical theories

The discovery of special brain cells called mirror neurons in the 1990s created a lot of excitement. These cells help us understand actions by seeing them, which might also help us understand ourselves. This idea led to many studies in psychology, brain science, and philosophy.

Later research showed that mirror neurons alone can't explain all aspects of self-awareness. Now, scientists think self-awareness comes from many connected brain systems working together. The mirror neuron idea is still important, but it's just one piece of the puzzle in understanding how we think about ourselves and learn from others.