Previous studies suggested that private self-consciousness may function as a moderator of the predictive validity of self-report measures of personality. This paper critically examined the construct validity of the Self-consciousness Scale used to measure private self-consciousness. The conceptual and methodological difficulties involved in measuring private self-consciousness are discussed with particular reference to the ubiquity of self-consciousness theory and the problem of method variance associated with the exclusive use of self-report in validating the Self-consciousness Scale. A phenomenologically derived profile of test experience is offered as a way of checking the validity of self-reported measures.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BemD. J.AllenA. (1974) On predicting some of the people some of the time: the search for cross-situational consistencies in behavior. Psychological Review, 81, 506–520.
2.
von BertalanffyL. (1981) A systems view of man. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
3.
CampbellD. T.FiskeD. W. (1959) Convergent and discriminant validation by the multitrait-multimethod matrix. Psychological Bulletin, 56, 81–105.
4.
CapraF. (1975) The Too of physics. Berkeley, CA: Shambhala.
5.
CarverC. S.GlassD. C. (1976) The self-consciousness scale: a discriminant validity study. Journal of Personality Assessment, 40, 169–172.
6.
CarverC. S.ScheierM. F. (1978) Self-focussing effects of dispositional self-consciousness, mirror presence, and audience presence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 324–332.
7.
CheekJ. M. (1982) Aggregation, moderator variables, and the validity of personality tests: a peer-rating study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 1254–1269.
8.
CronbachL. J. (1971) Test validation. In ThorndikeR. L. (Ed.), Educational measurement. Washington, DC: American Council of Education. Ch. 14.
9.
FeiglH. (1959) Philosophical embarrassments of psychology. American Psychologist, 14, 115–128.
10.
FenigsteinA.ScheierM. F.BussA. H. (1975) Public and private self-consciousness: assessment and theory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43, 522–527.
11.
GiorgiA. (1970) Psychology as a human science. New York: Harper & How.
12.
HowardG. S.RalphK. M.GulanickN. A.MaxwellS. E.NanceD. W.GerberS. K. (1979) Internal invalidity in pretest posttest self-report evaluations and a re-evaluation of retrospective pretests. Applied Psychological Measurement, 3, 1–23.
13.
HusserlE. (1977) Phenomenological psychology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
14.
JaynesJ. (1976) The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin.
15.
Merleau-PontyM. (1968) The visible and the invisible. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Univer. Press.
16.
NisbetR. E.WilsonT. D. (1977) Telling more than we can know: verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231–259.
17.
OsborneJ. W. (1981) Approaches to consciousness in North American academic psychology. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 2, 271–291.
18.
PennerL. A.WymerW. E. (1983) The moderator variable approach to behavioral predictability: some of the variables some of the time. Journal of Research in Personality, 17, 339–353.
19.
RicoeurP. (1971) The model of the text: meaningful action considered as text. Social Research, 38, 529–562.
20.
ScheierM. F. (1980) Effects of public and private self-consciousness on the public expression of personal beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 514–521.
21.
ScheierM. F.BussA. H.BussD. M. (1978) Self-consciousness, self-report of aggressiveness, and aggression. Journal of Research in Personality, 12, 133–140.
22.
ShraugerJ. S.OsbergT. M. (1981) The relative accuracy of self-predictions and judgments by others in psychological assessment. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 322–351.
23.
TaylorC. (1971) Interpretation and the sciences of man. Review of Metaphysics, 25, 3–51.
24.
TurnerR. G. (1978) Consistency, self-consciousness, and the predictive validity of typical and maximal personality measures. Journal of Research in Personality, 12, 117–132.
25.
TurnerR. G.ScheierM. F.CarverC. S.IckesW. (1978) Correlates of self-consciousness. Journal of Personality Assessment, 42, 285–289.
26.
UnderwoodB. J. (1957) Psychological research. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
27.
UnderwoodB.MooreB. S. (1981) Sources of behavioral consistency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 780–785.
28.
WalshR. N. (1981) Meditation. In CorsiniR. J. (Ed.), Handbook of innovative psychotherapies. New York: Wiley. Pp. 470–488.
