History of Exposure to Self-focusing Stimuli as a Developmental Antecedent of Self-consciousness

Szrmmary.-The present report investigated h e question of how individual ddferences in self-consciousness develop. h m t and LeBon proposed that high self-consciousness follows a history of frequent exposure to self-focusing scimuli, i.e., mirrors, audiences, audio and video devices, and cameras. To explore this hypothesis private and public self-consciousness and past exposure to self-focusing stimuli were assessed in 438 subjects. Analysis indicated that history of frequent exposure to self-focusing stimuli is significantly but weakly related to high private self-consciousness in men and to high public self-consciousness in women. This supports previous observations suggesting thar the routes to the development of self-consciousness seem to ddfer for the cwo sexes.