The effects of self-focused attention on perspective-taking and anxiety

Evidence is examined that pertains to two of the basic assumptions underlying self-awareness theory: that self-focused attention causes one to adopt an external perspective in which one views oneself like an observer; and that self-focus leads to self-dissatisfaction and negative affect. Experimental evidence is reviewed and found to offer convincing support for the perspective-taking assumption. An experiment that used a disguised measure of mood to test the negative affect assumption is reported. As predicted by self-awareness theory, subjects who saw their reflection in a mirror while completing the disguised mood measure were found to have more negative affect than subjects who did not face the mirror.