Cognitive Psychology: Investigation of Interpersonal Relationships with Self-Awareness

1. Abstract Ιs there a correlation between feelings, thoughts, and public self-expression such as appearance and behavior with self-awareness, the ability to perceive another's perspective, and satisfaction with interpersonal relationships? The aim of the present study was to investigate these relationships, the "need to belong", as described by [1], as well as the relationship between self-awareness and positive relationships and a sense of belonging. 1.1. Method: 61 adults participated and we used scales as: the [2], which measures three different aspects of self-awareness, the "Taking the Perspective of the Other" scale, which is a sub-scale of the Individual Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980), the "Positive Relationships with Others" scale, which is the Psychological Well-Being Cliques (Ryff & Keyes, 1995), and the Revised UCLA Loneliness scale [3]. 1.2. Conclusions: According to the results of the present research, self-awareness is correlated with the satisfaction one gets from one's interpersonal relationships, the ability to take the other's perspective is not correlated with the satisfaction one gets from one's interpersonal relationships, as it was not correlated with positive relationships with others nor the scale of equality in relation. It was also found that there were no gender differences in self-awareness and the ability to take the other's perspective, but women seemed to have more positive relationships and felt less lonliness than men. 2. Self-Awareness The concept of self-awareness has been the subject of scientific research in the field of psychology and neuroscience. Within these two disciplines, self-awareness has been defined in many different ways: as the tendency of the individual to focus on himself or the environment [4], as the tendency to focus on the internal or external aspects of oneself [2], as the tendency to feel strongly aware of oneself in situations where other people are present [5] and as the ability to perceive spiritual situations as one's own [6]. Based on the theoretical model of [2], self-awareness is divided into private and public. The private is about paying attention to the innermost aspects of oneself such as thoughts, motives and emotions, while public self-awareness is about focusing on aspects of the self that are visible to others, such as behavior and appearance. Public self-awareness refers to the general self-awareness as a social object, which is influenced by others and is related to the idea that self-awareness comes when one becomes aware of the other's perspective [2]. Public self-awareness is related to public identity, while it is not related at all to personal identity. Public identity includes the social roles played by an individual and his or her social relationships [7]. Fenigstein (1997) [8] considers that the power of the concept of self-awareness stems from the fact that self-focused attention has unique, significant and varied psychological effects on the individual. These effects stem from a systemic focus on the private or public aspects of the self [8]. 3. Interpersonal Relationships Interactions and relationships with other people are central to most people's daily lives. In our daily interactions with other people, we enter into meaningful relationships with family members, friends, and others (Miell & Dallos, 2009). In formal relationships there is