[The effects of self-awareness on the internal and external viewpoint for self-imagery]

When we imagine our action, we can take two perspectives. We may see ourselves from our own perspective, which makes an internal viewpoint. We may also see ourselves from other's perspective, which becomes an external viewpoint. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the factors that affect the use of this viewpoints. Two hundred eight college students were asked to imagine 33 situations which differed in the levels of public self-awareness and emotionality, and rated how well their imagery matched each of the viewpoints. Data analysis revealed that situations of high public self-awareness tended to cause an external viewpoint. And the subjects with high self-consciousness, either public or private, were inclined to have an image from an external viewpoint. These results suggested that self-awareness influenced the viewpoints for self-imagery.