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Video Camera
Manipulations
Video cameras
are a popular way of manipulating self-awareness. A standard procedure,
which I believe was developed by T. Shelley Duval, is to combine a video
camera with a closed-circuit monitor. Our lab at UNCG uses a tripod-mounted
digital camcorder connected to a 12" color television. The camcorder
points directly at the participant, and the monitor is placed to the left
of the participant. As a result, looking at the monitor gives an image
of one's face and upper body looking off to the left.
The experimenter
justifies this by noting that his or her advisor selects some sessions
at random for taping, presumably to check that the procedure is the same
for each participant. (In the low self-awareness conditions, the equipment
is off, the camera points toward the wall, and the participant learns
that the session was not chosen for taping.)
Many published
studies have left out the monitor and simply used a video camera. This
is fine, but the combination of the camera and monitor is as fool-proof
as manipulations get.
A few older
papers:
Duval,
T. S. (1976). Conformity on a visual task as a function of personal
novelty on attitudinal dimensions and being reminded of object status
of self. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 12, 87–98.
Duval,
T. S., Duval, V. H., & Neeley, R. (1979). Self focus, felt responsibility,
and helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
37, 1769–1778.
Geller,
V., & Shaver, P. (1976). Cognitive consequences of self-awareness.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 12, 99–108.
A few recent
papers that used the camera-and-monitor manipulation:
Duval,
T. S., & Lalwani, N. (1999). Objective self-awareness and causal
attributions for self-standard discrepancies: Changing self or changing
standards of correctness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
25, 1220–1229
Duval,
T. S., & Silvia, P. J. (2002). Self-awareness,
probability of improvement, and the self-serving bias. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology.
Silvia,
P. J., & Duval, T. S. (2001). Predicting
the interpersonal targets of self-serving attributions. Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 333-340.
Silvia,
P. J., & Phillips, A. G. (2004). Self-awareness,
self-evaluation, and creativity. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 30, 1009-1017.
P. Silvia,
UNCG
Last Updated: July 1, 2004
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