PRIVATE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS FACTORS, NEED FOR COGNITION, AND DEPRESSION

Recent research into the Self-Consciousness Scale (Fenigstein, Scheier , & Buss, 1975) has suggested that the Private Self-Consciousness subs cale may not measure a unitary construct In the present study, Private Self-Consciousness and its Self-Reflectiveness factor predicted great er attributional complexity, depression, and social anxiety. In contra st, the Internal State Awareness factor correlated directly with need for cognition and attributional complexity and inversely with depressi on. A direct linkage between Self-Reflectiveness and need for cognitio n was eliminated when Internal State Awareness was partialled out. Att ributional complexity correlated inversely with depression when Self-R eflectiveness was removed and directly with depression when Internal S tate Awareness was partialled out Self-Reflectiveness, therefore, seem ed to recorda dysphoria-enhancing and Internal State Awareness a dysph oria-inhibiting social cognitive process.