Five levels of self-awareness as they unfold early in life

Abstract

When do children become aware of themselves as differentiated and unique entity in the world? When and how do they become self-aware? Based on some recent empirical evidence, 5 levels of self-awareness are presented and discussed as they chronologically unfold from the moment of birth to approximately 4–5 years of age. A natural history of children’s developing self-awareness is proposed as well as a model of adult self-awareness that is informed by the dynamic of early development. Adult self-awareness is viewed as the dynamic flux between basic levels of consciousness that develop chronologically early in life.

Introduction

Self-awareness is arguably the most fundamental issue in psychology, from both a developmental and an evolutionary perspective. In this paper, I discuss this issue from the point of view of development. I ask the questions: when do children become aware of themselves as differentiated and unique entity in the world? When and how do they become self-aware? Based on some recent empirical evidence, I identify 5 levels of self-awareness as they chronologically unfold from the moment of birth to approximately 4–5 years of age.

The developmental approach in psychology is irreplaceable. It allows one to observe how basic competencies emerge and come on-line. By analogy, it compares to observing the construction of a skyscraper via daily photographs taken during the process (I am thinking of a postcard I have seen of the Eiffel tower in the various phases of its construction). It reveals what the final product is made of and the sequencing of each of its elements. It is some kind of a forward engineering.

In developmental psychology, one can observe forward engineering over and over again. Children are numerous, repeating patterns of growth that prefigure what we adults take for granted, such as self-awareness. Indeed, what does it mean and what does it take to recognize oneself in a mirror? The response lays in children and their development of such capacity. At least that is what I would like to suggest here.

The general idea driving the paper is that prior to the expression of explicit self-awareness such as self-recognition and self-identification in a mirror or a photograph, infants from birth manifest an implicit sense of themselves. The questions of interest here are (1) what are the contrasted levels of self-awareness unfolding in early development? (2) what does this development tell us about the nature of self-knowledge in general?

There is a general consensus on a few major landmarks in young children’s psychological development such as the manifestation of the first social smile, the first independent steps, or the first words. All parents also notice an important change at around 2 years of age when children manifest “self-consciousness,” the so-called secondary emotions such as embarrassment or pride in very specific situations such as mirror exposure or competitive games (Kagan, 1984; Lewis, 1992). Prior to the second year, an infant placed in front of a mirror will typically smile, coo, and explore in apparent delight of the perfect contingency between acted and seen movements bouncing back at them from the polished surface of the mirror (Amsterdam, 1972). By 2 years, the specular image is associated with radically different behaviors. Toddlers become typically frozen and sometime behave as if they wanted to hide themselves by tucking their head in their shoulders or hiding their face behind their hands. They show embarrassment. This is a robust phenomenon and one is naturally tempted to ask what it means psychologically for children in their development. The literary quote reproduced below captures this important transition:

There is a thing that happens with children: If no one is watching them, nothing is really happening to them. It is not some philosophical conundrum like the one about the tree falling in the forest and no one hearing it: that is a puzzler for college freshman. No. If you are very small, you actually understand that there is no point in jumping into the swimming pool unless they see you do it. The child crying, “Watch me, watch me,” is not begging for attention; he is pleading for existence itself. M.R. Montgomery Saying Goodbye: A memoir for Two Fathers.

The poet Arthur Rimbaud claimed that “I is some one Else” (“Je est quelqu’un d’autre”), suggesting that we conceive ourselves through the eyes of others. It appears indeed that by 2–3 years young children do start to have others in mind when they behave. The expression of embarrassment that children often begin to display in front of mirrors at around this age is the expression of such “self-consciousness.” They behave not unlike criminals hiding their face to the cameras. Their behavior indicates a drive to vanish from the public eyes, as if they came to grip via the experience of their own specular image of how they present themselves to the world. Not only do they discover in the mirror that it is themselves, they also realize that it is themselves as perceived by others. The malaise might come from the realization of a fundamental discrepancy between how the child represents herself from within, and how he or she is actually perceived by others as reflected in the mirror. Note that this interpretation is consistent with what visual anthropologist Edmund Carpenter reported in adults of an isolated Papua New Guinea tribe (the Biami). The Biami presumably did not have any mirror experience and the river in the Papuan plateau are typically too murky to provide clear reflections, unlike the rivers of ancient Greece enjoyed by Narcissus. The anthropologist recorded their reactions when looking for the first at themselves in a mirror, viewing themselves in video recordings or Polaroid photographs. Carpenter describes reactions of terror and anguish: “They were paralyzed: after their first startled response—covering their mouths and ducking their heads—they stood transfixed, staring at their images, only their stomach muscles betraying great tension” (Carpenter, 1975, pp. 452–453).

If children begin to have “others in mind” by the age of 2 or 3 years, the question is how this self-consciousness comes about? I will suggest that there are at least 5 steps to this progression, each corresponding to different levels of self-awareness. I will first describe these 5 levels of self-awareness in contrast to a level 0 of no self-awareness. In this description, I will use as illustrations the various reactions to the mirror infants and young children manifest as a function of age. Mirrors have been criticized for lacking ecological validity (Loveland, 1986) and mirror self-recognition for not being a thorough index of self-awareness (Povinelli, 1995, Povinelli, 2001). However, reactions to mirrors remain a well documented, hence reliable (reproducible) behavioral index of developing self-awareness. I provide some empirical evidence of how levels of self-awareness unfold chronologically between birth and early childhood.

What do children see when they see themselves in a mirror? Do they see that it is themselves or do they perceive someone else facing them? When do mirrors and their reflection begin to be considered for what they are, namely a solid polished surface that reflects back? As illustrated by the image of Fig. 1, we can place surreptitiously a yellow “Post-It” piece of paper on a child’s forehead. We then play with him to confirm that the child is oblivious that his forehead is now advertising such a yellow mark. As illustrated by Fig. 1, if we now place the child in front of a mirror what does he see and what is he inclined to do? There are 6 possibilities, ranging from self-obliviousness (absence of self-awareness, referred here as “Level 0”) to self-consciousness. Beyond level 0, levels 1–5 correspond each to a particular level of self-awareness. I describe these levels below, starting with “Level 0” (absence of self-awareness), then proceeding in the order of the levels of self-awareness following their relative complexity, from implicit (Levels 0–2) to explicit (Levels 3–5) (Rochat, 1997, Rochat, 2001).

This is the degree zero of self-awareness, level 0 at which the individual is oblivious of any mirror reflection, thus oblivious of the mirror itself. The specular image is confounded with the reality of the environment it reflects. It is perceived as a mere extension of the world, not a reflection of it. Birds flying into mirrors would express such level, as they sometime accidentally crash into windows. They mistakenly perceive mirrors as extension of the environment, not as differentiated objects. Pet owners know that placing a mirror in a canary cage is substitute for companionship and triggers in the bird melodious courtship songs. It is also the level expressed by dogs, cats, or monkeys facing mirrors and posturing endless aggressive displays to their own specular image as if they were confronting a creature other than themselves (Zazzo, 1981). Note that this level also characterizes moments of absence when we, adult humans, perceive and sometime frighten ourselves for an instant when experiencing our own mirror reflection as another person surreptitiously facing us.

This is the first sign that the individual is not oblivious of mirrors as reflection. At this level, there is a sense that what is perceived in the mirror is different from what is perceived in the surrounding environment. More specifically, when perceiving the own specular image, the individual picks up the fact that there is something unique about the experience, namely that there is a perfect contingency between seen and felt movements. Beyond the confusion of the preceding level, this level entails some basic perceptual differentiation. Differentiation between the experience of own bodily movements as reflected in the mirror and the direct experience of other moving entities in the world. This is a first level of self-world differentiation: a differentiated self is expressed.

Beyond the differentiation of the uniqueness of self-produced movements seen on the surface of the mirror, the individual now is capable of systematically exploring the intermodal link between seen movements on the mirror surface and what is perceived of the own body proprioceptively. In other words, individuals now go beyond the awareness of matched surface characteristics of seen and felt movements. They also explore how the experience of their own body relates to the specular image, an image that is out there, projecting back at them what they feel from within. As compared to the preceding level, this can be viewed as first signs of a contemplative stance toward the specular image, a sort of proto-narcissistic stage guided by self-exploration on a projected surface. At this level, there is no confusion. The individual is aware that what is seen on the mirror is unique to the self. In addition, the individual is also aware that what is seen is “out there,” on a surface that is spatially situated in relation to the body: a situated self is expressed.

At this level, the individual manifests recognition, the fact that what is in the mirror is “Me,” not another individual staring and shadowing the self. There is more than differentiation and situation of self in relation to the specular image. This level is expressed when children refer explicitly to the self while exploring their own specular image. As illustrated in Fig. 2, in the case of the “Post-It” sticker surreptitiously placed on the child’s forehead prior to mirror exposure, the child discovers it in the mirror and reaches for it for touch or removal. This behavior is typically considered by developmental psychologists as the index of an emerging conceptual self (Lewis & Brooks-Gunn, 1979; Bertenthal & Fisher, 1978; Rochat, 1995), but also as a major cognitive landmark by evolutionary psychologists (Gallup, 1982; Povinelli, 1993). At this level, the individual is capable of referring the specular image to the own body, the latter being the referent of what is seen in the mirror. There is an identity relation between the self as experienced from within and what is displayed on the polished surface of the mirror: an identified self is expressed.

The self is identified beyond the here and now of mirror experience. It can be identified in pictures and movies taken in the past, where the self might be significantly younger, at a different location and dressed in different cloths. In other words, the identification of the self is not tied to the temporal simultaneity and spatial coincidence of the body and its reflection whether in live videos or specular images. The individual manifests a sense of self that perdures the immediacy of mirror experience. A permanent self is expressed: an entity that is represented as invariant over time and appearance changes.

The self is now recognized not only from a first person perspective, but also from a third person’s. Individuals are not only aware of what they are but how they are in the mind of others: How they present themselves to the public eye (Goffman, 1959). The public outlook on the self is simulated for further evaluation of how one is perceived and valued by others. The result of this evaluation, more often than not is either a devaluation or a delusion, linked to so-called “self-conscious” emotions or attitudes such as pride or shame. A self-conscious self is expressed: an entity that is simulated and projected in the mind of others.