Willpower

will bark angrily at a mirror because they don’t realize they’re looking at themselves, and most other animals are similarly clueless when they’re subjected to a formal procedure called the mirror test. First the animal is dabbed with a spot of odorless dye, then it’s put in front of a mirror to contemplate this strange-colored spot. The test is to see whether the animal touches the spot or indicates in some other way that it realizes the spot is on its own body (such as turning the body to get a better view of the spot). Chimpanzees and the other apes can pass the test, and so can dolphins, elephants, and a few more, but most animals flunk. If they want to touch the spot, they reach for the mirror instead of their own body. Human infants also flunk this test, but by their second birthday most of them can pass it. Even if these two-year-olds didn’t notice the spot being applied, as soon as they see the mirror image they reach up to touch their own forehead, often with a startled reaction. And that’s just the beginning stage of self-awareness. Before long this trait will turn into the curse of adolescence. Somehow the carefree confidence of childhood is smothered by embarrassment and shame as teenagers become exquisitely sensitive to their own imperfections. They look in the mirror and ask the same question that psychologists have been studying for decades: Why? What’s the point of self-awareness if it makes you feel miserable?

I’m Self-aware, Therefore I . . . ?
    In the 1970s, social psychologists studying subjects in self-conscious situations began to understand why self-awareness developed in humans. The researchers who pioneered these procedures, Robert Wicklund and Shelley Duval, were initially mocked by colleagues who thought these studies quaint and not necessarily scientific. But the eventual results were too intriguing to ignore. When people were placed in front of a mirror, or told that their actions were being filmed, they consistently changed their behavior. These self-conscious people worked harder at laboratory tasks. They gave more valid answers to questionnaires (meaning that their answers jibed more closely with their actual behavior). They were more consistent in their actions, and their actions were also more consistent with their values.
    One pattern in particular stood out. A person might notice a table and think nothing more than, Oh, there’s a table. But the self was rarely noticed in such a neutral way. Whenever people focused on themselves, they seemed to compare what they saw with some sort of idea of what they should be like. A person who looked in the mirror usually didn’t stop at, Oh, that’s me . Rather, the person was more likely to think, My hair is a mess, or This shirt looks good on me, or I should remember to stand up straight , or, inevitably, Have I gained weight? Self-awareness always seemed to involve comparing the self to these ideas of what one might, or should, or could, be.
    The two psychologists came up with a word for these ideas: standards. Self-awareness involves a process of comparing yourself to standards. Initially the assumption was that the standards were usually ideals—notions of what would constitute perfection. This led to the conclusion that self-awareness would nearly always be unpleasant, because the self is never perfect. Wicklund and Duval maintained that view for several years, arguing that self-awareness is inherently unpleasant. It sounded plausible in some ways—particularly if you were trying to understand teenagers’ angst—but it seemed odd from an evolutionary standpoint. Why would our ancestors have kept holding themselves to impossible standards? What was the evolutionary advantage of feeling bad? Moreover, the notion that self-awareness is inherently unpleasant didn’t jibe with the enjoyment derived by so many nonadolescents when thinking about themselves or looking in the mirror. Further research showed that people can make themselves feel good by comparing themselves to the “average person”—who we all like to think is inferior to ourselves. We also can often get pleasure by comparing our current selves to our past selves, because we generally think we’re improving with age (even if our bodies may be the worse for wear).
    Still, even if people mostly compare themselves to easy standards that make them feel good, that doesn’t explain the evolution of human self-awareness. Nature doesn’t really care whether