How medical students view their relationships with patients: The role of private and public self-consciousness

The author examined the tendencies of causal attribution and differentiation of emotion as a function of different levels of self-consciousness in a natural setting. A group of 30 Israeli students in their 4th year of medical school and 30 students in their 6th year of medical school were interviewed and completed the Self-Consciousness Scale (A. Fenigstein, M. F. Scheier, & A. H. Buss, 1975). Results showed that students who were high in public self-consciousness made more internal attributions for the desirable and undesirable development of interactions with patients. Students with higher levels of private self-consciousness made more detailed differentiations of emotions related to such interactions. These results are consistent with previous findings in research done in laboratory settings.