Cognitive style and personality traits as predictors of consciousness in university students

Consciousness may be defined as one's awareness of the environment, body, and self. Awareness of own self implies an awareness of awareness; that is, the conscious recognition that individuals are conscious beings. In other words, Awareness of oneself implies metaawareness. Awareness is the key concept in explaining consciousness. In the state of being aware, one responds to the stimuli from environment. Equating consciousness with awareness is a common sense approach to the study of consciousness. The word consciousness is originally derived from the Latin word 'con' means 'with' and 'scire' means 'to know'. Thus, "consciousness" has etymological ties to one's "ability to know and perceive" (Gennaro, 2008). In another related source, the term consciousness is derived from the Latin word 'conscientia' which means moral conscience. Conscientia also has a literary meaning 'knowledge-with' or 'shared knowledge'. Conscientia in this sense is the knowledge one acquires about the deed of someone else. According to dictionaries, consciousness can be defined as the contents of one's thoughts at a given moment. Oxford dictionary defines it as, 'the state of understanding and realizing something; while Cambridge dictionary defines as, 'awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surrounding's'; as defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary it is, 'the contents of mind,' or consciousness of wrongdoing as defined by Collins dictionary.