noun
Awareness of oneself as an object of others' observation, often with a nuance of embarrassment or awkwardness.
人前で話すとき、自意識が強くなってしまう。
When I speak in front of people, I become overly self-conscious.
彼は自意識過剰で、
He is excessively self-conscious and always worries about how others see him.
Compound of 自 (self) and 意識 (consciousness). The exact historical derivation is uncertain, but the word has been used in modern Japanese to express self-consciousness.