Self-Presentation (Midterm #2) Flashcards
Self-Presentation
Any behaviour made with the intention of influencing how other people see you. The process of constructing and maintaining a desired reputation.
Self-presentation tends to be automatic not strategic
Follows behavioural scripts/habits that have been frequently rewarded in the past. (E.g. smiling and listening attentively because these have led to past approval). More likely with people we’re familiar with and who know us well.
Self-presentation is sometimes more controlled
i.e. more self-conscious and focused on the impression we’re creating, including planning and rehearsing the self-presentation. More likely when the audience is important and we’re uncertain bout the impression we’re creating (e.g. job interview or date).
Self-Presentation Stems from desire to be Liked
Self-presentation is often motivated by the desire to be liked by others. Rooted in evolution: A good reputation increases one’s chances of survival and reproduction. In modern times, a good reputation is also essential for smooth and successful social functioning. Leads to pervasive socially desirable behaviour.
Public vs Private Self
Lab studies consistently demonstrate that people behave in more socially desirable ways in public vs. private. In public, people are: more generous and helpful when others are watching, conform more and accept more influence from others, work harder when watched.
The Pains of Avoiding a Bad Impression Study (Vonasch et al., 2018)
Study: How far will people go to avoid a bad reputation? Method: Recruited non-Black students. Participants informed that the university is studying implicit racism in students. Completed IAT as measure of implicit racism. Get fake feedback that they got a score showing that they are highly racist. Given a choice to endure pain instead of broadcasting IAT score to university community. What do they choose?
The Pains of Avoiding a Bad Impression Study (Vonasch et al., 2018) - Results
63% of participants chose to endure pain instead of sharing IAT score.
The Pains of Avoiding a Bad Impression Study (Vonasch et al., 2018) - Follow-up Study
30% of students chose to hold their hand in a bucket of worms for 1 min rather than broadcast high racism score. Suggests that people have a strong desire to maintain a moral reputation and will go to great lengths to avoid a bad reputation.
Self-Enhancement Moderated on Audience
In order to be liked, self-presentation is usually self-enhancing. But, the extent to which we are self-enhancing in self-presentations depends on the audience. With strangers, we are generally more self-enhancing (job interview or date). With close others (e.g. friends) we are generally more modest and more willing to self-present a less perfect image.
Self-presentation adjusted to please the audience
We conform our behaviour to what we think others expect and want from us. What is likeable and appropriate depends on the audience. E.g. pretending to like the same band as your crush. Can lead to self-presenting in a negative way.
Dumbing down to be liked study (Zanna & Pack, 1975)
Study: Do women minimize their competence in order to create positive impressions? Method: Female students at Princeton University. Pre-test questionnaire: agree/disagree with traditional female stereotypic traits. 3 weeks later “Impression formation study”: Male interaction partner will form impression based on info female participant provides. Meet interaction partner to determine accuracy of impression. Manipulated perceptions of the man as: traditional/untraditional and attractive/unattractive. Participants then completed the following as part of info that partner will see: “Intelligence test”: Anagram task & Same pre-study questionnaire about traditional values given 3 weeks ago.
Dumbing down to be liked study (Zanna & Pack, 1975) - Results
If man was unattractive, didn’t affect performance on intelligence test. If the man was attractive, women conformed intellect performance to what they thought the man would like. If man was unattractive, no change in self-descriptions. If attractive, women changed self-descriptions to conform to what they thought the man liked.
Implications of Dumbing down to be liked study
Evidence that we conform our self-presentations to what we think our interaction partner will like. BUT this desire to be liked can lead us to self-present in a negative, problematic way if we believe this will please the audience (E.g. minimize competence if the audience values less competence, present in an inauthentic way that conflicts with identity and important values).
The Dark Side of Self-Presentation
Research indicates that our desire to be liked by others can lead us to self-present in ways that are unhealthy and detrimental: Smoking and substance abuse, malnutrition and eating disorders, plastic surgery…etc
Taking a Risk for a Good Impression Study (Ronay & von Hippel, 2010)
Study: Does the desire to come across as attractive lead to greater risk-taking? Method: 96 heterosexual male skateboarders. In front of a male experiments, instructed to perform 10 tricks with a. mix of easy and difficult tricks. Experimental manipulation: Male experimenter: Perform the tricks again in front of the male experimenter. Female experimenter: Perform the tricks again in front of an attractive female experimenter. Coded tricks: Successful trick, crash landing (failed): indicator of high risk-taking.
Taking a Risk for a Good Impression Study (Ronay & von Hippel, 2010) - Results
Participants had more successful tricks when performing in front of the female experimenter, but also performed more risky tricks and had more crash landings. Suggests that the desire to impress the female experimenter led to more risk-taking and therefore more accidents.
Ways that Self-Presentation Backfires
When our attempts to get others to like us actually creates a negative impression.
1. Too obvious: If it becomes clear that we’re doing things mainly to be liked, they are less effective.
2. Come across as bragging: Bragging is interpreted as a negative judgment about others, including the listener.
3. Behaviour doesn’t match claims: Leads to perception of being unreliable and untrustworthy.
Self-Presentation to Achieve Other Goals
Self-presentation, whether positive or negative, can also be motivated by other goals. E.g. Come across in an intimidating way to install fear in others to get them to do what you want. E.g. Self-present as a weak and helpless to get others to take care of you. E.g. Assert important identity even if it interferes with the being liked (consistent with self-verification).
Characteristic of Desirable Self-Presentations
Beneficial: The actor views it as facilitating their goals. Believable: The self-presentation can be credibly presented and defended to the audience.
Believability of Self-Presentations
In general, people are pretty good at creating believable self-presentations (E.g. when instructed to behave in an introverted or extrovert way, people are able to convince onlookers that they actually have these characteristics, regardless of whether they really do). In general, onlookers are bad at detecting deception: Even in close relationships, even people who we think should be experienced lie detectors like police officers, psychologists, judges.
Importance of Consistency
Self-presentation produces obligations for people to follow through on who they say are in the long-run: If don’t live up to self-presentation, will be seen as unreliable, untrustworthy, and/or incompetent. Highlights that a good reputation matters more than a good impression. People that are seen as inconsistent tend to be less liked.
Creating a Believable Impression Study (Schlenker, 1975)
Study: How positive of an impression to convey in order to ensure believability? Method: Participants led to believe that they would participate in a group on a social intelligence task. Experimental manipulation: Performance on group task will be public to the group, or performance on task is anonymous. Give a pre-test to assess their individual social intelligence and give bogus feedback (experimental manipulation). Success: Told that they’re either very socially intelligent. Failure: Told that they’re not very socially intelligent. Before the group task, participants exchanged personal information with each other (opportunity to self-present).
Creating a Believable Impression Study (Schlenker, 1975) - Results
Self-presentation depends on whether others can verify the claims or not. Under anonymous conditions, self-presentation was self-enhancing regardless of actual performance (claims cannot be verified). Under public conditions, self-presentation consistent with actual performance (claims can be verified).
Creating a Believable Impression Study (Schlenker, 1975) - Implications
We present ourselves as positively as we can get away with. If information contradictory to claims can be hidden, people tend to be self-enhancing. If contradiction will be public, people self-present more accurately to ensure consistency between claims and behaviour: E.g. better to set realistic expectations in work setting so that boss doesn’t have expectations of you that you can’t meet.
What if you already have a bad reputation?
Because we want to be liked by other, a bad reputation triggers a desire to repair our image (but this is difficult to do with words alone). So, to compensate for a bad reputation, people tend to highlight their positive qualities that are unrelated to the bad reputation (Can’t erase bad image so try to salvage the other’s overall impression of us).
Individual Differences in Self-Presentation Study (Schlenker & Weigold, 1990)
Self-monitoring: a personality trait that reflects the extent to which people monitor their self-presentations: Assumption that high self-monitors care more about creating a good impression and thus try to come cross as likeable and conform more to others’ expectations. But, evidence that low self-monitors are also seeking to create a particular impression: Care less about being liable. Rather, trying to create impression of being independent, autonomous, and/or unique.
Revolution in Self-Presentation
Social media facilitates self-presentation: More control over public image. Don’t have to worry about building reputation one person at a time. Arguably social acceptance is more over online than in real life (E.g. likes, positive comments, followers. Norm on social media is to express positive views of people we follow, but not criticisms. Social media also renders self-presentation more anxiety-provoking: With more control, comes more potential to be perfectionistic. Self-presentations, whether good or bad, are perceived by a larger audience and are more permanent than in real-life. More likely to receive criticism front strangers than in real-life.
Moving Target Problem
Difficult to study social media since it’s constantly changing: Most research into social media use investigates Facebook use. Social media takes many forms so hard to know if effects can be generalized to all platforms or are restricted to just one.
Do social media profiles reflect the “real” us?
Idealized virtual reality hypothesis: profiles display idealized characteristics that do not reflect who we really are. Extended real-life hypothesis: people use social media to communicate their real personalities.
Measuring Accuracy of Social Media Profiles
First have to quantify what is someone’s “real” personality: either with self-reports or ask close others/loved ones to self report. Then compare this to the person’s online personality: According to coders that look at participant’s Facebook page, then take the average of coders’ ratings. Accuracy = extent to which coders’ ratings match the participant’s “real” personality. Higher correlation between the two indicates that Facebook personality accurately reflects real personality.
Evidence of Extended Real-Life Hypothesis
Overall, research shows a positive correlation between people’s self-reports/close others’ reports of their personalities and coders’ ratings of their personality.
How is personality detected from online profiles?
Offline, accurate personality perception depends on: A target making relevant cues of their personality available, a perceiver detecting and using these cues to infer personality. Online personality perception functions the same way: Personality cues = individual differences in how social media is used.
Personality and Facebook Use: High extraversion
High extraversion associated with: Expressiveness in profile picture and other photos. More Facebook friends. More posts about current activities.
Personality and Facebook Use: High openness
High openness associated with: Posts about left-wing politics. Creative picture. Posts about cultural interests
Personality and Facebook Use: High neuroticism associated with
Fewer positive posts and pictures. Spend more time on social media, but more likely to use it passively.
Moderators of Online Personality Accuracy: Visibility of Trait
Some traits are easier to detect by perceivers (E.g. extraversion is more visible than neuroticism). Visible traits are judged more accurately than less visible traits (extraversion perceived most accurately, neuroticism perceived least accurately.
Personality and Facebook Use: Extend of activity on social media
People that are less active (e.g. post less, change their profile photo less often) are expressing fewer cues. Leads to their personality being judged less accurately.
Algorithm personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans
Algorithm analyzed Facebook likes of 7000 participants and used this to make personality judgments (Compared to participants’ self-report). Algorithm’s judgment of individual’s personality based on Facebook profiles was more accurate than friends’ and family’s judgments of individual’s personality.
Accuracy of Insta Personality Study (Osterholz et al., 2022)
Method: 102 Instagram users self-reported on personality and had a close other also report on the user’s personality. Profiles rated on Big Five by 100 perceivers. Results: Perceivers’ judgments converged significantly with Instagram users’ personality self-reports and close others’ reports: Highest positive correlation for extraversion and openness. No correlation between self-reported agreeableness and conscientious.
More social media use associated with
Weaker social interactions, lower self-esteem, lower life satisfaction, more anxiety, increased loneliness and depression, increased envy.
But also: more feelings connection with others, higher self-esteem, more social involvement, more social support.
Meta-Analyses on social media use (Appel et al., 2019)
Evidence shows no significant link between amount of social media use and : self-esteem, depression, loneliness, academic achievement.
Passive vs. Active use of Facebook
Passive use: Associated with decreased well-being decreased well-being (E.g. scrolling through your news feed. Leads to more social comparisons and more feelings of envy.
Active use: Associated with increased well-being. (E.g., posting status updates, sharing links, commenting on friends’ photos). Leads to greater social capital and feelings of connection.
People tend to use Facebook more passively than actively.
Problem of Generalizability
Most studies focus on Facebook. These conclusions don’t necessarily generalize to other platforms.
Instagram and Well-being (Depression, Body image)
No consistent relationship between instagram use and anxiety or general life satisfaction. Depression: Passive use predicts more symptoms of depression over time. Symptoms of depression also predict more Instagram use. Body Image: Consuming and posting “fitspiration” content associated with more negative body image and disordered eating.
