The self III: Self-presentation Flashcards
self-presentation tactics
“People have an ongoing interest in how others perceive and evaluate them…Political candidates are packaged for the public’s consumption like automobiles or breakfast cereals…Even in relatively mundane encounters at home, work, school, and elsewhere, people monitor others’ reactions to them and often try to convey images of themselves that promote their attainment of desired goals.”
- (Leary & Kowalski, 1990)
self-presentation and impression management
Both terms refer to the process via which individuals try to control impressions others form of them
Can the terms be used interchangeably? Some debate, but we will do so here
What factors affect how we self-present to others?
Could be lots, we will focus on two (following Leary & Kowalski, 1990).
components of impression management (Leary and Kowalski, 1990)
A. Impression motivation: “the desire to create particular impressions in others’ minds” (which may or may not result in actions to achieve these)
B. Impression construction: “once motivated to create certain impressions, people may alter their behaviours to affect others’ impressions of them”
A. impression motivation
Although we are concerned about how we come across, we don’t always strive to create a certain impression
Situational and dispositional factors interact to determine how much attention people pay to how they come across to others
levels of impression monitoring
At one extreme – people have no clue about others’ reactions to them
And then…others who have acute public self-awareness (obsessed with how they come across)
But most of the time, we fall somewhere in between…
We process others’ reactions at a pre-attentive or nonconscious level - don’t realise were doing self-presentation techniques – explain how we are or not aware of what we’re doing
primary self-presentational motives
“At the most general level, the motive to engage in impression management springs from the same motivational source as all behaviour, namely to maximise expected rewards and minimise expected punishments” (Leary & Kowalski, 1990)
3 ways in which self-presentational strategies may help promote well-being
Social and material outcomes
Self-esteem maintenance – others reactions can raise or lower esteem – want self-esteem enhancing feedback – can be affected by own self-evaluations – meta-thinking perspective
Development of identity – e.g. student identity – maintain identity that fit with roles we have in world
antecedents of impression motivation
Goal relevance of impressions – influenced by; degree to which behav occurring in public setting, outcome dependency, anticipated future interaction
Value of desired goals – desperation increases desire to self-present in certain way – scare resources – qualities of the other person – power, high status, physically attractive - BUT indv diffs
Discrepancy between desired and current image - bring back sense within framework perceived to be true to ourselves – e.g. failure – stress pos attributes, align ourselves with successful people, self-serving attributions for failure
B. impression construction
determinants:
intrapersonal
interpersonal
intrapersonal determinants
Self-concept
Desired and undesired identity images
Overall, public impressions reflect an interplay between self-concept and desired/undesired identity images
interpersonal determinants
Role constraints
Target values
Current or potential social image
self-concept
Some things about us we value and are proud to show off (and that is how we think we are) - Cherry picking stuff that is true and downplaying stuff that isn’t true – try and stay within latitude of acceptance
We don’t generally try to be someone completely different (can’t pull it off!)
Most people have internalised ethic about lying (self-distortions are not too extreme)
desired/undesired identity images
We tend to convey impressions biased in direction of desired identities
We may claim attributes that fit, and try to behave in line
role constraints
some roles require certain kinds of behaviour (nun, people in power)
Harry and Meghan
not what normally happens
target values
we are influenced by key others (match their values/preferences)
