Communication and Perception
Read this chapter, which explains that interpretation is the part of the perception process in which we assign meaning to our experiences using mental structures known as schemata. Our previous knowledge and experience help us make sense of the perceptual cues around us. The perception process affects our communication because we respond to stimuli differently based on how we perceive them. Take time to review the questions at the end of each section.
Perceiving and Presenting Self
Learning Objectives
- Define self-concept and discuss how we develop our self-concept.
- Define self-esteem and discuss how we develop self-esteem.
- Explain how social comparison theory and self-discrepancy theory influence self-perception.
- Discuss how social norms, family, culture, and media influence self-perception.
- Define self-presentation and discuss common self-presentation strategies.
Just
as our perception of others affects how we communicate, so does our
perception of ourselves. But what influences our self-perception? How
much of our self is a product of our own making and how much of it is
constructed based on how others react to us? How do we present ourselves
to others in ways that maintain our sense of self or challenge how
others see us? We will begin to answer these questions in this section
as we explore self-concept, self-esteem, and self-presentation.
Self-Concept
Self-concept
refers to the overall idea of who a person thinks he or she is. If I
said, "Tell me who you are," your answers would be clues as to how you
see yourself, your self-concept. Each person has an overall self-concept
that might be encapsulated in a short list of overarching
characteristics that he or she finds important. But each person's
self-concept is also influenced by context, meaning we think differently
about ourselves depending on the situation we are in. In some
situations, personal characteristics, such as our abilities,
personality, and other distinguishing features, will best describe who
we are. You might consider yourself laid back, traditional, funny, open
minded, or driven, or you might label yourself a leader or a thrill
seeker. In other situations, our self-concept may be tied to group or
cultural membership. For example, you might consider yourself a member
of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, a Southerner, or a member of the
track team.
Men are more likely than women to include group memberships in their self-concept descriptions.
Our self-concept is also formed through our interactions with others and their reactions to us. The concept of the looking glass self explains that we see ourselves reflected in other people's reactions to us and then form our self-concept based on how we believe other people see us. This reflective process of building our self-concept is based on what other people have actually said, such as "You're a good listener," and other people's actions, such as coming to you for advice. These thoughts evoke emotional responses that feed into our self-concept. For example, you may think, "I'm glad that people can count on me to listen to their problems".
We also develop our self-concept through comparisons to other people. Social comparison theory states that we describe and evaluate ourselves in terms of how we compare to other people. Social comparisons are based on two dimensions: superiority/inferiority and similarity/difference. In terms of superiority and inferiority, we evaluate characteristics like attractiveness, intelligence, athletic ability, and so on. For example, you may judge yourself to be more intelligent than your brother or less athletic than your best friend, and these judgments are incorporated into your self-concept. This process of comparison and evaluation isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can have negative consequences if our reference group isn't appropriate. Reference groups are the groups we use for social comparison, and they typically change based on what we are evaluating. In terms of athletic ability, many people choose unreasonable reference groups with which to engage in social comparison. If a man wants to get into better shape and starts an exercise routine, he may be discouraged by his difficulty keeping up with the aerobics instructor or running partner and judge himself as inferior, which could negatively affect his self-concept. Using as a reference group people who have only recently started a fitness program but have shown progress could help maintain a more accurate and hopefully positive self-concept.
We also engage in social comparison based on similarity and difference. Since self-concept is context specific, similarity may be desirable in some situations and difference more desirable in others. Factors like age and personality may influence whether or not we want to fit in or stand out. Although we compare ourselves to others throughout our lives, adolescent and teen years usually bring new pressure to be similar to or different from particular reference groups. Think of all the cliques in high school and how people voluntarily and involuntarily broke off into groups based on popularity, interest, culture, or grade level. Some kids in your high school probably wanted to fit in with and be similar to other people in the marching band but be different from the football players. Conversely, athletes were probably more apt to compare themselves, in terms of similar athletic ability, to other athletes rather than kids in show choir. But social comparison can be complicated by perceptual influences. As we learned earlier, we organize information based on similarity and difference, but these patterns don't always hold true. Even though students involved in athletics and students involved in arts may seem very different, a dancer or singer may also be very athletic, perhaps even more so than a member of the football team. As with other aspects of perception, there are positive and negative consequences of social comparison.
We generally want to know where we fall in terms of ability and performance as compared to others, but what people do with this information and how it affects self-concept varies. Not all people feel they need to be at the top of the list, but some won't stop until they get the high score on the video game or set a new school record in a track-and-field event. Some people strive to be first chair in the clarinet section of the orchestra, while another person may be content to be second chair. The education system promotes social comparison through grades and rewards such as honor rolls and dean's lists. Although education and privacy laws prevent me from displaying each student's grade on a test or paper for the whole class to see, I do typically report the aggregate grades, meaning the total number of As, Bs, Cs, and so on. This doesn't violate anyone's privacy rights, but it allows students to see where they fell in the distribution. This type of social comparison can be used as motivation. The student who was one of only three out of twenty-three to get a D on the exam knows that most of her classmates are performing better than she is, which may lead her to think, "If they can do it, I can do it". But social comparison that isn't reasoned can have negative effects and result in negative thoughts like "Look at how bad I did. Man, I'm stupid!" These negative thoughts can lead to negative behaviors, because we try to maintain internal consistency, meaning we act in ways that match up with our self-concept. So if the student begins to question her academic abilities and then incorporates an assessment of herself as a "bad student" into her self-concept, she may then behave in ways consistent with that, which is only going to worsen her academic performance. Additionally, a student might be comforted to learn that he isn't the only person who got a D and then not feel the need to try to improve, since he has company. You can see in this example that evaluations we place on our self-concept can lead to cycles of thinking and acting. These cycles relate to self-esteem and self-efficacy, which are components of our self-concept.
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem
refers to the judgments and evaluations we make about our self-concept.
While self-concept is a broad description of the self, self-esteem is a
more specifically an evaluation of the self. If I
again prompted you to "Tell me who you are," and then asked you to
evaluate (label as good/bad, positive/negative, desirable/undesirable)
each of the things you listed about yourself, I would get clues about
your self-esteem. Like self-concept, self-esteem has general and
specific elements. Generally, some people are more likely to evaluate
themselves positively while others are more likely to evaluate
themselves negatively. More specifically, our self-esteem varies
across our life span and across contexts.
Self-esteem varies throughout our lives, but some people generally think more positively of themselves and some people think more negatively.
How we judge ourselves affects our communication and our behaviors, but not every negative or positive judgment carries the same weight. The negative evaluation of a trait that isn't very important for our self-concept will likely not result in a loss of self-esteem. For example, I am not very good at drawing. While I appreciate drawing as an art form, I don't consider drawing ability to be a very big part of my self-concept. If someone critiqued my drawing ability, my self-esteem wouldn't take a big hit. I do consider myself a good teacher, however, and I have spent and continue to spend considerable time and effort on improving my knowledge of teaching and my teaching skills. If someone critiqued my teaching knowledge and/or abilities, my self-esteem would definitely be hurt. This doesn't mean that we can't be evaluated on something we find important. Even though teaching is very important to my self-concept, I am regularly evaluated on it. Every semester, I am evaluated by my students, and every year, I am evaluated by my dean, department chair, and colleagues. Most of that feedback is in the form of constructive criticism, which can still be difficult to receive, but when taken in the spirit of self-improvement, it is valuable and may even enhance our self-concept and self-esteem. In fact, in professional contexts, people with higher self-esteem are more likely to work harder based on negative feedback, are less negatively affected by work stress, are able to handle workplace conflict better, and are better able to work independently and solve problems. Self-esteem isn't the only factor that contributes to our self-concept; perceptions about our competence also play a role in developing our sense of self.
Self-Efficacy refers to the judgments people make about their ability to perform a task within a specific context. As you can see in Figure 2.2 "Relationship between Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, and Self-Concept", judgments about our self-efficacy influence our self-esteem, which influences our self-concept. The following example also illustrates these interconnections.
Figure 2.2 Relationship between Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, and Self-Concept
Pedro
did a good job on his first college speech. During a meeting with his
professor, Pedro indicates that he is confident going into the next
speech and thinks he will do well. This skill-based assessment is an
indication that Pedro has a high level of self-efficacy related to
public speaking. If he does well on the speech, the praise from his
classmates and professor will reinforce his self-efficacy and lead him
to positively evaluate his speaking skills, which will contribute to his
self-esteem. By the end of the class, Pedro likely thinks of himself as
a good public speaker, which may then become an important part of his
self-concept. Throughout these points of connection, it's important to
remember that self-perception affects how we communicate, behave, and
perceive other things. Pedro's increased feeling of self-efficacy may
give him more confidence in his delivery, which will likely result in
positive feedback that reinforces his self-perception. He may start to
perceive his professor more positively since they share an interest in
public speaking, and he may begin to notice other people's speaking
skills more during class presentations and public lectures. Over time,
he may even start to think about changing his major to communication or
pursuing career options that incorporate public speaking, which would
further integrate being "a good public speaker" into his self-concept.
You can hopefully see that these interconnections can create powerful
positive or negative cycles. While some of this process is under our
control, much of it is also shaped by the people in our lives.
The
verbal and nonverbal feedback we get from people affect our feelings of
self-efficacy and our self-esteem. As we saw in Pedro's example, being
given positive feedback can increase our self-efficacy, which may make
us more likely to engage in a similar task in the future. Obviously, negative feedback can lead to
decreased self-efficacy and a declining interest in engaging with the
activity again. In general, people adjust their expectations about their
abilities based on feedback they get from others. Positive feedback
tends to make people raise their expectations for themselves and
negative feedback does the opposite, which ultimately affects behaviors
and creates the cycle. When feedback from others is different from how
we view ourselves, additional cycles may develop that impact self-esteem
and self-concept.
Self-discrepancy theory states that people
have beliefs about and expectations for their actual and potential
selves that do not always match up with what they actually experience. To understand this
theory, we have to understand the different "selves" that make up our
self-concept, which are the actual, ideal, and ought selves. The actual
self consists of the attributes that you or someone else believes you
actually possess. The ideal self consists of the attributes that you or
someone else would like you to possess. The ought self consists of the
attributes you or someone else believes you should possess.
These
different selves can conflict with each other in various combinations.
Discrepancies between the actual and ideal/ought selves can be
motivating in some ways and prompt people to act for self-improvement.
For example, if your ought self should volunteer more for the local
animal shelter, then your actual self may be more inclined to do so.
Discrepancies between the ideal and ought selves can be especially
stressful. For example, many professional women who are also mothers
have an ideal view of self that includes professional success and
advancement. They may also have an ought self that includes a sense of
duty and obligation to be a full-time mother. The actual self may be
someone who does OK at both but doesn't quite live up to the
expectations of either. These discrepancies do not just create cognitive
unease - they also lead to emotional, behavioral, and communicative
changes.
People who feel that it's their duty to recycle but do not actually do it will likely experience a discrepancy between their actual and ought selves.
When we compare the actual self to the expectations of ourselves and others, we can see particular patterns of emotional and behavioral effects. When our actual self doesn't match up with our own ideals of self, we are not obtaining our own desires and hopes, which can lead to feelings of dejection including disappointment, dissatisfaction, and frustration. For example, if your ideal self has no credit card debt and your actual self does, you may be frustrated with your lack of financial discipline and be motivated to stick to your budget and pay off your credit card bills.
When our actual self doesn't match up with other people's ideals for us, we may not be obtaining significant others' desires and hopes, which can lead to feelings of dejection including shame, embarrassment, and concern for losing the affection or approval of others. For example, if a significant other sees you as an "A" student and you get a 2.8 GPA your first year of college, then you may be embarrassed to share your grades with that person.
When our actual self doesn't match up with what we think other people think we should obtain, we are not living up to the ought self that we think others have constructed for us, which can lead to feelings of agitation, feeling threatened, and fearing potential punishment. For example, if your parents think you should follow in their footsteps and take over the family business, but your actual self wants to go into the military, then you may be unsure of what to do and fear being isolated from the family.
Finally, when our actual self doesn't match up with what we think we should obtain, we are not meeting what we see as our duties or obligations, which can lead to feelings of agitation including guilt, weakness, and a feeling that we have fallen short of our moral standard. For example, if your ought self should volunteer more for the local animal shelter, then your actual self may be more inclined to do so due to the guilt of reading about the increasing number of animals being housed at the facility. The following is a review of the four potential discrepancies between selves:
- Actual vs. own ideals. We have an overall feeling that we are not obtaining our desires and hopes, which leads to feelings of disappointment, dissatisfaction, and frustration.
- Actual vs. others' ideals. We have an overall feeling that we are not obtaining significant others' desires and hopes for us, which leads to feelings of shame and embarrassment.
- Actual vs. others' ought. We have an overall feeling that we are not meeting what others see as our duties and obligations, which leads to feelings of agitation including fear of potential punishment.
- Actual vs. own ought. We have an overall feeling that we are not meeting our duties and obligations, which can lead to a feeling that we have fallen short of our own moral standards.
Influences on Self-Perception
We have already learned that other people influence our self-concept and self-esteem. While interactions we have with individuals and groups are definitely important to consider, we must also note the influence that larger, more systemic forces have on our self-perception. Social and family influences, culture, and the media all play a role in shaping who we think we are and how we feel about ourselves. Although these are powerful socializing forces, there are ways to maintain some control over our self-perception.
Social and Family Influences
Various
forces help socialize us into our respective social and cultural groups
and play a powerful role in presenting us with options about who we can
be. While we may like to think that our self-perception starts with a
blank canvas, our perceptions are limited by our experiences and various
social and cultural contexts.
Parents and peers shape our
self-perceptions in positive and negative ways. Feedback that we get
from significant others, which includes close family, can lead to
positive views of self. In the
past few years, however, there has been a public discussion and debate
about how much positive reinforcement people should give to others,
especially children. The following questions have been raised: Do we
have current and upcoming generations that have been overpraised? Is the
praise given warranted? What are the positive and negative effects of
praise? What is the end goal of the praise? Let's briefly look at this
discussion and its connection to self-perception.
Some experts have warned that overpraising children can lead to distorted self-concepts.
Whether praise is warranted or not is very subjective and specific to each person and context, but in general there have been questions raised about the potential negative effects of too much praise. Motivation is the underlying force that drives us to do things. Sometimes we are intrinsically motivated, meaning we want to do something for the love of doing it or the resulting internal satisfaction. Other times we are extrinsically motivated, meaning we do something to receive a reward or avoid punishment. If you put effort into completing a short documentary for a class because you love filmmaking and editing, you have been largely motivated by intrinsic forces. If you complete the documentary because you want an "A" and know that if you fail your parents will not give you money for your spring break trip, then you are motivated by extrinsic factors. Both can, of course, effectively motivate us. Praise is a form of extrinsic reward, and if there is an actual reward associated with the praise, like money or special recognition, some people speculate that intrinsic motivation will suffer. But what's so good about intrinsic motivation? Intrinsic motivation is more substantial and long-lasting than extrinsic motivation and can lead to the development of a work ethic and sense of pride in one's abilities. Intrinsic motivation can move people to accomplish great things over long periods of time and be happy despite the effort and sacrifices made. Extrinsic motivation dies when the reward stops. Additionally, too much praise can lead people to have a misguided sense of their abilities. College professors who are reluctant to fail students who produce failing work may be setting those students up to be shocked when their supervisor critiques their abilities or output once they get into a professional context.
There are cultural differences in the amount of praise and positive feedback that teachers and parents give their children. For example, teachers give less positive reinforcement in Japanese and Taiwanese classrooms than do teachers in US classrooms. Chinese and Kenyan parents do not regularly praise their children because they fear it may make them too individualistic, rude, or arrogant. So the phenomenon of overpraising isn't universal, and the debate over its potential effects is not resolved.
Research has also found that communication patterns develop between parents and children that are common to many verbally and physically abusive relationships. Such patterns have negative effects on a child's self-efficacy and self-esteem. As you'll recall from our earlier discussion, attributions are links we make to identify the cause of a behavior. In the case of aggressive or abusive parents, they are not as able to distinguish between mistakes and intentional behaviors, often seeing honest mistakes as intended and reacting negatively to the child. Such parents also communicate generally negative evaluations to their child by saying, for example, "You can't do anything right!" or "You're a bad girl". When children do exhibit positive behaviors, abusive parents are more likely to use external attributions that diminish the achievement of the child by saying, for example, "You only won because the other team was off their game". In general, abusive parents have unpredictable reactions to their children's positive and negative behavior, which creates an uncertain and often scary climate for a child that can lead to lower self-esteem and erratic or aggressive behavior. The cycles of praise and blame are just two examples of how the family as a socializing force can influence our self-perceptions. Culture also influences how we see ourselves.
Culture
How
people perceive themselves varies across cultures. For example, many
cultures exhibit a phenomenon known as the self-enhancement bias,
meaning that we tend to emphasize our desirable qualities relative to
other people.
But the degree to which people engage in self-enhancement varies. A
review of many studies in this area found that people in Western
countries such as the United States were significantly more likely to
self-enhance than people in countries such as Japan. Many scholars
explain this variation using a common measure of cultural variation that
claims people in individualistic cultures are more likely to engage in
competition and openly praise accomplishments than people in
collectivistic cultures. The difference in self-enhancement has also
been tied to economics, with scholars arguing that people in countries
with greater income inequality are more likely to view themselves as
superior to others or want to be perceived as superior to others (even
if they don't have economic wealth) in order to conform to the country's
values and norms. This holds true because countries with high levels of
economic inequality, like the United States, typically value
competition and the right to boast about winning or succeeding, while
countries with more economic equality, like Japan, have a cultural norm
of modesty.
Race
also plays a role in self-perception. For example, positive self-esteem
and self-efficacy tend to be higher in African American adolescent
girls than Caucasian girls. In fact, more recent studies have discounted much of the
early research on race and self-esteem that purported that African
Americans of all ages have lower self-esteem than whites.
Self-perception becomes more complex when we consider biracial
individuals - more specifically those born to couples comprising an
African American and a white parent. In such cases, it is
challenging for biracial individuals to embrace both of their heritages,
and social comparison becomes more difficult due to diverse and
sometimes conflicting reference groups. Since many biracial individuals
identify as and are considered African American by society, living and
working within a black community can help foster more positive
self-perceptions in these biracial individuals. Such a community offers a
more nurturing environment and a buffer zone from racist attitudes but
simultaneously distances biracial individuals from their white identity.
Conversely, immersion into a predominantly white community and
separation from a black community can lead biracial individuals to
internalize negative views of people of color and perhaps develop a
sense of inferiority. Gender intersects with culture and biracial
identity to create different experiences and challenges for biracial men
and women. Biracial men have more difficulty accepting their potential
occupational limits, especially if they have white fathers, and biracial
women have difficulty accepting their black features, such as hair and
facial features. All these challenges lead to a sense of being
marginalized from both ethnic groups and interfere in the development of
positive self-esteem and a stable self-concept.
Biracial individuals may have challenges with self-perception as they try to integrate both racial identities into their self-concept.
There are some general differences in terms of gender and self-perception that relate to self-concept, self-efficacy, and envisioning ideal selves. As with any cultural differences, these are generalizations that have been supported by research, but they do not represent all individuals within a group. Regarding self-concept, men are more likely to describe themselves in terms of their group membership, and women are more likely to include references to relationships in their self-descriptions. For example, a man may note that he is a Tarheel fan, a boat enthusiast, or a member of the Rotary Club, and a woman may note that she is a mother of two or a loyal friend.
Regarding self-efficacy, men tend to have higher perceptions of self-efficacy than women. In terms of actual and ideal selves, men and women in a variety of countries both described their ideal self as more masculine. As was noted earlier, gender differences are interesting to study but are very often exaggerated beyond the actual variations. Socialization and internalization of societal norms for gender differences accounts for much more of our perceived differences than do innate or natural differences between genders. These gender norms may be explicitly stated - for example, a mother may say to her son, "Boys don't play with dolls" - or they may be more implicit, with girls being encouraged to pursue historically feminine professions like teaching or nursing without others actually stating the expectation.
Media
The
representations we see in the media affect our self-perception. The vast
majority of media images include idealized representations of
attractiveness. Despite the fact that the images of people we see in
glossy magazines and on movie screens are not typically what we see when
we look at the people around us in a classroom, at work, or at the
grocery store, many of us continue to hold ourselves to an unrealistic
standard of beauty and attractiveness. Movies, magazines, and television
shows are filled with beautiful people, and less attractive actors,
when they are present in the media, are typically portrayed as the butt
of jokes, villains, or only as background extras. Aside from overall attractiveness, the media also
offers narrow representations of acceptable body weight.
Researchers
have found that only 12 percent of prime-time characters are
overweight, which is dramatically less than the national statistics for
obesity among the actual US population. Further, an analysis of how weight is discussed on prime-time
sitcoms found that heavier female characters were often the targets of
negative comments and jokes that audience members responded to with
laughter. Conversely, positive comments about women's bodies were
related to their thinness. In short, the heavier the character, the more
negative the comments, and the thinner the character, the more positive
the comments. The same researchers analyzed sitcoms for content
regarding male characters' weight and found that although comments
regarding their weight were made, they were fewer in number and not as
negative, ultimately supporting the notion that overweight male
characters are more accepted in media than overweight female characters.
Much more attention has been paid in recent years to the potential
negative effects of such narrow media representations. The following
"Getting Critical" box explores the role of media in the construction of
body image.
In terms of self-concept, media representations
offer us guidance on what is acceptable or unacceptable and valued or
not valued in our society. Mediated messages, in general, reinforce
cultural stereotypes related to race, gender, age, sexual orientation,
ability, and class. People from historically marginalized groups must
look much harder than those in the dominant groups to find positive
representations of their identities in media. As a critical thinker, it
is important to question media messages and to examine who is included
and who is excluded.
Advertising in particular encourages people
to engage in social comparison, regularly communicating to us that we
are inferior because we lack a certain product or that we need to change
some aspect of our life to keep up with and be similar to others. For
example, for many years advertising targeted to women instilled in them a
fear of having a dirty house, selling them products that promised to
keep their house clean, make their family happy, and impress their
friends and neighbors. Now messages tell us to fear becoming old or
unattractive, selling products to keep our skin tight and clear, which
will in turn make us happy and popular.
"Getting Critical"
Body Image and Self-Perception
Take
a look at any magazine, television show, or movie and you will most
likely see very beautiful people. When you look around you in your daily
life, there are likely not as many glamorous and gorgeous people.
Scholars and media critics have critiqued this discrepancy for decades
because it has contributed to many social issues and public health
issues ranging from body dysmorphic disorder, to eating disorders, to
lowered self-esteem.
Much of the media is driven by advertising,
and the business of media has been to perpetuate a "culture of
lack". This means that we are constantly
told, via mediated images, that we lack something. In short,
advertisements often tell us we don't have enough money, enough beauty,
or enough material possessions. Over the past few decades, women's
bodies in the media have gotten smaller and thinner, while men's bodies
have gotten bigger and more muscular. At the same time, the US
population has become dramatically more obese. As research shows that
men and women are becoming more and more dissatisfied with their bodies,
which ultimately affects their self-concept and self-esteem, health and
beauty product lines proliferate and cosmetic surgeries and other types
of enhancements become more and more popular. From young children to
older adults, people are becoming more aware of and oftentimes unhappy
with their bodies, which results in a variety of self-perception
problems.
- How do you think the media influences your self-perception and body image?
- Describe the typical man that is portrayed in the media. Describe the typical woman that is portrayed in the media. What impressions do these typical bodies make on others? What are the potential positive and negative effects of the way the media portrays the human body?
- Find an example of an "atypical" body represented in the media (a magazine, TV show, or movie). Is this person presented in a positive, negative, or neutral way? Why do you think this person was chosen?
Self-Presentation
How
we perceive ourselves manifests in how we present ourselves to others.
Self-presentation is the process of strategically concealing or
revealing personal information in order to influence others'
perceptions. We engage in this process daily and for different reasons.
Although people occasionally intentionally deceive others in the process
of self-presentation, in general we try to make a good impression while
still remaining authentic. Since self-presentation helps meet our
instrumental, relational, and identity needs, we stand to lose quite a
bit if we are caught intentionally misrepresenting ourselves. In May of
2012, Yahoo!'s CEO resigned after it became known that he stated on
official documents that he had two college degrees when he actually only
had one. In a similar incident, a woman who had long served as the dean
of admissions for the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology
was dismissed from her position after it was learned that she had only
attended one year of college and had falsely indicated she had a
bachelor's and master's degree. Such incidents clearly show that although people can get away with such
false self-presentation for a while, the eventual consequences of being
found out are dire. As communicators, we sometimes engage in more
subtle forms of inauthentic self-presentation. For example, a person may
state or imply that they know more about a subject or situation than
they actually do in order to seem smart or "in the loop". During a
speech, a speaker works on a polished and competent delivery to distract
from a lack of substantive content. These cases of strategic
self-presentation may not ever be found out, but communicators should
still avoid them as they do not live up to the standards of ethical
communication.
Consciously and competently engaging in
self-presentation can have benefits because we can provide others with a
more positive and accurate picture of who we are. People who are
skilled at impression management are typically more engaging and
confident, which allows others to pick up on more cues from which to
form impressions. Being a skilled self-presenter draws on many of the
practices used by competent communicators, including becoming a higher
self-monitor. When self-presentation skills and self-monitoring skills
combine, communicators can simultaneously monitor their own expressions,
the reaction of others, and the situational and social context. Sometimes people get help with their self-presentation.
Although most people can't afford or wouldn't think of hiring an image
consultant, some people have started generously donating their
self-presentation expertise to help others. Many people who have been
riding the tough job market for a year or more get discouraged and may
consider giving up on their job search. Now a project called "Style Me
Hired" has started offering free makeovers to jobless people in order to
offer them new motivation and help them make favorable impressions and
hopefully get a job offer".
People who have been out of work for a while may have difficulty finding the motivation to engage in the self-presentation behaviors needed to form favorable impressions.
There are two main types of self-presentation: prosocial and self-serving. Prosocial self-presentation entails behaviors that present a person as a role model and make a person more likable and attractive. For example, a supervisor may call on her employees to uphold high standards for business ethics, model that behavior in her own actions, and compliment others when they exemplify those standards. Self-serving self-presentation entails behaviors that present a person as highly skilled, willing to challenge others, and someone not to be messed with. For example, a supervisor may publicly take credit for the accomplishments of others or publicly critique an employee who failed to meet a particular standard. In summary, prosocial strategies are aimed at benefiting others, while self-serving strategies benefit the self at the expense of others.
In general, we strive to present a public image that matches up with our self-concept, but we can also use self-presentation strategies to enhance our self-concept. When we present ourselves in order to evoke a positive evaluative response, we are engaging in self-enhancement. In the pursuit of self-enhancement, a person might try to be as appealing as possible in a particular area or with a particular person to gain feedback that will enhance one's self-esteem. For example, a singer might train and practice for weeks before singing in front of a well-respected vocal coach but not invest as much effort in preparing to sing in front of friends. Although positive feedback from friends is beneficial, positive feedback from an experienced singer could enhance a person's self-concept. Self-enhancement can be productive and achieved competently, or it can be used inappropriately. Using self-enhancement behaviors just to gain the approval of others or out of self-centeredness may lead people to communicate in ways that are perceived as phony or overbearing and end up making an unfavorable impression.
"Getting Plugged In"
Self-Presentation Online: Social Media, Digital Trails, and Your Reputation
Although
social networking has long been a way to keep in touch with friends and
colleagues, the advent of social media has made the process of making
connections and those all-important first impressions much more complex.
Just looking at Facebook as an example, we can clearly see that the
very acts of constructing a profile, posting status updates, "liking"
certain things, and sharing various information via Facebook features
and apps is self-presentation.
People also form impressions based on the number of friends we have and
the photos and posts that other people tag us in. All this information
floating around can be difficult to manage. So how do we manage the
impressions we make digitally given that there is a permanent record?
Research
shows that people overall engage in positive and honest
self-presentation on Facebook. Since people know how visible the information they post is, they may
choose to only reveal things they think will form favorable impressions.
But the mediated nature of Facebook also leads some people to disclose
more personal information than they might otherwise in such a public or
semipublic forum. These hyperpersonal disclosures run the risk of
forming negative impressions based on who sees them. In general, the
ease of digital communication, not just on Facebook, has presented new
challenges for our self-control and information management. Sending
someone a sexually provocative image used to take some effort before the
age of digital cameras, but now "sexting" an explicit photo only takes a
few seconds. So people who would have likely not engaged in such
behavior before are more tempted to now, and it is the desire to present
oneself as desirable or cool that leads people to send photos they may
later regret.
In fact, new technology in the form of apps is trying to give people a
little more control over the exchange of digital information. An iPhone
app called "Snapchat" allows users to send photos that will only be
visible for a few seconds. Although this isn't a guaranteed safety net,
the demand for such apps is increasing, which illustrates the point that
we all now leave digital trails of information that can be useful in
terms of our self-presentation but can also create new challenges in
terms of managing the information floating around from which others may
form impressions of us.
- What impressions do you want people to form of you based on the information they can see on your Facebook page?
- Have you ever used social media or the Internet to do "research" on a person? What things would you find favorable and unfavorable?
- Do you have any guidelines you follow regarding what information about yourself you will put online or not? If so, what are they? If not, why?
Key Takeaways
- Our self-concept is the overall idea of who we think we are. It is developed through our interactions with others and through social comparison that allows us to compare our beliefs and behaviors to others.
- Our self-esteem is based on the evaluations and judgments we make about various characteristics of our self-concept. It is developed through an assessment and evaluation of our various skills and abilities, known as self-efficacy, and through a comparison and evaluation of who we are, who we would like to be, and who we should be (self-discrepancy theory).
- Social comparison theory and self-discrepancy theory affect our self-concept and self-esteem because through comparison with others and comparison of our actual, ideal, and ought selves we make judgments about who we are and our self-worth. These judgments then affect how we communicate and behave.
- Socializing forces like family, culture, and media affect our self-perception because they give us feedback on who we are. This feedback can be evaluated positively or negatively and can lead to positive or negative patterns that influence our self-perception and then our communication.
- Self-presentation refers to the process of strategically concealing and/or revealing personal information in order to influence others' perceptions. Prosocial self-presentation is intended to benefit others and self-serving self-presentation is intended to benefit the self at the expense of others. People also engage in self-enhancement, which is a self-presentation strategy by which people intentionally seek out positive evaluations.
Exercises
-
Make a list of characteristics that describe who you are (your
self-concept). After looking at the list, see if you can come up with a
few words that summarize the list to narrow in on the key features of
your self-concept. Go back over the first list and evaluate each
characteristic, for example noting whether it is something you do
well/poorly, something that is good/bad, positive/negative,
desirable/undesirable. Is the overall list more positive or more
negative? After doing these exercises, what have you learned about your
self-concept and self-esteem?
- Discuss at least one time in which
you had a discrepancy or tension between two of the three selves
described by self-discrepancy theory (the actual, ideal, and ought
selves). What effect did this discrepancy have on your self-concept
and/or self-esteem?
- Take one of the socializing forces discussed
(family, culture, or media) and identify at least one positive and one
negative influence that it/they have had on your self-concept and/or
self-esteem.
- Getting integrated: Discuss some ways that you might
strategically engage in self-presentation to influence the impressions
of others in an academic, a professional, a personal, and a civic
context.