Self-Presentation

As social animals, we adjust our words and actions to suit our audiences. To varying degrees, we note our performance and adjust it to create the impressions we desire. Self-serving bias, false modesty, and self-handicapping reveal the depth of our concern for self-image. To varying degrees, we are continually managing the impressions we create.

Consider: Social networking sites such as Facebook provide a new and sometimes intense venue for self-presentation. Users make careful decisions about which pictures, activities, and interests to highlight in their profiles. Some even think about how their friends will affect the impression they make on others; one study found that those with more attractive friends were perceived as more attractive themselves (Walther & others, 2008).

Self-presentation refers to our wanting to present a favorable image both to an external audience (other people) and to an internal audience (ourselves).

Our concern for self-image explains examples of false modesty, in which people put themselves down, extol future competitors, or publicly credit others while privately crediting themselves.

Sometimes people will even self-handicap (создание препятствий самому себе) with self-defeating behaviors that protect self-esteem by providing excuses for failure. In that case, people sabotage their chances for success by creating impediments that make success less likely. Far from being deliberately self-destructive, such behaviors typically have a self-protective aim (Arkin & others, 1986; Baumeister & Scher, 1988; Rhodewalt, 1987). Recall that we eagerly protect our self-images by attributing failures to external factors. Can you see why, fearing failure, people might handicap themselves by partying half the night before a job interview or playing video games instead of studying before a big exam? When self-image is tied up with performance, it can be more self-deflating to try hard and fail than to procrastinate and have a ready excuse. Handicaps protect both self-esteem and public image by allowing us to attribute failures to something temporary or external (“I was feeling sick”; “I was out too late the night before”) rather than to lack of talent or ability.

Task #1:

A. Analyze each of six influences that determine your self-concept. See example below:

Ø the roles we play: a student, a daughter, a part-time shop assistant…

Ø the social identities we form: one of two girls in a group.

Ø the comparisons we make with others: neither short nor tall, smarter than two-third of a group, the poorest in a group.

Ø our successes and failures The highest rates of ЕГЭ in her class. But, once she has got “2” mark for one of the exams and, as a result, repeating of the exam.

Ø how other people judge us: “good girl” in a class and “nice fellow” in a group.

Ø the surrounding culture: Russian

B. In a group characterize a created person (an appearance, traits of a character, etc.) and then formulate six influences that determine that person self-concept. Then, read these six influences aloud and let other groups to describe the possible appearance and traits of your created character.

Task #2 “We tend to see ourselves at center stage”:

Write the following question on a piece of paper: “What unusual can you see for me today?” Write also, please, you name and surname and give it to your group’s classmates to answer.