Self-Presentation And Impression Management

An individual’s self-concept is the accumulation of beliefs that he or she holds about their identity (Kassin, Kein & Markus, 2013). Humans are social beings and influence one another’s behavior and perceptions of themselves. When going to a job interview or attending a child’s tee-ball game, an individual presents different aspects of who they are according to their audience and how they want to be seen. Self-presentation, impression management, and how they relate are imperative to recognize when interacting with others. Self-perception is the conscious or unconscious method people use to convey a set of impressions to a specific target person or group (Leary & Allen, 2011). The goal of self-presentation is to gain respect, power, support,

Both of these serve the same purpose of wanting to be viewed highly by another person. The difference is one is to influence that perception and the other is to control. Employers interviewing potential employees consciously use impression management to attract the applicants to their organization (Wilhelmy, Kleinmann, Konig, Melchers & Trusxillo, 2016). Professional and student research might also be affected by the researchers need for others to look favorably upon not only themselves, but their research as well. They might recruit potential subjects who value the perceived importance of the researcher and the research. However, this may cause possible confounding and a good researcher will work to prevent this and strive to have participants that represent the population (Kassin et al., 2013). Impression management can be both duplicitous and it can be sincere. The difference depends on the person’s motive in why they want to gain approval from others. Only that individual will truly know for sure if they are being sincere or not. However, rather than being blatantly duplicitous, people’s self-presentations are often authentic in their efforts to gain approval, even if premeditated (Leary & Allen,