How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 204

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In sociology and social psychology, impression management is a goal-directed conscious or
unconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a
person, object or event; they do so by regulating and controlling information in social interaction
(Piwinger & Ebert 2001, pp. 1–2). It is usually used synonymously with self-presentation, in which a
person tries to influence the perception of their image. The notion of impression management also
refers to practices in professional communication and public relations, where the term is used to
describe the process of formation of a company's or organization's public image.
Self-presentation
While impression management and self-presentation or giving Face are often used interchangeably,
some authors have argued that they are not the same. In particular, Schlenker (1980) believed that selfpresentation should be used to describe attempts to control ‘self-relevant’ (pp. 6) images projected in
“real or imagined social interactions’. This is because people may manage impressions of entities other
than themselves such as businesses, cities and other individuals (Leary & Kowalski 1990).
Motives and strategies
Self-presentation is expressive. We construct an image of
ourselves to claim personal identity, and present ourselves
in a manner that is consistent with that image. If we feel
like this is restricted, we exhibit reactance/be defiant. We
try to assert our freedom against those who would seek to
curtail our self-presentation expressiveness. A classic
example is the idea of the "preacher’s daughter", whose
suppressed personal identity and emotions cause an
eventual backlash at her family and community.
People adopt many different impression management
strategies.
One of them is ingratiation, where we use flattery or praise
to increase our social attractiveness by highlighting our
better characteristics so that others will like us (Schlenker 1980, pp. 169).
Another strategy is intimidation, which is aggressively showing anger to get others to hear and obey us.
A strategy that has garnered a great amount of research attention is self-handicapping. In this case
people create 'obstacles' and 'excuses’ (Aronson et al. 2009, pp. 174) for themselves so that they can
avoid self-blame when they do poorly. People who self-handicap choose to blame their failures on
obstacles such as drugs and alcohol rather than their own lack of ability. Other individuals devise
excuses such as shyness, anxiety, negative mood or physical symptoms as reasons for their failure.
Concerning the strategies followed to establish a certain impression, the main distinction is between
defensive and assertive strategies. Whereas defensive strategies include behaviours like avoidance of
threatening situations or means of self-handicapping, assertive strategies refer to more active behaviour
like the verbal idealisation of the self, the use of status symbols or similar practices.
These strategies play important roles in one's maintenance of self-esteem. One's self-esteem is affected
by his evaluation of his own performance and his perception of how others react to his performance.
As a result, people actively portray impressions that will elicit self-esteem enhancing reactions from
others.

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