Paper Title
When self-presentation is constrained by the target’s knowledge: Consistency and compensation.
Keywords
- self-presentation
- self-description
- consistency
- compensation
- self-enhancement
- personality traits
- public vs. private self-evaluation
- self-perception
- modesty
- self-deception
- personality information
- target knowledge
- relationship dynamics
- social influence
- self-evaluation
- long-term self-presentation
Article Type
published
Research Impact Tools
Publication Info
Volume: 36 | Issue: 6 | Pages: 608–618
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Abstract
90 undergraduates described their characteristics to a target person who presumably did or did not have some prior information about their personalities. If the transmitted prior information was unfavorable, Ss described themselves in terms consistent with it but appeared to compensate by enhancing their self-descriptions on traits about which the target person did not have prior information. If the information was more favorable, Ss were generally modest and self-deprecating. Ss who were privately exposed to these same personality profiles (and thus were assured that the target person would not have access to the information they contained) showed no evidence of compensatory self-enhancement, which suggests that the effects of receiving a self-evaluation on presenting a self-description depend heavily on whether the evaluation is public (known by the target person) or confidential. Results are dicussed in terms of long-term self-presentational concerns in ongoing human relationships. (22 ref) (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
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