Self-Consciousness and Strategic Self-Presentation

People who are publicly self-conscious have been characterized as being especially concerned about their social identities and oriented toward gaining approval and avoiding disapproval. In two experiments, it was found that "pure publics" (i.e., those high in public and low in private self-consciousness) were the most concerned about matching their deeds and words. These subjects presented themselves to a partner consistently with their publicly known, prior performance on a supposedly valid test of social sensitivity. However, they presented themselves in a uniformly positive manner if the test could be dismissed as invalid and/or if their performance was unknown. In contrast, subjects low in public or high in private self-consciousness did not display these strategic patterns and presented themselves positively in all cases. Pure publics are thus the most likely to engage in patterns of self-presentation that have been shown to maximize approval and minimize disapproval in social interactions. People who are publicly self-conscious are especially aware of the self as a social object, report being concerned about the ways they present themselves, and care about how they are evaluated by others (Carver & Scheier, 1981, 1985; Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975). For example, research has shown that subjects who are high rather than low in public self-consciousness (a) are more fashion-conscious and likely to report using clothing and makeup to affect their public image (Miller & Cox, 1982; Solomon & Schopler, 1982); {b) are more accurate in assessing the impression they convey to others (Tobey & Tunnell, 1981); (c) We would like to thank Roy Baumeister for his comments on a prior version of this article. Requests for reprints should be sent to Kevin Doherty, Box 126, Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. Journal of Personality 59:1, March 1991. Copyright © 1991 by Duke University Press. CCC 0022-3506/91/$!.50 2 Doherty and Schlenker are more sensitive to interpersonal rejection (Fenigstein, 1979); {d) are more likely to display opinion conformity in group situations (Froming & Carver, 1981); and (e) are more likely to conform to the role expectations of a partner (Schlenker & Weigold, in press). Perhaps because of these concerns about their social identities, publicly self-conscious people also tend to be socially anxious and fearful of receiving negative evaluations from others (Fenigstein et al., 1975; Schlenker & Weigold, in press). These findings are consistent with the idea that publicly self-conscious individuals are attuned to the impression they are making on others and are motivated to make a good impression, or at least avoid making a bad one. However, prior research has not examined how this motivation translates into the use of self-enhancing versus self-effacing presentational styles. On the one hand, the desire for approval could motivate publicly self-conscious people to try to impress audiences, which might be accomplished by presenting themselves as having socially attractive qualities. On the other hand, the desire to avoid disapproval could motivate them to avoid self-presentational failures, such as being unable to live up to their claims or having their claims contradicted; this might be accomplished by presenting themselves in a more cautious, self-effacing fashion. Whether these competing concerns generate self-enhancement or self-effacement may be determined by whether or not publicly selfconscious individuals think their audience will learn of information that could invalidate their self-presentations. Research on strategic self-presentation has identified some of the conditions under which self-enhancing versus self-effacing presentations are most likely to be used and make the best impression on audiences (Schlenker, 1980; Schlenker & Leary, 1982). Consistency between words and deeds is favorably evaluated by observers, while deviations are condemned (Goffman, 1959; Tedeschi, Schlenker, & Bonoma, 1971). Schlenker and Leary (1982) found that the greater the deviation between an actor's claims (e.g., about performance on a test) and the actor's actual performance, the less positively the actor was evaluated by subjects. Audiences' preference for consistency is appreciated by actors, as subjects have been found to present themselves consistently with information that is publicly known about them (Baumeister & Jones, 1978; Schlenker, 1975; Schlenker, Miller, & Leary, 1983; Ungar, 1980). Further, in the absence of explicit reasons to be suspicious, people seem to assume that actors' claims are truthful (DePaulo, Stone, & Self-Consciousness and Self-Presentation 3 Lassiter, 1985; Goffman, 1959; Schlenker, 1980; Schlenker & Leary, 1982). Actors seem to capitalize on this fact when presenting themselves to others. When reputational constraints are absent, people take the opportunity to be self-enhancing. It has been found that subjects' self-presentations are more self-aggrandizing when potentially contradictory information is invalid, unavailable, or can be hidden from public view (Baumeister & Jones, 1978; Schlenker, 1975; Schlenker et al., 1983; Ungar, 1980). Finally, people attempt to compensate for negative information that is publicly known about them by boosting their self-descriptions on dimensions that are irrelevant to the damaging data (Baumeister, 1982; Baumeister & Jones, 1978; Greenberg & Pyszczynski, 1985). Further, public rather than private failures are more likely to produce compensation, presumably because they generate a greater threat to social identity (Greenberg & Pyszczynski, 1985). We hypothesized that subjects who are high as compared to low in public self-consciousness will be more likely to display these strategic forms of self-presentation, because these forms seem to maximize approval and minimize disapproval. They will be more likely to present themselves consistently with seemingly valid, publicly known negative information; to present themselves enhancingly when relevant information is invalid or unknown; and to compensate for a valid failure by presenting themselves very positively on dimensions that are irrelevant to the failure. Subjects low in public self-consciousness, who are less concerned about how they appear to others, will be less likely to appreciate or capitalize on strategic opportunities. In addition, private self-consciousness was included to see how it would affect self-presentation. Private self-consciousness refers to the dispositional tendency to be aware of covert aspects of the self that are not directly observable by others, such as attitudes and affective states (Carver & Scheier, 1981; Fenigstein et al., 1975). People who are privately self-conscious are more likely to behave in accord with private beliefs rather than succumb to social pressures (Carver & Scheier, 1981, 1985), and to regard themselves (and want to be regarded by others) as independent and autonomous (Schlenker & Weigold, in press). As such, they may be less willing to shift their self-descriptions in response to public information. A potentially interesting situation arises, however, when people are high in both public and private self-consciousness. These individuals might be caught in a confiict between public pressures and private beliefs, as they attempt to satisfy both an external audience 4 Doherty and Schlenker and themselves (cf. Schlenker, 1980; Tetlock, 1985). Consequently, it was tentatively hypothesized that subjects who are high in both public and private self-consciousness will engage in an intermediate amount of strategic self-presentation (i.e., less than subjects who are both high in public but low in private self-consciousness, but more than subjects who are low in public self-consciousness). We report the results of two studies below. The first examined the relationship between public self-consciousness and strategic self-presentation. Experiment 2 used a larger sample of publicly self-conscious subjects to replicate the major findings from Experiment 1. In addition, the larger sample in Experiment 2 permitted a more careful examination of the possible interactive relationship between public and private self-consciousness and self-presentation.