The "Self-Disclosure" and "Self-Presentation" Views of Item Response Dynamics and Personality Scale Validity

This study investigates whether objective self-report measures of personality are better regarded as sources of factual information about the self (i.e., as selfdisclosures) or as ways to instruct others about how one is to be regarded (i.e., as self-presentations). The two perspectives were compared by testing the unique, divergent predictions each perspective made about the kinds of personality variables associated with consistency in self-description. For three groups of subjects (155 normal adults, 69 murderers, and 47 college students) almost all of the "self-presentation variables" were correlated significantly with consistency, whereas none of the "self-disclosure variables" was correlated with the criterion. Limitations of the study are discussed.