The impact of self-presentations on self-beliefs: effects of social identity and self-presentational context.
To examine the impact of self-presentations on private self-appraisals, subjects were induced to characterize themselves positively or negatively during a face-to-face interview, during a written interview, or on a private questionnaire. As hypothesized, subjects high in Social Identity (the tendency to root identity in social sources of experience) shifted their self-appraisals in the direction of their positive or negative role after a face-to-face interaction, but were less affected by role in their private self-characterizations. In contrast, subjects low in Social Identity were primarily affected by a private, positive self-characterization. The latter subjects were not indifferent to how they appeared to others, as indicated by their attempts to rationalize negative, face-to-face self-presentations; they simply did not define themselves in terms of their public appearance.
McKillop
K J
KJ
Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville 32611.
Berzonsky
M D
MD
Schlenker
B R
BR
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D012938:Social Perception