Triggering self-presentation efforts outside of people's conscious awareness.
Three studies utilized priming techniques to examine whether self-presentations can be activated without conscious awareness. The results across all experiments consistently demonstrated nonconscious self-presentation effects, in that people were unaware that their self-presentations were triggered automatically and that their self-presentations were comparable to participants who were explicitly instructed to self-present. The findings are novel because they are the first to demonstrate that self-presentations can be triggered without conscious awareness in a manner similar to self-presentations that are strategically selected. In addition, the results help undermine the common misconception that self-presentation typically involves conscious deliberation, pretense, or outright deception.
Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2081, USA. tyler@purdue.edu
James M
JM
Tyler
D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D003243:Consciousness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012649:Self Concept; D012938:Social Perception; D013334:Students; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult