Social consensus and the encoding of consistent and inconsistent information: when one's future audience orients information processing

The present study investigated whether and how social consensus affects the way perceivers encode information concerning a deviant member of a stereotyped group. Participants formed an impression of a gay person described by means of both positive and negative behaviours. Participants also learned that they had to communicate their impression to an unidentified audience whose stereotype about gays was unknown or to an ingroup audience which was presented to be either positive or negative about gays. Results indicated that participants who ignored the identity of the audience and its position towards gays devoted more time to examine the information than participants who had been informed about the audience and its opinion about gays. More importantly, participants spent less (more) time to encode information that was in line (at odds) with the stereotype of the audience. Results are discussed in terms of the interplay between cognitive and social factors in general, and of recent evidence about inconsistency‐resolution effect and consensual beliefs in particular. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-determination and the use of self-presentation strategies

The authors evaluated the relationships among individual differences in self-determination and self-presentation. The authors expected less self-determined individuals to report engaging in self-presentation strategies more frequently. To be more specific, the authors expected higher autonomy scores to be associated with the use of fewer self-presentation strategies, whereas they expected higher controlled and higher impersonal orientation scores to be associated with the use of more self-presentation strategies, but for different reasons. Participants (141 women, 111 men, 1 person of unreported gender) completed self-report measures of self-determination and self-presentation. The results indicated that higher autonomy scores were related to the use of fewer self-presentation tactics. Being more controlled was associated with engaging in more self-presentation across the board. Higher impersonal scores were primarily associated with engaging in strategies to gain assistance or prevent high expectations.     

Nonverbal behavior and self-presentation.

Because of special characteristics of nonverbal behaviors (e.g., they can be difficult to suppress, they are more accessible to the people who observe them than to the people who produce them), the intention to produce a particular nonverbal expression for self-presentational purposes cannot always be successfully translated into the actual production of that expression. The literatures on people's skills at using their nonverbal behaviors to feign internal states and to deceive are reviewed as they pertain to the question of whether people can overcome the many constraints on the translation of their intentions into expressions. The issue of whether people's deliberate attempts to regulate their nonverbal behaviors can be detected by others is also considered.     

Gender and the self-presentation of academic achievement

Two experiments were conducted in which first-year male and female subjects (75% white; 25% minorities) at a highly selective liberal arts college predicted their first-semester grade point averages (GPAs). The first experiment varied whether predictions were given publicly or privately when an incentive for accuracy was either present or absent. Whereas the actual GPAs obtained by women did not differ from those obtained by men, women predicted that they would receive lower GPAs than men predicted, but only in the public condition. Whether incentive was present or absent did not affect predictions. The second experiment varied whether predictions were given publicly or privately as well as the perceived achievement of the experimenter. Once again, women's actual GPAs did not differ from men's. However, women predicted that they would receive lower GPAs than men predicted, but only when their estimates were given publicly to a low-ability experimenter. Although previous research has concluded that gender differences on performance estimates is attributable to a lack of confidence among women, these results suggest that the gender difference may be (at least partly) attributable to self-presentational style. It appears that women in this study adopted a modest self-presentational style that was motivated by attempts to protect the self-esteem of the experimenter.We are especially grateful to Rob Abel, David McGill, and Melinda Varn for their help in data collection.     

Reactions of college recruiters to interviewee sex and self-presentation style

College recruiters evaluated the qualifications and employability of either a male or a female applicant for a supervisory position. Half the recruiters in the experiment viewed a videotape of the candidate presenting himself or herself in a passive manner. The other half of the recruiters viewed a moderately aggressive interviewee. Contrary to the hypotheses, the moderately aggressive female was rated as favorably as the moderately aggressive male and the passive male was rated as negatively as the passive female. Although recruiters were as willing to hire a moderately aggressive male as they were the moderately aggressive female, they perceived the female's overall qualifications and her experience/training as superior to that of the male's.     

Self-regulation and self-presentation: regulatory resource depletion impairs impression management and effortful self-presentation depletes regulatory resources

Self-presentation may require self-regulation, especially when familiar or dispositional tendencies must be overridden in service of the desired impression. Studies 1-4 showed that self-presentation under challenging conditions or according to counter-normative patterns (presenting oneself modestly to strangers, boastfully to friends, contrary to gender norms, to a skeptical audience, or while being a racial token) led to impaired self-regulation later, suggesting that those self-presentations depleted self-regulatory resources. When self-presentation conformed to familiar, normative, or dispositional patterns, self-regulation was less implicated. Studies 5-8 showed that when resources for self-regulation had been depleted by prior acts of self-control, self-presentation drifted toward less-effective patterns (talking too much, overly or insufficiently intimate disclosures, or egotistical arrogance). Thus, inner processes may serve interpersonal functions, although optimal interpersonal activity exacts a short-term cost.     

Projecting perfection by hiding effort: supplementing the perfectionistic self-presentation scale with a brief self-presentation measure

Extensive research has illustrated the relevance of individual differences in perfectionistic self-presentation, but there has been little work on how perfectionistic self-presentation is expressed. The current research addressed this issue by examining the tendency to project a perfectionistic image by hiding effort. This research develops and evaluates a brief unifactorial measure as an extension of perfectionistic self-presentation. It is shown that the Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Hiding Effort Scale is reliable and valid in terms of its links with multidimensional perfectionism dimensions. Further, individual differences in seeming perfect while hiding effort accounted for unique variance in depression and social anxiety. Factors and processes that contribute to attempting to seem perfect while hiding effort are discussed.     

Personality traits and self-presentation at Facebook

The current study explores the relationship between personality traits and self-presentation at Facebook. An online survey of Facebook users was conducted. The results suggest that extraversion was positively related to self-presentation both on Wall and at News Feed. Extraverts uploaded photos and updated status more frequently, and had more friends displayed on Wall than introverts. Besides, extraverts clicked Like, wrote Comment and clicked Share at News Feed more frequently than introverts. Moreover, narcissists with high rivalry frequently updated their Status on Wall. In addition, neuroticism and conscientiousness were negatively related to writing Comment at News Feed. Lastly, openness to experience was negatively related to clicking Share at News Feed. The results and implications are discussed in conjunction with previous research. Suggestions for future research are provided.     

Role selection in the service of self-presentation

Two experiments were conducted to examine the general hypothesis that a person’s behavior in a social situation is a function of the kind of impression he wants to make on the other person, and that the kind of impression that he wants to make is influenced by the characteristics of the other person. Two experiments were conducted in which male subjects anticipated interaction with either an attractive female (attractive condition), an unattractive female (unattractive condition), or a female whose attractiveness was unknown (control). Each subject first chose either a high, medium, or low status role to enact during the interaction with the female. He then indicated the role which most closely corresponded to his true role. In Experiment I, role choices were significantly biased in the direction of higher status roles in the attractive condition but not in the unattractive or control conditions. These findings were partially replicated in Experiment II, but difference was shown to be a consequence of the fact that the experimenter was an attractive female. The subjects biased their reports of true role status in the direction of higher status, thus leaving little room for change in the selection of role to be enacted during the social interaction. These findings are consistent with the general hypothesis and with exchange theory predictions.     

"Eating lightly" and the self-presentation of femininity

In Experiment 1, male and female subjects were given an opportunity to snack as they participated in a "get-acquainted study" with a same-sex or opposite-sex partner (confederate) whose social desirability was manipulated. Consistent with the hypothesis that women may eat less when motivated to present themselves in a feminine light, female subjects ate significantly less with a desirable male partner than in the remaining three conditions. In contrast, male subjects did not eat more (or less) with a desirable woman, although they did show an overall tendency to eat less with female (vs. male) partners. In Experiment 2, female subjects snacked as they got acquainted with a desirable male partner (confederate). Before this interaction, subjects received feedback indicating that they had either very masculine or very feminine interests. In addition, subjects believed either that their male partner was aware of their gender feedback or that he was unaware. Consistent with predictions derived from Schlenker's (1982) analytic-identity theory of social conduct, subjects in the partner-aware conditions ate less when they had received masculine (vs. feminine) feedback, whereas subjects in the partner-unaware conditions ate less when they had received feminine (vs. masculine) feedback. Implications for understanding eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are discussed.     

Attributional Style Predicts Causes of Negative Life Events on the Attributional Style Questionnaire

Abstract

The causes cited by 218 participants for the hypothetical positive and negative life events on the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and the dimensional ratings of the causes were examined to determine the match between the dimensional and categorical definitions of attributional style. Optimists (n = 105) and pessimists (n = 113) used different types of causes to explain the negative ASQ events, but not the positive events. However, optimists' and pessimists' causal explanations shared a number of features. The findings suggest that attributional styles depend, in part, on the event being explained and demonstrate that the ASQ events elicit specific types of causes.     

Attributional style predicts causes of negative life events on the Attributional Style Questionnaire

The causes cited by 218 participants for the hypothetical positive and negative life events on the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and the dimensional ratings of the causes were examined to determine the match between the dimensional and categorical definitions of attributional style. Optimists (n = 105) and pessimists (n = 113) used different types of causes to explain the negative ASQ events, but not the positive events. However, optimists' and pessimists' causal explanations shared a number of features. The findings suggest that attributional styles depend, in part, on the event being explained and demonstrate that the ASQ events elicit specific types of causes.     

An Attributional Model Applied to Health Behaviour Change

Weiner's (1986) attributional model was adapted to a study of health behaviour change among hospital workers (N=102). It was predicted that, following success or failure, attributions would influence affective reactions and efficacy expectation, which in turn would influence intention, which in turn would influence subsequent performance. In year 1 and year 2, subjects rated their current performance, efficacy expectation, and intention to perform each of ten behaviours. In year 2, they indicated whether they had succeeded or failed in relation to each year 1 intention. They selected their greatest success and their greatest failure, and for both of these completed measures of attributions and affective reactions. In regression analyses, attributional dimensions did predict affective reactions, efficacy (in the failure condition), and intention (in the success condition). However, many of the specific associations were not what Weiner's model would hypothesize. The personal controllability dimension was particularly prominent as a predictor. Also of note were the interactive effects of attributional dimensions, always involving the stability dimension.     

The relationship between arousal and positive self-presentation

Investigated the validity of the hypothesis that subjects would experience arousal if they received information suggesting that they were presenting themselves to others in a negative manner. Twenty-seven subjects were randomly assigned to a control, evaluation apprehension, or negative feedback group. Subjects' heart-rate was continuously monitored as subjects' rated a series of photographs. Subjects in the evaluation apprehension group were given a cue as to how to present themselves positively whereas subjects in the negative feedback group were told, following their response to the 15th photograph, that their responses suggested maladjustment. Heart-rate change above a baseline measure revealed that an increase in heart-rate occurred only when subjects were informed that they were transmitting negative information. Such a finding supports a positive self-presentation explanation of subject motives in the psychological experiment.     

Conservation learning and the differential impact of visual information available during and after modeling

In order to investigate the nature of the processes that promote the observational learning of conservation, nonconservers were allowed or not visual access to the conservation stimuli while an adult model verbalized the conservation rule. In addition, after each demonstration the subjects were submitted to one of four conditions. The first three conditions involved a short pause during which the observers respectively kept seeing the stimuli, had to visualize them mentally, and had to visualize mentally some irrelevant stimuli; no interruption occurred in the fourth condition. As predicted, the withdrawal of visual information at the time of rule exemplification was accompanied with lower learning scores. However, equivalent acquisition was found with respect to each of the conditions in which the subjects were invited to examine specific stimuli after rule modeling. Altogether these data were discussed in terms of the greater and lesser extent to which the conditions permitted the children, during the observational training, to practice covertly the modeled solution.     

Use of public information when foraging: effects of time available to sample foods

It has been proposed that use of socially acquired information by animals should increase as the time available for individual resource sampling decreases. We gave Norway rat “observers” either 2 or 5 h day^–1 to sample four foods. Three of these foods were relatively palatable, but protein-poor; the fourth was relatively unpalatable, but protein-rich. We found that observer rats that for 2 h day^–1 both sampled foods and interacted with demonstrators eating only the protein-rich food ate more of the protein-rich food than did observers that sampled for 2 h day^–1 but had no opportunity to interact with demonstrators. On the other hand, observer rats that could sample foods for 5 h day^–1 ate equal amounts of protein-rich food whether they interacted with a demonstrator fed protein-rich food or not. Subsequent analyses showed that the time available to observers to sample foods, rather than the opportunity to interact with demonstrators determined whether such interaction influenced observers’ food choices. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that animals increase their use of public information in response to temporal constraints on opportunities for resource sampling. Received: 22 December 1998 / Accepted after revision: 27 February 1999     

Attributional style and the generality of learned helplessness

According to the logic of the attribution reformulation of learned helplessness, the interaction of two factors influences whether helplessness experienced in one situation will transfer to a new situation. The model predicts that people who exhibit a style of attributing negative outcomes to global factors will show helplessness deficits in new situations that are either similar or dissimilar to the original situation in which they were helpless. In contrast, people who exhibit a style of attributing negative outcomes to only specific factors will show helplessness deficits in situations that are similar, but not dissimilar, to the original situation in which they were helpless. To test these predictions, we conducted two studies in which undergraduates with either a global or specific attributional style for negative outcomes were given one of three pretreatments in the typical helplessness triadic design: controllable bursts of noise, uncontrollable bursts of noise, or no noise. In Experiment 1, students were tested for helplessness deficits in a test situation similar to the pretreatment setting, whereas in Experiment 2, they were tested in a test situation dissimilar to the pretreatment setting. The findings were consistent with predictions of the reformulated helplessness theory.     

Attributional change and the importance of baseline recording

This single case study illustrates how attention to baseline measures prevented premature conclusions regarding the impact of a conditioning procedure upon aggressive, acting-out behavior. Five disruptive behaviors were initially delineated so that frequency distributions could be obtained. During the course of this 15-day observational period, a significant reduction in the number of these aggressive responses was noted. The proposed conditioning procedure was therefore never required. Explanations as well as implications regarding the observed alteration in behavior were discussed.