Impression management


Impression management is a conscious or subconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event by regulating and controlling information in social interaction. It was first conceptualized by Erving Goffman in 1956 in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, and then was expanded upon in 1967.
Impression management behaviors include accounts, excuses, and opinion conformity or behav, along with many others. By utilizing such behaviors, those who partake in impression management are able to control others' perception of them or events pertaining to them. Impression management is possible in nearly any situation, such as in sports, or on social media. Impression management can be used with either benevolent or malicious intent.
Impression management is usually used synonymously with self-presentation, in which a person tries to influence the perception of their image. The notion of impression management was first applied to face-to-face communication, but then was expanded to apply to computer-mediated communication. The concept of impression management is applicable to academic fields of study such as psychology and sociology as well as practical fields such as corporate communication and media.

Background

The foundation and the defining principles of impression management were created by Erving Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Impression management theory states that one tries to alter one's perception according to one's goals. In other words, the theory is about how individuals wish to present themselves, but in a way that satisfies their needs and goals. Goffman "proposed to focus on how people in daily work situations present themselves and, in so doing, what they are doing to others", and he was "particularly interested in how a person guides and controls how others form an impression of them and what a person may or may not do while performing before them".

Theory

Motives

Impression management can be found in all social interactions, whether real or imaginary, and is governed by a range of factors. The characteristics of a given social situation are important; specifically, the surrounding cultural norms determine the appropriateness of particular nonverbal behaviors. The actions and exchange have to be appropriate to the targets, and within that culture's norms. Thus, the nature of the audience and its relationship with the speaker influences the way impression management is realized.
The awareness of being a potential subject of monitoring is also crucial. A person's goals inform the strategies of impression management, and can influence how they are received. This leads to distinct ways of presenting the self. Self-efficacy describes whether a person is convinced that it is possible to convey the intended impression. Conmen, for instance, can rely on their ability to emanate self-assuredness in the process of gaining a mark's trust.
There is evidence that, all other things being equal, people are more likely to pay attention to faces associated with negative gossip compared to those with neutral or positive associations. This contributes to a body of work indicating that, far from being objective, human perceptions are shaped by unconscious brain processes that determine what they "choose" to see or ignore—even before a person is consciously aware of it. The findings also add to the idea that the brain evolved to be particularly sensitive to "bad guys" or cheaters—fellow humans who undermine social life by deception, theft or other non-cooperative behavior.
There are many methods behind self-presentation, including self-disclosure, managing appearances, ingratiation, aligning actions, and alter-casting. Maintaining a version of self-presentation that is generally considered to be attractive can help to increase one's social capital; this method is commonly used at networking events. These self-presentation methods can also be used by corporations for impression management with the public.

Self-presentation

Self-presentation is conveying information about oneself – or an image of oneself – to others. There are two types and motivations of self-presentation:
  • presentation meant to match one's own self-image, and
  • presentation meant to match audience expectations and preferences.
Self-presentation is expressive. Individuals construct an image of themselves to claim personal identity, and present themselves in a manner that is consistent with that image. If they feel like it is restricted, they often exhibit reactance or become defiant – try to assert their freedom against those who would seek to curtail self-presentation expressiveness. An example of this dynamic is someone who grew up with extremely strict or controlling parental figures. The child in this situation may feel that their identity and emotions have been suppressed, which may cause them to behave negatively towards others.
  • Boasting – Millon notes that in self-presentation individuals are challenged to balance boasting against discrediting themselves via excessive self-promotion or being caught and being proven wrong. Individuals often have limited ability to perceive how their efforts impact their acceptance and likeability by others.
  • Flattery – flattery or praise to increase social attractiveness
  • Intimidation – aggressively showing anger to get others to hear and obey one's demands.
Self-presentation can be either defensive or assertive strategies. Whereas defensive strategies include behaviours like avoidance of threatening situations or means of self-handicapping, assertive strategies refer to more active behaviour like the verbal idealisation of the self, the use of status symbols or similar practices.
These strategies play important roles in one's maintenance of self-esteem. One's self-esteem is affected by their evaluation of their own performance and their perception of how others react to their performance. As a result, people actively portray impressions that will elicit self-esteem enhancing reactions from others.
In 2019, as filtered photos are perceived as deceptive by users, PlentyOfFish along with other dating sites have started to ban filtered images.

Social interaction

Goffman argued in his 1967 book, Interaction ritual, that people participate in social interactions by performing a "line", or "pattern of verbal and nonverbal acts", which is created and maintained by both the performer and the audience. By enacting a line effectively, the person gains positive social value, which is also called "face". The success of a social interaction will depend on whether the performer has the ability to maintain face. As a result, a person is required to display a kind of character by becoming "someone who can be relied upon to maintain himself as an interactant, poised for communication, and to act so that others do not endanger themselves by presenting themselves as interactants to him". Goffman analyses how a human being in "ordinary work situations presents himself and his activity to others, the ways in which he guides and controls the impression they form of him, and the kinds of things he may and may not do while sustaining his performance before them".
When Goffman turned to focus on people physically presented in a social interaction, the "social dimension of impression management certainly extends beyond the specific place and time of engagement in the organization". Impression management is "a social activity that has individual and community implications". We call it "pride" when a person displays a good showing from duty to himself, while we call it "honor" when he "does so because of duty to wider social units, and receives support from these duties in doing so".
Another approach to moral standards that Goffman pursues is the notion of "rules of conduct", which "can be partially understood as obligations or moral constraints". These rules may be substantive or ceremonial. Rules of conduct play an important role when a relationship "is asymmetrical and the expectations of one person toward another are hierarchical."

Dramaturgical analogy

Goffman presented impression management dramaturgically, explaining the motivations behind complex human performances within a social setting based on a play metaphor. Goffman's work incorporates aspects of a symbolic interactionist perspective, emphasizing a qualitative analysis of the interactive nature of the communication process. Impression management requires the physical presence of others. Performers who seek certain ends in their interest, must "work to adapt their behavior in such a way as to give off the correct impression to a particular audience" and "implicitly ask that the audience take their performance seriously". Goffman proposed that while among other people individual would always strive to control the impression that others form of him or her so that to achieve individual or social goals.
The actor, shaped by the environment and target audience, sees interaction as a performance. The objective of the performance is to provide the audience with an impression consistent with the desired goals of the actor. Thus, impression management is also highly dependent on the situation. In addition to these goals, individuals differ in responses from the interactive environment, some may be non-responsive to an audience's reactions while others actively respond to audience reactions in order to elicit positive results. These differences in response towards the environment and target audience are called self-monitoring. Another factor in impression management is self-verification, the act of conforming the audience to the person's self-concept.
The audience can be real or imaginary. IM style norms, part of the mental programming received through socialization, are so fundamental that we usually do not notice our expectations of them. While an actor tries to project a desired image, an audience might attribute a resonant or discordant image. An example is provided by situations in which embarrassment occurs and threatens the image of a participant.
Goffman proposes that performers "can use dramaturgical discipline as a defense to ensure that the 'show' goes on without interruption." Goffman contends that dramaturgical discipline includes:
  1. coping with dramaturgical contingencies;
  2. demonstrating intellectual and emotional involvement;
  3. remembering one's part and not committing unmeant gestures or faux pas;
  4. not giving away secrets involuntarily;
  5. covering up inappropriate behavior on the part of teammates on the spur of the moment;
  6. offering plausible reasons or deep apologies for disruptive events;
  7. maintaining self-control ;
  8. suppressing emotions to private problems; and
  9. suppressing spontaneous feelings.