Impression Management

Course Facilitator: Venkat R. Krishnan

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Jan-Apr 2010

Required Texts:

Jo-Ellan Dimitrius & Mark Mazzarella. (2000). Put your best foot forward: Make a great impression by taking control of how others see you. New York: Scribner. ISBN 0-684-86406-1.

Mark R. Leary. (1996). Self-presentation: Impression management and interpersonal behavior. Boulder, CO: Westview. ISBN 0-8133-3004-1

Overview

"When an individual appears in the presence of others, there will usually be some reason for him to mobilize his activity so that it will convey an impression to others which it is in his interests to convey" (Erving Goffman, 1959: 15-16).

Schlenker wrote: We live in the Age of Information, and so it is not surprising that the use and control of information plays a central role in each of our lives.  Impression management is the goal-directed activity of controlling or regulating information in order to influence the impressions formed by an audience.  Through impression management, people try to shape an audience's impressions of a person (e.g., self, friends, enemies), object (e.g., a business organization, a gift, a consumer product), event (e.g., a transgression, a task performance), or idea (e.g., pro-life versus pro-choice policies, capitalism versus socialism).  When people are trying to control impressions of themselves, as opposed to other people or entities, the activity is called self-presentation.

This course will explore the social psychology of impression management. We will focus on theory and research dealing with the nature and implications of the regulation of information. Much of the social psychology literature deals with strategic self-presentation designed to advance the self-interests of the actor. At one level, this literature provides insights into the "gamesmanship" of interpersonal behavior, looking at how people use and conceal information to accomplish their objectives. Many of the best selling self-help books in the psychology and business sections of bookstores similarly deal with how to exert social influence by making the right impression on others. Such books tell us how to look and dress; what to say and how to say it; how to move, sit, and gesture; when to smile or raise an eyebrow; and all manner of information that seems vital if we are to do well at the game of life, winning and keeping lovers, money, power, friends, etc. Advertising is simply the art of influence through the control of information. The political arena provides a stage for the conscious and systematic application of ideas about how to sell people and ideas. The common thread through all of this is the notion that, to survive and prosper, we must get people to form the "right" impression, about us and the things about which we care.

At another level, though, impression management involves more than gamesmanship.  Schlenker has argued that impression management is not simply a type of behavior that occurs only under limited circumstances, such as during a job interview or on a date, or that is evidenced only by certain types of people, such as those high in self-monitoring or Machiavellianism. Instead, impression management is a fundamental feature or characteristic of interpersonal experience. It is inconceivable to discuss human social behavior without employing the concept.  People do not deal with information randomly or dispassionately. Our opinions about what constitutes the "truth" are affected by our personal agendas. To help us to accomplish our objectives in life, we "package" information to help audiences draw the "right" conclusion. This packaging is a pervasive feature of interpersonal behavior.

Packaging is not necessarily deceptive or immoral, although it certainly can be used for illicit ends. In order to communicate information accurately (as we see it) and without misunderstanding involves being able to gauge how an audience is responding and to package one's presentations accordingly, fitting the message to the beliefs, values, and competencies of the audience so that they will draw the "proper" conclusion. Impression management is like presenting an edited work designed to convey key information effectively to others. Just as a textbook author must pick and choose information so that a reader gets the point without getting overwhelmed or confused, so must we all pick and choose information to make our points in everyday life. We simply cannot reveal everything about ourselves to a particular audience; it is impossible. We must edit the information to make it germane to the occasion. It may take just as much social skill to create an accurate impression as to create a misleading one. In fact, research has shown that people who have better acting skills also are more successful at presenting themselves accurately to others (e.g., who have the smallest discrepancies between their own self-evaluations and the evaluations of them by their friends).

Impression management can also be used for beneficial ends. Although people act in ways that advance their own self-interests, they also seem to regulate information in order to support and protect the identities of others, to make others feel good, to help others cope, and to inspire them to seek new challenges. An example of such beneficial impression management is the father who helps his child interpret a failure in a way that preserves the child's self-confidence and promotes effective coping, even if the father is privately unsure about the real causes of the failure. Impression management activities can involve altruistic goals and prosocial conduct.

This course is designed to help enhance your impression management or self-presentation skills. The process of controlling how one is perceived by other people is extremely important for managerial success. If people showed no regard for others' perceptions of them, they would fare quite poorly in life. Therefore, human beings have a pervasive and ongoing concern with their self-presentations. They also act sometimes in certain ways just to make a particular impression on a specific person, as when a job applicant responds in ways that will satisfactorily impress the interviewer or when a newly appointed manager exhibits certain behaviors to create the best possible first impression in an organization. Self-presentational motives underlie and pervade nearly every corner of interpersonal life. Far from being a sign of insecurity, vanity, or shallowness, a certain degree of concern for one's public impressions is essential for smooth and successful social interaction.

Course Objectives

1. Learn the key concepts, principles, findings, and methodological techniques relevant to the study of impression management and self-presentation. Be able to effectively and appropriately use a variety of tactics to manage the impressions that others have of you.

2. Learn how to analyze social psychological phenomena in terms of impression management. Understand why people are motivated to manage others' impressions of them, and how this motivation varies across situations and persons.

3. Learn how everyday social events can be better understood through the understanding of impression management. Have the capacity to perceive clearly the effects of self-presentation in organizations and the role played by the myriad of factors that moderate those effects.

Pedagogy

This course follows the method of education and not training; emphasis will be on 'why' and not 'how'. Training focuses on how to do something, providing cookbook recipes for achieving specific predictable outcomes. Education, on the other hand, focuses on why people do something, helping you learn to ponder why people like to achieve various outcomes, so that you can yourself identify, if and when needed, the appropriate means for achieving those outcomes. Education is thus not application-oriented and immediate usefulness is not the main objective. It focuses on developing your capacity to think independently and thereby reach your own solutions to various problems.

You must do the readings prior to every session and be ready to discuss them. Everyone in the class will be expected to participate actively, not to sit back passively and let others do the talking. The learning method that we will use will be one of interactive discussion that evolves out of questions and answers drawn from a thorough reading of the assigned materials for every session. Skimming through the readings in a superficial manner will not help in this regard. It will help class discussions if you critically analyze what you are reading. Do not read the material in passive mode, akin to watching television with one's critical capabilities disengaged. What is the theme of the paper? What are the key points and conclusions? How do these differ from the contentions of other theorists or researchers? How do these differ from your own intuitions or experiences? What data support the points? What data are inconsistent? What alternative explanations exist for the findings? How would you test these alternatives? Will the effects occur all of the time or only under specific conditions? What are the boundary conditions for the effect (i.e., when will it not hold, or when might the reverse occur)? How would you test these boundaries? What processes might be responsible for the effects? How would you distinguish these processes from other possibilities? How could this information be applied in business, clinical, or other real world settings?

Every piece of reading will be assigned a student to serve as discussion leader just before the discussion starts. It is expected that you will come fully prepared to every session to engage in a fruitful discussion through active class participation and to serve as a discussion leader. Arrive at each session ready to make a presentation on a reading if you are made the discussion leader, and with several questions you would like to discuss. My role in this interaction is that of a guide and facilitator, inserting useful additional material at times, but seldom interpreting the readings for you or lecturing about them.

Course readings. This is a reading-intensive course. You can attend a session only if you complete all the readings assigned for that session. Attending a session without completing the readings assigned for that session will result in the student being asked to withdraw from the course.

Class attendance. 100% attendance in all sessions is required. When you miss a session or a part of it for whatever reason, you should complete a catch-up assignment before coming to the following session. In addition, 5 percentage points per session missed will be deducted from your total score in the course.

Stage show. An expected output of the entire class is staging a full-length drama for the public. Actors in the drama need not be confined to the students in the course.

Grading

5% Preparedness for class. You should come to class fully prepared with each session's prescribed readings completed (prepared means being capable of making a presentation in class on any section and being able to raise points for discussion). The depth of your understanding of the required readings and the extent to which your preparedness enhances class learning and fun will be the basis of evaluation.

5% Personal Plan. You should create your personalized impression management plan as you go through the readings for the course. Submit your updated plan in HTML format twice--by the end of the day of Session 8 (maximum 200 words) and by the end of the day of Session 16 (maximum 400 words).

60% Quizzes (4 Quizzes carrying equal weight). The quizzes will have multiple-choice questions from prescribed readings, lecture material, class discussions, and everything that takes place in class.

30% Empowerment Project. The class has to divide itself into 12 groups of equal size. Each group will do a live project designed to help a set of relatively powerless people in using impression management tactics. Effectiveness in transferring course learning to real-life situation will be the basis of evaluation. Each group will submit through e-mail two updates on the project work -- first update by 15 Feb and the second update by 15 Mar -- in text or HTML format, and a final term paper by 15 Apr in HTML format.

Time Line

[01]

Leary Preface & Ch. 1. Introduction (pp. xiii-xv & 1-15).

Dimitrius Ch. 1 (An introduction to impression management).

Baumeister, R. F. (1982). A self-presentational view of social phenomena. Psychological Bulletin, 91 (1), 3-26.

Jordan, C. H., & Zanna, M. P. (1999). Appendix: How to read a journal article in social psychology. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), The self in social psychology (pp. 461-470). Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

[02]

Dimitrius Ch. 2. Impression formation.

Buss, A. H., & Briggs, S. R. (1984). Drama and the self in social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47 (6), 1310-1324.

Clark, T., & Salaman, G. (1998). Creating the 'right' impression: Towards a dramaturgy of management consultancy. Service Industries Journal, 18 (1), 18-38.

[03]

Dimitrius Ch. 3. The compass qualities.

Murphy, N. A. (2007). Appearing smart: The impression management of intelligence, person perception accuracy, and behavior in social interaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33 (3), 325-339.

Sri Sri Ravishankar Case. [Prasannarajan, S., & David, S. (2001, November 12). The art and smile of Sri Sri (cover story on Sri Sri Ravishankar, Guru of joy). India Today, 26 (46), 58-68.] [Gautier, F. (2002). The Guru of joy: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar & the Art of Living. New Delhi: Books Today. Ch 7.]

[04]

Dimitrius Ch. 4. First and lasting impressions.

Schlenker, B. R., Dlugolecki, D. W., & Doherty, K. J. (1994). The impact of self-presentations on self-appraisals and behaviors: The power of public commitment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20 (1), 20-33.

Heflick, N. A., & Goldenberg, J.L. (2009). Objectifying Sarah Palin: Evidence that objectification causes women to be perceived as less competent and less fully human. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45 (3), 598-601.

QUIZ 1.

[05]

Dimitrius Ch. 5. Magic pills.

Schlenker, B. R., & Weigold, M. F. (1990). Self-consciousness and self-presentation: Being autonomous versus appearing autonomous. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59 (4), 820-828.

Gardner, W. L., & Cleavenger, D. (1998). The impression management strategies associated with transformational leadership at the world-class level. Management Communication Quarterly, 12 (1), 3-41.

[06]

Tyler, J. M. & McCullough, J. D. (2009). Violating prescriptive stereotypes on job resumes: A self-presentational perspective. Management Communication Quarterly, 23 (2), 272-287.

Dimitrius Ch. 6. Toxic traits.

Osama bin Laden Case. [Burke, J. (2002, January 7). Evil's advocate (cover story on newsmaker of the year, Osama bin Laden). India Today, 27 (1), 32-39.] [Bergen, P. L. (2001). Holy war, Inc.: Inside the secret world of Osama bin Laden. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Afterword.]

[07]

Leary Ch. 2. Tactics (pp. 16-38).

Godfrey, D. K., Jones, E. E., & Lord, C. G. (1986). Self-promotion is not ingratiating. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50 (1), 106-115.

Riggio, R. E., & Friedman, H. S. (1986). Impression formation: The role of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50 (2), 421-427.

[08]

Leary Ch. 3. The self-presentational motive (pp. 39-64).

Schlenker, B. R., & Britt, T. W. (1999). Beneficial impression management: Strategically controlling information to help friends. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76 (4), 559-573.

Kilduff, M., & Day, D.V. (1994). Do chameleons get ahead? The effects of self-monitoring on managerial careers. Academy of Management Journal, 37 (4), 1047-1060.

QUIZ 2

[09]

Leary Ch. 4. The social context: Norms and roles (pp. 65-90).

Tice, D. M., Butler, J. L., Muraven, M. B., & Stilwell, A. M. (1995). When modesty prevails: Differential favorability of self-presentation to friends and strangers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69 (6), 1120-1138.

Dimitrius Ch. 7 (Physical appearance).

[10]

Leary Ch. 5. The target's values (pp. 91-112).

Dimitrius Ch. 8 (Body language).

Tice, D. M. (1992). Self-concept change and self-presentation: The looking glass self is also a magnifying glass. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63 (3), 435-451.

[11]

Dimitrius Ch. 9 (Voice).

Leary Ch. 6. Current social image (pp. 113-136).

Leary, M. R., Nezlek, J., Downs, D., Radford-Davenport, J., Martin, J., & McMullen, A. (1994). Self-presentation in everyday encounters: Effects of target familiarity and gender composition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67 (4), 664-673.

[12]

Dimitrius Ch. 10 (Communication style).

Leary Ch. 7. Instrumental complementarity (pp. 137-155).

Stevens, C. K., & Kristof, A. L. (1995). Making the right impression: A field study of applicant impression management during job interviews. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 587-606.

QUIZ 3

[13]

Dimitrius Ch. 11 (Content of communication).

Leary Ch. 8. The private self (pp. 156-178).

DePaulo, B. M., & Bell, K. L. (1996). Truth and investment: Lies are told to those who care. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71 (4), 703-716.

[14]

Depaulo, B. M., Lindsay, J. J., Malone, B. E., Muhlenbruck, L., Charlton, K. & Cooper, H. (2003). Cues to deception. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 74-118.

Hart, C. L., Fillmore, D. G., & Griffith, J.D. (2009). Indirect detection of deception: Looking for change. Current Research in Social Psychology, 14 (9), 134-142.

Dimitrius Ch. 12 (Actions).

[15]

Mehra, A., Kilduff, M., & Brass, D. J. (2001). The social networks of high and low self-monitors: Implications for workplace performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46 (1), 121-146.

Dimitrius Ch. 13 (The environment).

Leary Ch. 9. Worrying about impressions (pp. 179-201).

[16]

Karremans, J. C., Verwijmeren, T., Pronk, T. M., & Reitsma, M. (2009). Interacting with women can impair men’s cognitive functioning. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45 (4), 1041-1044.

Leary, M. R., Tchividjian, L. R., & Kraxberger, B. E. (1994). Self-presentation can be hazardous to your health: Impression management and health risk. Health Psychology, 13 (6), 461-470.

Dimitrius Ch. 14 (Success) & Afterword (Changing from the outside-in).

Viswanathan, V. (2003, January 20). Naidu and the art of selling. Business World, 22 (34), p. 12.

QUIZ 4

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