3.5 Impression Management

     Impression management (some writers use the terms self-presentation or identity management) refers to the processes you go through to communicate the impression you want other people to have of you.
     Impression management is largely the result of the messages communicated. In the same way that you form impressions of others largely on the basis of how they communicate, verbally and nonverbally, they also form impressions of you based on what you say (your verbal messages) and how you act and dress (your nonverbal messages). Communication messages, however, are not the only means for impression formation and management. For example, you also communicate your self-image and judge others by the people with whom they associate; if you associate with VIPs, then surely you must be a VIP yourself, the conventional wisdom goes. Or you might form an impression of someone on the basis of that person’s age or gender or ethnic origin. Or you might rely on what others have said about the person and from that form impressions. And, of course, they might well do the same in forming impressions of you.
     Part of the art and skill of communication is to understand and be able to manage the impressions you give to others. Mastering the art of impression management will enable you to present yourself as you want others to see you—at least to some extent. The strategies you use to achieve this desired impression will depend on your specific goal. Here is a classification based on seven major communication goals and strategies. In addition to helping you communicate the impression you want to communicate, each of these strategies may backfire and communicate the opposite of your intended purpose.

3.5.1 To Be Liked: Affinity-Seeking and Politeness Strategies

     If you’re new at school or on the job and you want to be well liked, included in the activities of others, and thought of highly, you’d likely use affinity-seeking strategies and politeness strategies. Another set of strategies often used to increase likeability is immediacy strategies.

3.5.1.1 Affinity-Seeking Strategies

     Using the affinity-seeking strategies that follow is likely to increase your chances of being liked (Bell & Daly, 1984). Such strategies are especially important in initial interactions, and their use has even been found to increase student motivation when used by teachers (Martin & Rubin, 1998; Myers & Zhong, 2004; Wrench, McCroskey, & Richmond, 2008).

■ Present yourself as comfortable and relaxed.
■ Follow the cultural rules for polite, cooperative, respectful conversation.
■ Appear active, enthusiastic, and dynamic.
■ Stimulate and encourage the other person to talk about himself or herself.
■ Communicate interest in the other person.
■ Appear optimistic and positive.
■ Appear honest, reliable, and interesting.
■ Communicate warmth, support, and empathy.
■ Demonstrate shared attitudes and values.

     Although this research was conducted before much of social media you can easily see how the same strategies could be used in online communication. For example, you can post photos to show that you’re active and enthusiastic; you can follow the rules for polite interaction by giving “likes” and “+1s” to others; and you can communicate interest in the other person by inviting him or her to hang out, to join a group, by commenting on post, or by retweeting. Not surprisingly, plain old flattery also goes a long way toward making you liked. Flattery can increase your chances for success in a job interview, the tip a customer is likely to leave, and even the credibility you’re likely to be seen as having (Seiter, 2007; Varma, Toh, & Pichler, 2006; Vonk, 2002).
     There is also, however, a potential negative effect that can result from the use of affinity-seeking strategies. Using affinity-seeking strategies too often or in ways that may appear insincere may lead people to see you as attempting to ingratiate yourself for your own advantage and not really meaning “to be nice.”

3.5.1.2 Politeness Strategies

     Politeness strategies are another set of strategies often used to appear likeable. We can look at them in terms of negative and positive types (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Goffman, 1967; Goldsmith, 2007; Holmes, 1995). Both of these types of politeness are responsive to two needs that we each have:

1. positive face needs—the desire to be viewed positively by others, to be thought of favorably, and
2. negative face needs—the desire to be autonomous, to have the right to do as we wish.

     Politeness in interpersonal communication, then, refers to behavior that allows others to maintain both positive and negative face, and impoliteness refers to behaviors that attack either positive face (for example, you criticize someone) or negative face (for example, you make demands on someone).
     To help another person maintain positive face, you speak respectfully to and about the person, you give the person your full attention, you say “excuse me” when appropriate. In short you treat the person as you would want to be treated. In this way you allow the person to maintain positive face through what is called positive politeness. You attack the person’s positive face when you speak disrespectfully about the person, ignore the person or the person’s comments, and fail to use the appropriate expressions of politeness such as “thank you” and “please.”
     To help another person maintain negative face, you respect the person’s right to be autonomous and so you request rather than demand that they do something; you say, “Would you mind opening a window” rather than “Open that window, damn it!” You might also give the person an “out” when making a request, allowing the person to reject your request if that is what the person wants. And so you say, “If this is a bad time, please tell me, but I’m really strapped and could use a loan of $100” rather than “Loan me a $100” or “You have to lend me $100.” If you want a recommendation, you might say, “Would it be possible for you to write me a recommendation for graduate school” rather than “You have to write me a recommendation for graduate school.” In this way you enable the person to maintain negative face through what is called negative politeness.
     Of course, we do this almost automatically and asking for a favor without any consideration for the person’s negative face needs would seems totally insensitive. In most situations, however, this type of attack on negative face often appears in more subtle forms. For example, your mother saying “Are you going to wear that?”—to use Deborah Tannen’s (2006) example—attacks negative face by criticizing or challenging your autonomy. This comment also attacks positive face by questioning your ability to dress properly.
     Politeness too may have negative consequences. Over-politeness, for example, is likely to be seen as phony and is likely to be resented, especially if it’s seen as a persuasive strategy.

3.5.2 To Be Believed: Credibility Strategies

     If you were a politician and wanted people to vote for you, at least part of your strategy would involve attempts to establish your credibility (which consists of your competence, your character, and your charisma). For example, to establish your competence, you might mention your great educational background or the courses you took that qualify you as an expert. To establish that you’re of good character, you might mention how fair and honest you are, your commitment to enduring values, or your concern for those less fortunate. And to establish your charisma—your take-charge, positive personality—you might demonstrate enthusiasm, be emphatic, or focus on the positive while minimizing the negative.
     If you stress your competence, character, and charisma too much, however, you risk being seen as someone who lacks the very qualities that you seem too eager to present to others. Generally, people who are truly competent need say little directly about their own competence; their actions and their success will reveal their competence.

3.5.3 To Excuse Failure: Self-Handicapping Strategies

     If you were about to tackle a difficult task and were concerned that you might fail, you might use what are called self-handicapping strategies. In the more extreme form of this strategy, you actually set up barriers or obstacles to make the task impossible. That way, when you fail, you won’t be blamed or thought ineffective—after all, the task was impossible. Let’s say you aren’t prepared for your human communication exam and you feel you’re going to fail. Using this self-handicapping strategy, you might stay out late at a party the night before so that when you do poorly in the exam, you can blame it on the party rather than on your intelligence or knowledge. In a less extreme form, you might manufacture excuses for failure and have them ready if you do fail. For example, you might prepare to blame a poorly cooked dinner on your defective stove.
     On the negative side, using self-handicapping strategies too often may lead people to see you as generally incompetent or foolish. After all, a person who parties the night before an exam for which he or she is already unprepared is clearly demonstrating poor judgment.

3.5.4 To Secure Help: Self-Deprecating Strategies

     If you want to be taken care of and protected, or if you simply want someone to come to your aid, you might use self-deprecating strategies. Confessions of incompetence and inability often bring assistance from others. And so you might say, “I just can’t fix that drain and it drives me crazy; I just don’t know anything about plumbing” with the hope that the other person will offer help.
     But be careful: Your self-deprecating strategies may convince people that you are in fact just as incompetent as you say you are. Or people may see you as someone who doesn’t want to do something and so pretends to be incompetent to get others to do it for you. This is not likely to benefit you in the long run.

3.5.5 To Hide Faults: Self-Monitoring Strategies

     Much impression management is devoted not merely to presenting a positive image, but to suppressing the negative, to self-monitoring strategies. Here you carefully monitor (selfcensor) what you say or do. You avoid your normal slang to make your colleagues think more highly of you; you avoid chewing gum so you don’t look juvenile or unprofessional; you avoid posting the photos from the last party. While you readily disclose favorable parts of your experience, you actively hide the unfavorable parts.
     But, if you self-monitor too often or too obviously, you risk being seen as someone unwilling to reveal himself or herself and perhaps as not trusting enough of others to feel comfortable disclosing. In more extreme cases, you may be seen as dishonest, as hiding your true self or trying to fool other people.

3.5.6 To Be Followed: Influencing

     In many instances you’ll want to get people to see you as a leader. Here you can use a variety of influencing strategies. One set of such strategies are those normally grouped under power—your knowledge (information power), your expertise (expert power), your right to lead by virtue of your position as, say, a doctor or judge or accountant (legitimate power). Or, using leadership strategies, you might stress your prior experience, your broad knowledge, or your previous successes.
     Influencing strategies can also backfire. If you try to influence someone and fail, you’ll be perceived to have less power than before your unsuccessful influence attempt. And, of course, if you’re seen as someone who is influencing others for self-gain, your influence attempts might be resented or rejected.

3.5.7 To Confirm Self-Image: Image-Confirming Strategies

     You may sometimes use image-confirming strategies to reinforce your positive perceptions about yourself. If you see yourself as the life of the party, you’ll tell jokes, post photos in which you are in fact the life of the party, and try to amuse people. This behavior confirms your own self-image and also lets others know that this is who you are and how you want to be seen. At the same time that you reveal aspects of yourself that confirm your desired image, you actively suppress revealing aspects of yourself that would disconfirm this image. You’d quickly remove unfavorable wall postings, for example.
     If you use image-confirming strategies too frequently, you risk being seen as too perfect to be genuine. If you try to project an exclusively positive image, it’s likely to turn people off—people want to see their friends and associates as real people with some faults and imperfections. Also recognize that image-confirming strategies invariably involve your focusing on yourself, and with that comes the risk of seeming self-absorbed.
     A knowledge of these impression management strategies and the ways in which they are effective and ineffective will give you a greater number of choices for achieving such widely diverse goals as being liked, being believed, excusing failure, securing help, hiding faults, being followed, and confirming your self image.
     A summary of these strategies appears in Table 3.5.

Summary: The Self and Perception

3.1 The Self in Human Communication

1. Self-concept, the image that you have of yourself, is composed of feelings and thoughts about both your abilities and your limitations. Self-concept develops from the image that others have of you, the comparisons you make between yourself and others, the teachings of your culture, and your own interpretations and evaluations.
2. The Johari window model of the self is one way to view self-awareness. In this model there are four major areas or selves: open, blind, hidden, and unknown. To increase self-awareness, analyze yourself, listen to others to see yourself as they do, actively seek information from others about yourself, see yourself from different perspectives, and increase your open self.
3. Self-esteem is the value you place on yourself. To enhance self-esteem, attack self-destructive beliefs, seek out nourishing others, work on projects that will result in success, and secure affirmation.

3.2 Self-Disclosure

4. Self-disclosure is a form of communication in which information about the self that is normally kept hidden is communicated to one or more others.
5. Self-disclosure is more likely to occur when the potential discloser (1) feels competent and is sociable; (2) comes from a culture that encourages self-disclosure; (3) is a woman; (4) is talking to supportive listeners who also disclose; and (5) talks about impersonal topics and reveals positive information.
6. The rewards of self-disclosure include increased self-knowledge, the ability to cope with difficult situations and guilt, communication efficiency, and chances for more meaningful relationships. The dangers of self-disclosure include personal and social rejection and professional or material losses.
7. Before self-disclosing, consider the cultural rules operating, the motivation for the self-disclosure, the possible burdens you might impose on your listener or on yourself, the appropriateness of the self-disclosure, and the disclosures of the other person.
8. When listening to disclosures, take into consideration the cultural rules governing the communication situation, try to understand what the discloser is feeling, support the discloser, refrain from criticism and evaluation, and keep the disclosures confidential.
9. When you don’t want to disclose, be firm, be indirect and change the topic, or assertively state your unwillingness to disclose.

3.3 Perception

10. Perception is the process by which you become aware of the many stimuli impinging on your senses. It occurs in five stages: Sensory stimulation occurs, sensory stimulation is organized, sensory stimulation is interpreted–evaluated, sensory stimulation is held in memory, and sensory stimulation is recalled.

3.4 Impression Formation

11. Five important processes influence the way you form impressions: (1) self-fulfilling prophecies, which may influence the behaviors of others; (2) personality theory, which allows you to conclude that certain characteristics go with certain other characteristics; (3) primacy–recency, which influences you to give extra importance to what occurs first (a primacy effect) or to what occurs most recently (a recency effect); (4) consistency, which influences you to see what is consistent and to not see what is inconsistent; and (5) attributions of controllability, which may lead to the wrong conclusion through a self-serving bias, overattribution, or committing the fundamental attribution error.
12. To increase your accuracy in impression formation: Analyze your impressions and recognize your role in perception; check your impressions; reduce uncertainty; and become culturally sensitive.

3.5 Impression Management

13. Among the goals and strategies of impression management are: to be liked (affinity seeking and politeness strategies); to be believed (credibility strategies that establish your competence, character, and charisma); to excuse failure (self-handicapping strategies); to secure help (self-deprecating strategies); to hide faults (self-monitoring strategies); to be followed (influencing strategies); and to confirm one’s selfimage (image-confirming strategies).
14. Each of these impression management strategies can backfire and give others negative impressions. And each of these strategies may be used to reveal your true self or to present a false self and deceive others in the process.