Self-presentational persona: simultaneous management of multiple impressions.

Journal Article (Journal Article)

Most research on self-presentation has examined how people convey images of themselves on only 1 or 2 dimensions at a time. In everyday interactions, however, people often manage their impressions on several image-relevant dimensions simultaneously. By examining people's self-presentations to several targets across multiple dimensions, these 2 studies offer new insights into the nature of self-presentation and provide a novel paradigm for studying impression management. Results showed that most people rely on a relatively small number of basic self-presentational personas in which they convey particular profiles of impressions as a set and that these personas reflect both normative influences to project images that are appropriate to a particular target and distinctive influences by which people put an idiosyncratic spin on these normative images. Furthermore, although people's self-presentational profiles correlate moderately with their self-views, they tailor their public images to specific targets. The degree to which participants' self-presentations were normative and distinctive, as well as the extent to which they reflected their own self-views, were moderated by individual differences in agreeableness, self-esteem, authenticity, and Machiavellianism.

Full Text

Duke Authors

Cited Authors

  • Leary, MR; Allen, AB

Published Date

  • November 2011

Published In

Volume / Issue

  • 101 / 5

Start / End Page

  • 1033 - 1049

PubMed ID

  • 21688923

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1939-1315

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0022-3514

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1037/a0023884

Language

  • eng