Impression Management Theory and Social Psychological Research

359 Pages·1981·5.431 MB·English

by  James T. Tedeschi (Eds.)

Impression Management
Theory and Social
Psychological Research
Edited by
JAMES T. TEDESCHI
Department of Psychology
State University of New York at Albany
Albany, New York
®-
981
ACADEMIC PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Impression management theory and social psychological
research.
Includes bibliographies and index.
1. Social psychology—Addresses, essays, lectures.
2. Identity (Psychology)—Addresses, essays, lectures.
3. Self-perception—Addresses, essays, lectures.
1. Tedeschi, James T. [DNLM: 1. Social behavior.
2. Social desirability. HM 291 134]
HM251.IA46 302 81-283
ISBN 0-12-685180-8
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
81 82 83 84 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to the many fine teachers I had while a stu-
dent, but particularly to Raymond E. Hartley, the finest of them all.
List of Contributors
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which authors' contributions begin.
C. NORMAN ALEXANDER, JR. (83), Department of Sociology, University
of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Chicago, Illinois 60680
ROBERT M. ARKIN (311), Department of Psychology, University of Mis-
souri, Columbia, Missouri 65211
BENJAMIN BRAGINSKY (295), Center for the Study of Behavior, Hamden,
Connecticut 06514
ROBERT B. CIALDINI (41), Department of Psychology, Arizona State
University, Tempe, Arizona 85281
RICHARD B. FELSON (181), Department of Sociology, State University of
New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12222
R. GLEN HASS (127), Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College,
Brooklyn, New York 11210
JERALD M. JELLISON (107), Department of Psychology, University of
Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90007
MARK R. LEARY (335), Psychology Department, Denison University,
Granville, Ohio 43023
SVENN LINDSKOLD (201), Department of Psychology, Ohio University,
Athens, Ohio 45701
MONTE M. PAGE (57), Department of Psychology, University of Ne-
braska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588
xiu
XIV List of Contributors
L. REBECCA PROPST (201), Department of Counseling Psychology, Lewis
and Clark College, Portland, Oregon 97219
DEAN G. PRUITT (247), Department of Psychology, State University of
New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14214
HARRY T. REIS (269), Department of Psychology, University of Ro-
chester, Rochester, New York 14627
KENNETH D. RICHARDSON (41), Department of Psychology, Arizona State
University, Tempe, Arizona 85281
MARC RIESS (3), Department of Psychology, Middlebury College, Mid-
dlebury, Vermont 05753
CATHERINE A. RIORDAN (223), Department of Social Sciences, Univer-
sity of Missouri—Rolla, Rolla, Missouri 65401
PAUL ROSENFELD (147), Department of Psychology, State University of
New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12222
JOEL RUDD (83), Department of Home Economics, University of New
Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, 03824
BARRY R. SCHLENKER (335), Department of Psychology, College of Arts
and Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611
DAVID J. SCHNEIDER (23), Division of Social Sciences, University of
Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78285
D. LEASEL SMITH (247), Department of Psychology, State University of
New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14214
JAMES T. TEDESCHI (3, 147, 223), Department of Psychology, State Uni-
versity of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12222
Preface
Impression management is not a new topic to those interested in study-
ing human behavior. Even prehistoric and primitive peoples were con-
cerned about self-presentation. Cosmetics, clothing, jewelry, and other
aids to physical attractiveness are universally used to present positive
identities to others. Artists have provided insightful commentary on the
masks and personae that people everywhere adopt in their interactions
with others. A great deal of humor can result from their confusion, as in
the mistaken identities of the characters in Oscar Wilde's Importance of
Being Earnest.
The view that we are actors on the stage of the world is, of course,
reflected in Shakespeare's plays, which show a profound insight into the
development, maintenance, and deceitful presentations of self by many
different kinds of characters. The illusions and appearances that com-
prise the personalities and actions of human beings are portrayed with
great skill by Pirandello. Thus, the idea that people project identities to
one another and form identities out of the reactions of others to them has
been around for a long time; however, only in this century have social
philosophers incorporated this interactive process into their thinking
(Cooley, 1902; Mead, 1934).
The idea that people actively manage the impressions that others
form of them was first part of the sociological literature (e.g., Goffman,
1959) and did not filter into experimental social psychological thought un-
xv
XVJ Preface
til the pioneering work of Jones (1964) provided a systematic view of the
strategy of ingratiation. Gergen (1966) and Schneider (1969) also
demonstrated that, under certain conditions, subjects engage in behaviors
meant to display their competence or intelligence to the experimenter.
These pioneering efforts to study impression management under the con-
trolled conditions of the laboratory have led to the application of relevant
concepts to a wide range of phenomena.
Data obtained from traditional research paradigms in social psy-
chology were reinterpreted in terms of impression management theory
by Alexander and Knight (1971) and Tedeschi, Schlenker, and Bonoma
(1971). These connections with traditional data made impression manage-
ment theory respectable. As this book goes to press, there is almost no
research area in experimental social psychology that is not being sub-
jected to at least partial reinterpretation in impression management
terms. Thus, the time was right to gather these various strands of thinking,
interlaced as they are with quite imaginative research, between one set of
book covers.
This book does not easily lend itself to a singular organization. Not
only do the authors deal with very different topics, they sometimes
disagree with one another on assumptions and interpretations. For exam-
ple, while Jellison adopts a radical behaviorist view of attitudes,
Schneider concerns himself with the attributional analyses made by ac-
tors prior to their self-presentations. Whereas Tedeschi and Rosenfeld
believe that subjects in forced compliance experiments lie to ex-
perimenters about their "true" attitudes, Hass tends to interpret
somewhat elastic shifts of attitudes as sincere verbal expressions of a
range of acceptable attitude positions. Nevertheless, there are chapters
that tend to group together. Part I, General Theory, consists of three
chapters that deal primarily with issues related to the reasons for, and
specific tactics of, impression management. Tedeschi and Riess (Chap-
ter 1) provide reasons for actors' attempts to engage in impression
management, examine some of the effects that self-presentations have on
the phenomenal self, and suggest the wide range of social psychological
research that these concepts can explain. Schneider (Chapter 2) examines
the attributional analyses that actors may make prior to self-presentations
and their concerns about creating primary and secondary impressions in
the eyes of others. Schneider also makes some interesting distinctions be-
tween concepts of impression management and self-presentation and ex-
amines the question of classifying tactics. One such tactic, proposed by
Richardson and Cialdini (Chapter 3) is called basking in reflected glory
(BIRGing); that is, people identify themselves as in some way associated or
acquainted with prestigeful or attractive others in the apparent hope that
this will contribute to their own attractiveness. Furthermore, actors may
engage in blasting behavior, a form of derogation of others intended to
Pre/ace xvu
ingratiate the actors with their listeners. Richardson and Cialdini relate
BIRGing and BLASTing to general factors in important group processes,
such as scapegoating.
Part II, Impression Management and Laboratory Research, includes
two chapters that make a major contribution to the social psychology of
the experiment. Page (Chapter 4) shows that demand compliance by sub-
jects can account for a number of well-known effects originally thought to
demonstrate such phenomena as attitude conditioning and reactions to
persuasive communications. In a parallel fashion, Alexander and Rudd
(Chapter 5) convincingly demonstrate that many experimental paradigms
may be placing subjects in situations where giving one particular
response would project a more positive identity to an audience than
would giving other responses. The range of phenomena interprétable in
terms of demand compliance and situated identities is quite large and
brings into question the very existence of theoretical relationships and
processes that have become traditional and well accepted in social
psychology. Indeed, the entire social psychology of the experiment may be
reinterpretable in impression management terms.
Part III, Attitudes as Tactics of Self-Presentation, centers around the
concept of attitudes. Jellison (Chapter 6) provides a radical critique of the
concept of attitude and argues that it is an outdated concept with no com-
pelling use in current social psychology. Instead, we may view all attitude
expressions as verbal tactics of self-presentation. Although limiting
himself to anticipatory belief change in terms of impression management
theory, Hass (Chapter 7) raises a general question regarding the mea-
surement of attitudes in psychological research. Typically, attitude re-
searchers ask respondents to mark the single point, along the continuum
given, that represents their "true" attitudes; however, a number of points
are within the respondents' latitude of acceptance. According to Hass,
movements of a single point on a scale may not indicate lying or dissem-
bling by subjects and may not even indicate attitude change, but may be
due to situational pressure. This raises questions about what "real" at-
titude change is and how it can be measured. In an important area of
attitude research, Tedeschi and Rosenfeld (Chapter 8) examine the
theoretical and empirical status of the cognitive dissonance, self-
perception, and impression management interpretations of data obtained
in the forced compliance situation. They conclude that the bulk of current
evidence indicates that attitude change is not a result of dissonance reduc-
tion or of inferences from observations of own behavior, but that it
represents the feigned responses of subjects who are trying to project an
identity of themselves as moral and cooperative people to an ex-
perimenter who has them under surveillance.
The three chapters in Part IV, Self-Presentation and Harm-Doing, are
organized around the theme of harm-doing. In an analysis of the dynamics
XVlll Preface
of assaults and homicides, Felson (Chapter 9) presents six factors that are
involved in fostering or intensifying aggression and violence. Some of
these factors, all of which are associated with impression management,
have been studied in the laboratory, but the remainder stand as pro-
vocative new hypotheses that should stimulate new investigations into
this important area of research. In another related area where aggression
is a major interest, Lindskold and Propst (Chapter 10) examine research
on deindividuation, which is the concept that when people become less
identifiable they are apt to feel less constrained by social norms and thus
to become less responsible morally and more aggressive and destructive.
The authors then reinterpret the entire corpus of deindividuation research
in terms of demand compliance and impression management, thereby
creating doubt that there is any strong empirical grounds for the existence
of a deindividuation process. A very similar analysis of the so-called trans-
gression-compliance relationship is presented by Tedeschi and Riordan
(Chapter 11). Prior research had established that subjects who have ex-
perienced an unfortunate or negative event during an experiment are
more apt to provide help to others, particularly when such help is re-
quested, than are persons who have not experienced such a mishap. The
theories that have been developed, or applied, to explain these data are
reviewed, and an alternative, impression management interpretation is
proferred.
The two chapters in Part V, Bargaining, Distributive Justice, and Im-
pression Management, focus on the distribution of rewards in groups. In
dealing with the topic of bargaining, Pruitt and Smith (Chapter 12)
acknowledge the complexity of the process but maintain that impression
management serves a vital role in the eventual outcome. The images of
firmness and trustworthiness are viewed as central to the bargaining pro-
cess since they contribute to a coordination of behavior between
bargainers and mutually satisfying outcomes. Reis (Chapter 13) argues
that behaviors that restore equity or equality (or some other standard of
justice) may be based on demonstrating to others one's own adherence to
the values of the larger social entity. Indeed, he suggests that one's iden-
tity is bound up with the justice contract developed through the learning
process and that people may well be concerned about appearing just even
to themselves.
Part VI, Individual Differences and Impression Management, the last
section of the book, is concerned with individual differences such as men-
tal illness, social anxiety, and shyness. Braginsky (Chapter 14) suggests
that being treated as surplus and unnecessary strips people of their sense
of identity and drives many of them to the mental hospital. Patients in
these institutions use tactics of self-presentation to manipulate the staff.
By successfully exerting influence and power over their environment, pa-
tients restore their sense of identity. Furthermore, for the most part, the
Preface xix
staff and the institution need patients in order to justify their own ex-
istence. Thus, patients gain a sense of worth and lose some of their feeling
of being surplus. Protective self-presentations are the topic of Chapter 15,
contributed by Arkin, who suggests that social anxiety serves as the
motivation for much behavior and represents a kind of self-presentational
style. This style of protective self-presentation may account for a number
of important findings in social psychological research, such as attribu-
tional biases and learned helplessness. Finally, Leary and Schlenker
(Chapter 16) review the literature on shyness, offer a self-presentational
view of this characteristic, and make several intriguing suggestions for
therapy.
It is clear to me that the topic of impression management has already
expanded far beyond the range of any one book. However, the con-
tributors to the present book are among the most significant pioneers in
experimental social psychology. In addition to fulfilling my scholarly pur-
pose, I have enjoyed the sheer fun of working with the contributors in
developing this book. I take this opportunity to thank them for their flex-
ibility and responsiveness to my editorial comments and, particularly, for
their good humor and kind words. The comments of various people on
segments of this manuscript were helpful to me. In this regard, a word of
appreciation is due Rich Felson, Bob Giacalone, Joann Horai, Svenn Lind-
skold, Valerie Melburg, Joanne Joseph Moore, Marc Riess, Cathy Riordan,
Paul Rosenfeld, and Dawn Storr. Naturally, one must acknowledge the
person who finalizes the copy by typing the scratchings into a readable
manuscript. Thanks to Katie McCarthy for all her help in getting this book
to the publisher. I am also grateful to Lee Ackerman and Dawn Storr for
doing most of the work in compiling the index.
James T. Tedeschi