Introduction Perception = the process through which people receive, organize, and interpret information from their environment

Perception is not the same as reality Yet perception is the basis of feelings and actions; the quality and accuracy of a persons perception influence responses to a specific situation COMMON PERCEPTUAL ERRORS THAT DISTORT VISION/INTERACTION 1. Stereotype

individual is as unique as fingerprint lumping together leads to incorrect judgment eg."men lack feelings" "feminist hates men" " Canadians eat bacon" stereotype damages personal relationships function of stereotype-to simplify information selectivity-- we look for information to confirm stereotype

2. Self-fulfilling Prophecy "prophecy is oftentimes the cause of events foretold"

you predict then behave as if true eg. people don't like me--then act that way can be positive self-fulfilling for +ve effect

3. Halo-effect

form a general impression based on 1 aspect eg. John is energetic, eager and (intelligent, unintelligent) you may see qualities that aren't there may ignore bad are you witnessing your assumption or reality? also reverse halo

4. Attribution Error

Do we attribute things to internal or external cause Internal Bad mood--> explosive behaviour external previous event--> explosive behaviour Internal (traits, abilities, feelings) External (situation,environment) Actor/observer difference

exam failed actor-external ---> noise in room, bad test observer-internal--> poor study skill, not smart exam passed ---actor-internal observer--external

Be careful of self-serving bias

How to avoid perceptual errors 1. Avoid hasty conclusions 2. Take more time patience 3. Be available--listen--see other view 4. Commit self-seek info before judgment 5. Create proper climate -is it ok to say 6. Make adjustments-be prepared to change Self Concept -poor self concept--> you are worst enemy

undesirable, unattractive--> becomes true are we one self or many? ---private, social, ideal what do you tell people about yourself?--that is what they will know self Presentation Self-presentation: processes by which individuals attempt to control the impressions that others form of them in social interaction. o Individuals involved may be self-aware of these processes or not

Authentic self-presentation: goal is to create an image of ourselves in the eyes of others that is consistent with the way we view ourselves (our real self) Ideal self-presentation: goal is to create a public image of ourselves that is consistent with what we wish we were (our ideal self) Tactical self-presentation: establish a public image of ourselves that is consistent with what others want or expect us to be Tactical self-presentation: persons usually have some ulterior motive in mind o Get rewards that others control o Only cares about the impact of the image he/she presenting not about whether that image is consistent with his/her real self or ideal self o Tactical impression management: person uses self-presentation tactics calculated to manipulate the impressions formed of him/her by others

There could be hybrid situations: several forms of self-presentation at once.

SELF-PRESENTATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE Many processes in authentic self-presentation also apply to tactical self-presentation To project a social identity successfully, individual must share with others some understandings about the situation in which they are participating o 1. establish a workable definition of the situation o 2. disclose information about the self that is consistent with the claimed identity Concerns with impression management already go back to the time of the ancient Greeks. In the fifth century B.C. the rhetoric professors, named Sophists, opened up schools in which they educated young men to make a good impression in the young democracy. A sociologist Goffman (1959) was the first to look at impression management as an objective field of study. He defined the concept of impression management as the idea that people consciously manage the impressions they convey to others in interpersonal interactions. He proposed a dramaturgical perspective of social interactions in which people are seen as actors who engage in performances in various settings, before an audience, to form a definition of the situation. From the sociologists and social psychologist, the subject came under the attention of scholars in organizational behaviour. In contemporary organizations, impressions play an important role. For example: applicants try to make a good first impression at a job interview, salesmen must make a trustable impression to sell their products, managers must look like they are in control, boundary spanning personnel must represent their company, and consultants are strongly concerned with an image of rationalism and professionalism. The importance of impressions for different people in an organization, draws attention to the manageability of these impressions. To what extent and with what tactics are people able to shape the images other people have of them? However, most of these studies investigated impression management directed at someone higher in hierarchy, so called upward impression management. Research about the effects of downward impression management, directed at a subordinate or lateral impression management, directed at peers, is still scarce. Moreover, the use and effects of impression management have mainly been studied at a dyadic level, although in most organizational

situations, self-presentations are not given in isolated one-to-one interactions but often to different people at the same time. 2. Theoretical background 2.1 Historical background of impression management Before the 1970s impression management in organizations was mainly researched as a part of organizational politics. The sociologist Erving Goffman is often described as the founder of the theory of impression management. In his book The presentation of self in everyday life (1959) he uses the metaphor of theatrical performance to illustrate how people manage the impressions they communicate to others in everyday life. He sees impression management as essential for the functioning of social interaction. When individuals meet, they will try to acquire information about each other so that they will know what to expect of the other and what will be expected of them. With this information they will form a definition of the situation which regulates their conduct and their treatment of each other. By managing the impressions that are given off to others, a person can influence their definition of the situation and thereby influence how they will be treated by those others. A person in a social interaction is therefore seen as an actor who gives a performance to an audience in a certain setting to form a definition of the situation. Goffman developed his theory in line with the view of symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionists see the individual and society as inseparable and interdependent units. The relationship between the individual and society is mediated by symbols, which are mental representations of objects and events that have an agreed-upon collective meaning in a society. According to this theory, our concept of self develops through social interaction between the individual and society (Schlenker, 1980). For example, a police uniform symbolizes that a person wearing it, holds a certain function in society. The self-concept of the police officer depends on the symbols he gives off and the meaning these symbols have in that society. These symbols give clues to the audience about how a situation should be defined. Hence, the audience knows it should treat the person wearing the uniform according to the way they should treat a police officer. The symbols a person gives off may differ depending on the situation and the audience. Goffman borrows from William James (1890) the concept of multiple selves. James states that a person has as many different social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares (James, 1890, pp. 294). In one situation the police officer might wear his uniform and act authoritatively when acting out his job, while in another situation he

might wear leisure clothes and behave himself nice and friendly when he is at home with his wife and kids. Although Goffman (1959) pointed to the fact that the original Latin meaning of the word person is a mask, he sees impression management as a necessary element for smooth social interaction. It makes clear what we can expect of others and what others can expect of us. He also mentions that sometimes conscious effort is needed in order to ensure that the impressions others have of us are correct. Some impression management may be deceptive, certainly not all impression management is. People often display images of themselves representing their most favourable qualities but these images are kept in check by their believability and by the selfbeliefs and the identity of the actor. People can therefore more often be expected to edit their expressive behaviour, de-emphasising negative qualities and emphasising positive qualities, than to fabricate completely unrealistic impressions (Schlenker & Weigold, 1992). 2.2 Definition and scope of impression management Impression management is defined in the literature as: the process by which individuals attempt to control the impressions others form of them (Leary & Kowalski, 1990; Rosenfeld, Giacalone, & Riordan, 1995). Schlenker (1980) distinguishes it from self-presentation by stating that self-presentation deals with impressions about the actor himself, while impression management can also be aimed at controlling the images of objects or events that are only indirectly self-relevant. An example of this would be a public relations expert representing a company. Schlenker and Britt (1999) found evidence that students managed the impressions of their friends when these friends were considered to be in need for promotion or protection of their identities. Hence, a form of impression management exists that is not directly aimed at controlling the image of the actor himself. Schlenker (1980) uses the term positive generalization to indicate that people who are linked to positive identities will also be evaluated more positively. Finch and Cialdini (1989) discovered a phenomenon, they called boosting, which refers to the tendency of an individual to rate a negative other more favourably if he is somehow connected with this other person. This connection can even be very superficial. They demonstrated this effect in an experiment in which they supplied subjects with negative information about the Russian monk Rasputin and told some subjects that they had the same birthday as Rasputin. Respondents who were told that they had the same birthday as the Russian monk, evaluated him more favourably than respondents who had not been told this. So, the line between impression management and self-

presentation is as good as impossible to draw and therefore these terms will be used interchangeably in this article. Tedeschi and Reiss (1981) draw attention to the deliberateness of controlling impressions. All behaviour of individuals has the potential of having effect on the impressions others form of them. This means that, in a very broad way all behaviour can be seen as impression management. At the other extreme it can be assumed that the actor must have intended to create the relevant impression and is aware of engaging in this process. Tedeschi and Reiss (1981) argue that for a behaviour to be labelled as impression management, it should have the purpose of influencing impressions, but the actor does not have to be aware of this purpose. A person could for example go to work wearing a fancy business suit without realizing that he wears it with the purpose of displaying an impression of competence and professionalism. Jones and Pittman (1982) mention some situations in which impression management does not play a role. Examples of these are: purely expressive behaviour such as anger or joy, routine transactions, occasion where people are concerned with displaying their authentic selves such as therapy sessions, and behaviour of high task-involvement. Most of the time people are unconscious of the impressions they make on others. Only when certain stimuli are detected, conscious attention may shift to those stimuli (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). We might, for example, be only marginally aware of ourselves when we are engaging in an activity but this will change drastically if we find out that people around us are staring at us. Subsequent theorists have proposed several reasons of motivation forengaging in Impression management. First of all, people want to maximize their reward-cost ratio in social relations. Selfpresentation can increase the probability of reaching desired outcomes. These can be material outcomes, like for example, being accepted for a job interview. They can also be interpersonal, like gaining approval or friendship. The second goal Leary and Kowalski (1990) mention is enhancing ones self-esteem. Selfesteem partly depends on being regarded favourably by significant others. People put effort in enhancing and supporting their self-images by seeking verification for these enhanced images from others (Sedikides, 1993). So, expressing a positive view of oneself indirectly enhances self-esteem (Schlenker & Weigold, 1992). Others have divided it into constructuctive and strategic.

3 Types of impression management Impression management covers an extremely broad range of behaviour, ranging from small things like choosing the music one listens, to straightforward bragging about ones performances. In order to be able to isolate and investigate specific forms of impression management behaviour, several distinctions and taxonomies have been made. A first distinction can be made between verbal and non-verbal behaviour. 3.1 Non-verbal tactics Non-verbal impression management can be split up between the displaying of artefacts and expressive behaviours (Schneider, 1981). Artefacts can be explicitly designed to represent a certain status or past performance. Examples of these are uniforms and medals. They can also implicitly hint at values a person has, or social categories a person belongs to. For example, offices and even bedrooms can be decorated to display a certain image to visitors (Gosling, Ko, Mannarelli, & Morris, 2002) and many commercials are based on the implicit link people have between certain products and a desired image. Handshaking, frowns, eye contact, and smiles are examples of expressive behaviour. They are demonstrated to be perceived by others at least as momentary moods and feelings of the actor and they may even be taken as evidence of personal dispositions (Schneider, 1981). Therefore, they can also be used by people to create impressions in others. Non-verbal expressions are often associated with the expressions of emotion. However, these behaviours can convey a wide range of information, such as: information relevant to opinions, moods, values, personality dispositions, psychopathologies, physical states such as fatigue, and cognitive states such as comprehension or befuddlement (DePaulo, 1992). 3.2 Verbal Jones and Pittman (1982) were the first to develop a taxonomy of impression management tactics based on the kind of images they intended to create. They developed a taxonomy of impression management behaviour, in which they tried to include the wide variety of impression management behaviours identified by preceding researchers. The tactics they include are: (1) Ingratiation, which has the purpose of being seen as likeable; (2) Selfpromotion, which aims at creating an image of competence; (3) Exemplification, which refers to people who manage the impressions of self-sacrifice and going beyond the call of duty in order to gain the attributes of moral worthiness and dedication; (4) Intimidation, which are

tactics of signalling power or the potential to punish others, with the purpose of being seen as dangerous; (5) Supplication, which refers to tactics aimed at creating a needy or pitiful image by means of demonstrating weakness and incompetence. Of these tactics ingratiation and self-promotion have the richest research and theoretical history. Verbal impression management has often been split up between protective tactics and acquisitive tactics. Protective tactics are used in response to poor performances, while acquisitive tactics have the purpose of establishing a certain identity (Tedeschi & Melburg, 1984). Protective tactics are usually applied following predicaments. These are: situations in which events have undesirable implications for the identity-relevant images actors have claimed or desire to claim in front of real or imagined audiences (Schlenker, 1980, pp.125). Examples of predicaments are mistakes and blunders. They induce in people feelings of discomfort with the situation and a tendency to restore their hurt self-image. In such cases, remedial tactics, called accounts, can be used to reduce the negative impact of such an identity failure (Rosenfeld et al., 1995). With an excuse, the person admits that the action was wrong but the responsibility for the action is denied. With a justification, on the other hand, the person accepts the responsibility but gives reason for why the action is not so bad. Acquisitive impression management differs from protective tactics in that it is not only aimed at saving face after predicaments but at actively creating a specific image. Acquisitive tactics have mainly been distinguished by the purpose they serve. A first distinction has been made between ingratiation on the one hand and self-promotion on the other. The ingratiator has the purpose of being liked or seen as attractive while the self-promoter wants to be seen as competent (Godfrey, Jones, & Lord, 1986; Jones & Pittman, 1982). Godfrey et al. (1986) showed that these purposes are not always compatible. In a research on the differences between self-promotion and ingratiation, they found that self-promotion can lead to a decrease of liking for the self-promoter by the target. 4 Outcomes of impression management behaviour in organizations Organizational behaviour deals with the systematic study of the actions and attitudes that people exhibit within organizations (Robbins, 2003). Because in organizations, people continuously are in social interaction with each other and social interaction is characterized by interdependence (Schlenker, 1980), impression management plays a major role in organizational behaviour. In their organizational lives, people depend on others, try to influence each other, evaluate each other, and just simply work together. These are all social

processes in which it can be important for people to control the images they present to others. Several researchers have examined the outcomes of impression management tactics on organizational outcomes, such as: job interview outcomes, performance appraisals, promotions, salaries, and exchange quality. Most of these researches investigated the outcomes of the tactics of ingratiation and selfpromotion. Stevens and Kristof (1995) investigated which impression management tactics applicants used during actual job-interviews and whether there is a relationship between the used tactics and interview outcomes. With respect to the first research question, they found that self-promotion was used more often than ingratiation. When ingratiation was used, it focused on the job or organization rather than on the interviewer. With respect to the second question they concluded that higher levels of tactics were related to more positive outcomes in the form of interviewers evaluations, and invitations to visit the company. Especially ingratiation seems to have significant positive outcomes for the actor while the effects of self-promotion tactics seem to be more doubtful. Wayne and Liden (1995) found that ingratiatory impression management aimed at a supervisor was positively related to the supervisors liking for a subordinate and perceptions of similarity with that subordinate. Liking was positively linked to perceived similarity, which in turn was found to be positively related to supervisors performance ratings of the subordinates. They, however, found that self-focused impression management, which included both self-promotion and exemplification, had a negative effect on the supervisors liking for and perceived similarity with the subordinate. Wayne and Ferris (1990) found that ingratiatory supervisor focused impression management had a positive effect on supervisors liking and performance appraisal of the subordinate and exchange quality with the subordinate. On the other hand, self-focused tactics had no such positive effects on performance ratings. For the selfpromoting tactics, they called job focused impression management tactics, they even found a negative relationship with performance ratings.