Self Presentation Theory - Consumer Behaviour

Consideration of a person’s perspective “self” and the processes used to determine behaviors is one element of social psychology. Some of the processes and theories are: impression management, social tuning, social comparisons, mindsets, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. This work will examine the basic premises of each of these along with personal examples provided by the author.

Every person is unknowingly or knowingly positioning himself in the mind of the other. This can occur when a person is in the company of his colleagues, his friends, relatives, or even in his own house! This impact or the ‘impression’ as we call it casually can be through very subtle signs of the person’s expressions and responses to some particular views, ideas or opinions. Even a person’s appearance - through the way he presents himself, contributes enormously in constructing an image or a position of that particular person in the mind of the other.

Psyc_6245_wk2_disc1Discussion - Week 2 Positive Self-Esteem and Narcissistic Personality StylesExplanation of the difference between positive self-esteem and narcissistic personality styleBased on Sedikides & Gregg (2002), an individual’s self-esteem is the subjective self-evaluation of himself/ herself as intrinsically positive or negative, which was viewed to have significant implication for psychological functioning. Crisp & Turner (2010) believes that an individual’s self-esteem reflects how positively or negatively they evaluate their self-concept. In other words, self-esteem reflects an individual’s overall subjective emotional evaluation on his orher own worth, and the judgment and attitude toward the self. National Association for Self-Esteem (NASE) (2010)

Perception or how one is perceived gives an impression of influential characteristics to share empowerment, mentorship, trustworthiness and consistency. On the other hand, false assumptions can be made determining the body language or mood swing of an individual. The facts are that no one person’s emotions are the same every day, all day. Through actions, body language, and manner of speaking, individuals attempt to influence the perceptions that others have of them. The attempt to influence others’ perceptions of oneself has been called impression management. Managers manage impressions of themselves by how they talk their overall style, their office location and furniture and even by the individuals they select as employees (Bethel

Baumeister, R. F., & Jones, E. E. (1978). When self-presentation is constrained by the target's knowledge: Consistency and compensation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(6), 608-618. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.36.6.608

The process of adjusting the self to new environments is described by Goffman as “impression management” (1959, p.70). People in their everyday lives manage settings, clothing, words, and nonverbal actions to “convey an impression to others” (1959, p.2) like actors on the stage. They strive to maintain the face they have created in social situations. This process occurs everywhere in society and “provides a clear-cut dimension for formal sociological analysis” (1959, p.8). Thus, it can be said that in communicating with others, persons all assume different roles and they act in the way that suits their incumbent roles. Moreover, behind that performance of the actors, it is necessary to have a “working consensus” (Goffman, 1959, p.4) or a “commitment” between them. This consensus is formed according to invisible and unspoken norms and rules (such as greeting and thanking) that members of society follow. It is norms and rules that make everything that people are doing, minute by minute not natural but socially constructed.

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Goffman, 1959) is a work analysing our daily life from the perspective that our actions and interactions with others, their rationale and meaning, are social in nature. Goffman applies metaphor to his theory of the presentation of the self by pursuing a dramaturgical analysis (p. 15) with the intent to describe how individuals construct and maintain performance in society, and how aspects of social and cultural expectation, define that behaviour. Social mores indicate we should behave differently under different social contexts to fulfil society expectations while maintaining the presence of our favourable self, within society. Given social interaction is guided by an individual’s need to control or manipulate the impression they are giving, this supports the idea that impression management also extends to online social environments, such as Facebook.

The second website focuses on self-presentation and impression management. This website gives information on how people use impression management during self presentation in efforts to make a “favorable impression on other people. It then described the strategies people use when doing so.

The types of involvement that can be identified in MINI’s customers are related to the so-called product and ego involvement as the interest is mainly in the MINI itself, but also relates to the customers’ self concept (Solomon et al, 2006). What is more, MINI has become an icon and the level of involvement can be associated with cult products (Solomon et al, 2006).

Impression management is the desire with an effort to control and influence the perceptions of other people about myself. It could be about me as the subject, my material possession or an event revolving around me. My primary goal of impression management is to create a perception in the minds which are consistent with my goals. Sociologists over time have introduced concepts trying to explain and put into context human behavior that tries to impress others. One of these is dramaturgy that puts human beings in a setting of a play as actors. I will try to dramatize situations about myself in order to manage an impression about me before others. In sociology, there are various mechanisms referred to as sign-vehicles that human beings use to present themselves to others. The most commonly employed sign-vehicles are social setting, appearance, and manner of interacting.

One such concept, impression management, is an effort to give impressions in the mind of others (2). Our impressions that we give or give off can be found on our front stage, the general, fixed part of our performance (2). Both of these concepts are examples of how Goffman relates our actions and their consequences to the social world around us.

Self-presentation involves the person’s conscious decision of how he wants to present himself, and this image can be a more professional, more serious, or even more strict demeaner. According to Johann Marek, “every experience. . . is able to function as psychological quasi-content and, therefore, is able to be an object of a thought that is turned inwards” (2012, p. 122). To form the self-presentation, the person must decide what impression he wants to present, and then he must determine what actions he must take to reinforce this new image, and these actions are classified as impression management. There are several ways in which people attempt to establish and maintain a self-presentation, which include ingratiation and self-promotion (Kassin et al., 2013). In regard to ingratiation, people desire to be likable and get along with other people (Kassin et al., 2013). However, self-promotion is when a person attempts to gain peoples’ respect (Kassin et al., 2013).

On a regular basis in our everyday lives we mould our appearance accordingly with various scenarios, in an attempt to control the way others perceive us. To sociologists this is known as impression management. A substantial amount of our understanding of impression management is credited to Erving Goffman and his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959).

One of the biggest theories within the field of consumer behaviour is the theory that people buy for status that products bring them; often buying products not for that they do by instead the connotations behind the product (Solomon and Rabolt (DATE), with Cave (2001) stating that products have a symbolic purpose, giving the consumer a sense of identity, with consumers believing that the purxhase will allow themselves to be perceived differently by other people.

Women who act more confident and assertive than is normative for women run the risk of disapproval. Research demonstrates that when women promote their own accomplishments it can cause their audience to view them as more competent—but at the cost of viewing them as less likeable. Men who promote their own accomplishments do not reap the same mixed outcomes: as long as they do not overdo it, self-promotion brings them both higher evaluations of competence and likeability.