Attributional self‐presentation and information available to the audience

Abstract

Public ability attributions of public task performance were investigated as a finetion of test performance (high or low), task performance (high or low), and the availability of information about test performance to the audience (audience informed or audience not informed). The results were largely in agreement with self-presentation expectations, Ability attributions concerning public task performance addressed to an audience which was not in formed about test results, were found to be strongly self-serving, although they were also influenced by consistency of test and task performance. In ability attributions directed at an in formed audience, self-serving biases were completely absent, the attributions being in accordance with the consistency or inconsistency of test and task performances.

Managing social images in naturalistic versus laboratory settings: Implications for understanding and studying self‐presentation

“…Although most studies have used strangers as targets, two lines of research have employed targets who know something about the participant. Some studies have created an instant reputation by leading participants to believe that the target has or will receive information about them (Baumeister & Jones, 1978;Martin & Leary, 1999;Schlenker, 1975;Van Knippenberg & Koelen, 1985). Such studies show that participants' self-presentations are affected by what others know or are likely to learn about them.…”

“…Such studies show that participants' self‐presentations are affected by what others know or are likely to learn about them. For example, people tend to convey images that are consistent with what other people know about them, compensate for negative information by enhancing on dimensions that others are not aware of, and make less self‐serving attributions about task performance when others know about their performance than when it is anonymous (Baumeister & Jones, ; Schlenker, ; Van Knippenberg & Koelen, ).…”

Affective Bias in Children's Perceptions of Dominance Relationships

“…Weary Bradley (19*^) concluded that this phenomenon could be best explained in terms of the subjects' concem for public esteem, since they probably believe that tiieir attributions will be "known and evaluated by the experimenter and, consequendy, [they] may have ascribed causality for positive and negative outcomes associated witii tiieir behaviour in a way tiiat would avoid public embarrassment and/or gain public approval" (p. 63). liiis view was supported in studies by van Knipperberg and Koelen (1985), who found that making public accurate infonnation on ability "completely annihilates die sulyective room for attributional liberties" (p. 258), and by de Vries and van Knipperberg (1987), who found that biases in ability evaluation of self are inhibited when furtiier testing ti^t coukl reveal these biases is anticipated. Relating this conceptualization to the present results, Ae children may have felt diat, within certain limits, the accuracy of iheir self-attributions of relative strength would not be assessed by the experimenter and, as such, there would be little chance of their overc^timistic view of themselves coming to light.…”