How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 205
Theory
Impression management (IM) theory states that any individual or organization must establish and
maintain impressions that are congruent with the perceptions they want to convey to their publics.
From both a communications and public relations viewpoint, the theory of impression management
encompasses the vital ways in which one establishes and communicates this congruence between
personal or organizational goals and their intended actions which create public perception.
The idea that perception is reality is the basis for this sociological and social psychology
theory,[citation needed] which is framed around the presumption that the other’s perceptions of you or
your organization become the reality from which they form ideas and the basis for intended behaviors.
Basic factors
A range of factors that govern impression management can be identified. It can be stated that
impression management becomes necessary whenever there exists a kind of social situation, whether
real or imaginary. Logically, the awareness of being a potential subject of monitoring is also crucial.
Furthermore, the characteristics of a given social situation are important. Specifically, the surrounding
cultural norms determine the appropriateness of particular nonverbal behaviours. The actions have to
be appropriate to the targets, and within that culture, so that the kind of audience as well as the relation
to the audience influences the way impression management is realized. A person's goals are another
factor governing the ways and strategies of impression management. This refers to the content of an
assertion, which also leads to distinct ways of presentation of aspects of the self. The degree of selfefficacy describes whether a person is convinced that it is possible to convey the intended impression.
A new study finds that, all other things being equal,
people are more likely to pay attention to faces that
have been associated with negative gossip than
those with neutral or positive associations. The
study contributes to a body of work showing that
far from being objective, our perceptions are
shaped by unconscious brain processes that
determine what we "choose" to see or ignore —
even before we become aware of it. The findings
also add to the idea that the brain evolved to be
particularly sensitive to "bad guys" or cheaters —
fellow humans who undermine social life by
deception, theft or other non-cooperative behavior.
Strategic interpersonal behavior to shape or influence impressions formed by an audience is not a new
field. Plato spoke of the "stage of human life" and Shakespeare crafted the famous sentence "All the
world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players". In the 20th century, Erving Goffman also
followed a dramaturgical analogy in his seminal book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, in
which he said, "All the world is not, of course, a stage, but the crucial ways in which it isn't are not
easy to specify."
Goffman presented impression management dramaturgically, explaining the motivations behind
complex human performances within a social setting based on a play metaphor. Goffman's work
incorporates aspects of a symbolic interactionist perspective, emphasizing a qualitative analysis of the
interactive nature of the communication process.
The actor, shaped by the environment and target audience, sees interaction as a performance. The
objective of the performance is to provide the audience with an impression consistent with the desired
goals of the actor. Thus, impression management is also highly dependent on the situation. In addition
to these goals, individuals differ in responses from the interactional environment, some may be
irresponsive to audience's reactions while others actively respond to audience reactions in order to
elicit positive results. These differences in response towards the environment and target audience are
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