Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 134-144). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [119]-124).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 209-221).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Psychology, Committee on Human Development, August 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: Elizabeth Higginbotham, Sociology. Includes bibliographical references.

Social media, an online arena for social behaviors such as self-presentation and social comparison, may have effects on users’ mood and mental health. Favorably presenting oneself is linked to positive outcomes such as higher self-esteem, whereas social comparison, in general and specifically upward social comparison to higher-performing others, is related to feelings of inadequacy, envy, and depression. Social comparison may explain the “Facebook depression effect,” acting as a mediator between time spent on social media and depressive symptoms. A correlational study is proposed that will ask 200 participants to report their time spent on various social media sites, self-presentation of themselves and their “friends,” social comparison orientation, and depressive symptoms. Expected findings are that time spent on social media and the degree of others’ perceived self-presentation will each be positively correlated with depression, and these relationships will be mediated by social comparison. This study will demonstrate that people feel depressed when they spend time on social media because they are frequently exposed to the self-enhancing images of others, which provides an opportunity for negative social comparison.

Embracing the symbolic interactionist view of the notion of self, applying dramaturgical theories of self-presentation, this study unpacks the linkage between leaders’ lifestyle behaviours (in athletic endeavours) and the formation of their sense of self as occupants of the leadership role from a self-expressive perspective.  I conducted a study of a group of sporty top managers in Sweden. With interviews and observations, I anchored the research focus in verbal expressions within storytelling and in performative expressions of the top managers. Drawing on social interpretations of sport and athleticism and with a dramaturgical analytical frame, I examine how the sporty top managers interpret their athletic endeavours to express important values, beliefs and concerns to express ‘whom they want to become’ as occupants of the leadership role. The analysis shows that lifestyle behaviours in athletic endeavours serve as a new source of self-meanings with which the sporty top managers create and express wishful notions about themselves as occupants of the leadership role. By incorporating athletic values with their distinctive understanding of a ‘good leader’, the top managers seek to present themselves with an idealized image of ‘athletic leaders’. In this process, the top managers outline a role-script that is mainly characterized with self-disciplinary qualities and masculine values, they define the leadership context with athleticism in the centre, and they express an overt intent to elevate some people and exclude others in organizational processes based on athletic values in which they personally believe. Hence, the process of formation of self as ‘athletic leaders’ is not only ‘self-relevant’, but it is personally, interpersonally and socially (organizationally) meaningful. The analysis also shows that the top managers seek to give legitimacy and an elitist status to the idealized view of self by using expressive strategies to appropriate their appearances, regulate emotions and bodily senses, and mould a gendered self-image.   This thesis contributes to leadership studies in several ways. First, the study expands on extant literature theorizing the linkage between lifestyle behaviours and the formation of sense of self as occupants of the leadership role from a new angle. It contends that lifestyle behaviours such as athletic endeavours have become a prime site where business leaders express creative narratives regarding an idealized view of themselves. Second, this study further advocates that the formation of sense of self of leaders is not a simple outcome of different forms of regulative discursive regime.  Rather, this process involves creative self-reflexive activities that address individuals’ personally held values, their distinctive pursuits in becoming an idealized leader, relations with others, and some prevailing leadership notions that they believe to be closely associated with the nature of lifestyle behaviours in which they engage and commit. Third, this study confirms the notion that the formation of the understanding of self of leaders is not only a function of verbal expressive devices, but that it also involves individuals’ performative strategies in ‘expressive control’ (e.g. Down & Reveley, 2009; Goffman, 1959). This thesis adds to understanding this point of view through a discussion of self-presentational practices in non-work related activities. Finally and most importantly, this study suggests that the process of formation of the sense of self of business leaders is expressive of meanings on personal, interpersonal and social dimensions in its own right. That is, through creating new self-meanings in micro-level practices in lifestyle behaviours, the occupants of the leadership role define the situational characteristics (the leadership context), express intentions to enact the power feature of inclusion and exclusion of others; generate new understanding of the leadership role, and they reproduce and strengthen some prevailing leadership ideals.

Perfectionism has long been recognized as an important personality trait that has a significant impact on emotional and social well-being. More recently, it has been recognized that there is a stylistic aspect to perfectionism that focuses on a desire to appear perfect. This perfectionistic self-presentation, and in particular, the desire for concealment of imperfections, has been related to psychopathology in past research. However, it is proposed that perfectionistic self-presentation presents a particular concern from a clinical perspective because of it's indirect effects on pathology; a desire to conceal imperfections is especially problematic to the extent that it impacts the experience of therapy and the therapy relationship. The current study examined the cognitive, affective/physiological, and behavioral manifestations of perfectionistic self-presentation in a clinical sample. Ninety clinical subjects completed self-report measures of perfectionistic self-presentation, trait perfectionism, impression management, mood, appraisals, and self-handicapping. A brief structured assessment interview that included a discussion of past mistakes, was conducted by trained clinical interviewers. Physiological monitors recorded heart rate and skin conductance level throughout the interview, and the interview was videotaped. Post-interview measures of mood, appraisals, and self-handicapping, were also completed. Results at the bivariate level showed that the self-protective dimensions of perfectionistic self-presentation were associated with more distress both prior to and following the interview, higher heart rate and greater change in heart rate when discussing mistakes (and greater skin conductance for men), greater claims of disability from self-handicaps, and appraisals of the interviewer as both threatening (wanting more than the participant could provide) and disappointed following the interview. Regression analyses showed that the desire to avoid disclosing imperfections was a unique predictor of appraisals of threat over and above demographics, trait perfectionism, and other measures of distress (interaction anxiety and depression) and impression management, and of appraisals of the interviewer as disappointed following the interview, over and above demographics and trait perfectionism. The block change score for perfectionistic self-presentation predicting interviewer satisfaction was marginally significant over and above emotional distress and impression managment. The desire to avoid displaying imperfections was a unique predictor of lower threat appraisals. Perfectionistic self-presentation also predicted higher heart rate when discussing errors, over and above demographics and other measures of distress and impression management, and greater change in heart rate from relaxation; this relation held when controlling for demographics, trait perfectionism, and emotional distress and impression management. Perfectionistic self-presentation did not predict defensive behaviors and was not a unique predictor of self-reported negative affect. The results are discussed in terms of the implications for therapy and the therapeutic alliance. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation was performed with the aim of understanding more about how people interact with and deceive one another in an online context. To build that understanding, the study was motivated by five research questions: (1) How do users experience the process of misrepresenting themselves to others? (2) How do users present themselves in online contexts in which they may not feel comfortable with portraying themselves fully? (3) How do perceived norms and expectations within groups inform users’ self-presentations? (4) How do users’ perceptions of who will view their information impact self-representation? (5) How do perceived affordances impact how users feel they can engage in deceptive practices? To explore and answer these questions, 27 interviews were conducted via the social networking platform Discord with members of the r/Fantasy server. The findings from the research show that how users perceive the potential audiences they have in a group setting is impacted by what they perceive the affordances of the platform to be. In turn, these perceptions influence what users care to share about themselves and how and if they engage in deceptive practices with other group members, both of which are also motivated by a desire to fit in and be accepted by the group at large. These findings provide insight into how users interact with and deceive one another, but also open up room for future research into the intersection of affordances and audiences and how users modify how they present themselves in relation to those perceived components of the online experience.

Self-evaluations are typically performed in the workplace in order to apportion rewards, judge suitability for promotions and to assign people to appropriate roles. However, people adapt their representations of the self to their circumstances so much so that self-evaluations, as a true reflection of a person’s performance or character, are often of little worth. Assuming honest and sincere rather than manipulated feedback in the workplace is better for achieving business objectives, this research describes hypothesised key drivers of self-presentation behaviour and contributes towards improving the design of self-evaluation instruments. A theoretical model of self-presentation behaviour was constructed, drawing on theory of social desirability bias, impression management and accountability, that proposes anticipation of two distinct characteristics of an audience, power to reward and knowledge of the dimensions being assessed, cause the self-presenting individual to adapt their representations of themselves in specific and predictable ways. A quasi-experiment was performed, using a sample of 278 MBA students allocated to four groups, on the effects of audience anticipation on self-reporting on the dimensions of performance and personality. Statistical pair-wise comparisons of means in experimental groups and principal components analysis verified the theoretical model. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted