The area of self-presentation has witnessed considerable growth and acceptance within mainstream social psychology during the past 25 years. A quarter century ago, the term self-presentation did not appear in the index of major social psychology texts. To most social psychologists, it evoked negative images of superficiality rather than substance, and deception rather than authenticity. It was relegated to minor, fringe status in social psychology and was seen as a specific subtype of social behavior through which people could satisfy their needs for social approval by making a socially desirable impression on others. In his pioneering work on ingratiation, Jones (1964;Jones & Wortman, 1973) used self-presentation to describe one of four types of behavior-along with opinion conformity, flattery, and favor doing-through which people could try to be liked by others.

Recent research has emphasized the effectiveness ofexcuses in protecting the selffrom the implications offailures and transgressions. The disadvantages of excuses have been relatively neglected. The triangle model of responsibility provides a conceptual framework to analyze how excuses disengage the selffrom events and the conditions under which advantages and disadvantages accrue. On the disadvantage side, excuse-makers risk being seen as deceptive, self-absorbed, and ineffectual; they are viewed as unreliable social participants withflawed character These undesired consequences result when excuses are used in ways that lower credibility (e.g., fail to receive corroboration), lower goodwill (e.g., blamefailures on team members), andproduce long-term disengagement (e.g., lead tofailures to correctpersonal deficiencies). It is proposed that excuses are effective in the long run only ifthey balance short-term disengagement ofthe selfand long-term engagement. Excuses are especially problematic when used to disengage the selffrom important, recurring tasks.

Extra cognitive loads can hinder challenging self-presentations by usurping needed cognitive resources but also may sometimes improve them by shifting attention away from negative self-preoccupation. In Study 1, extraverts and introverts participated in an interview in which they presented themselves as either extraverted or introverted. Congruent self-presentations, which should be cognitively nondemanding, were unaffected by a cognitive busyness manipulation (rehearsing an 8-digit number). However, incongruent self-presentations were affected by busyness. Busyness decreased the effectiveness of extraverts who tried to appear introverted but increased the effectiveness of introverts who tried to appear extraverted. Study 2 found that introverts, who also tend to be socially anxious, reported less public self-consciousness and fewer negative self-focused thoughts when they were busy than when they were not busy.

As hypothesized, while introducing themselves to another person via video, participants high in social anxiety appeared more socially competent with a friend present than when alone. We also examined three potential explanations for this effect and found that while sharing information about themselves on video, most participants high in social anxiety were verbally prompted by their friends. Furthermore, on an open ended question, participants high in social anxiety expressed less negative self-focused thoughts with a friend present than when alone, but friends' presence did not affect their self-reports of anxiety. As predicted, the presence of friends had no effect on social performance or anxiety for participants low in social anxiety. Although more research is needed to ascertain how being with a friend versus alone results in better social performance for people high in social anxiety, friends' support may be part of a repertoire of "safe" social interaction strategies.

No abstract