The impact of imagined audiences on self‐appraisals

Abstract

The concept of the relational self suggests that simply imagining significant others produces shifts in self‐assessments consistent with one’s roles and experiences with those others. To test relevant hypotheses, college women (from the United States) imagined a significant other as part of a visualization task. After imagining parents as compared to peers, participants described themselves as less sensual, dominant, and adventurous (Experiment 1), a pattern consistent with other women’s ratings of how they actually felt with those others. Supporting the idea that self‐esteem differences emerge in more evaluative contexts, self‐esteem moderated self‐assessments on key dimensions (Experiment 2). After imagining a romantic other but not a best friend, self‐esteem was directly related to women’s self‐ratings of sensuality, physical attractiveness, and being at ease.

Consumption in the public eye: The influence of social presence on service experience

“…When social image is enhanced (damaged), social presence should strengthen those positive (negative) evaluations of the event. Research also suggests that an individual is more likely to internalize an event that occurs in public and change his/her self-concept with respect to the event (Schlenker et al, 2008;Tice, 1992). For example, participants who performed an extraverted self-presentation task with anticipation of a social audience rated themselves as more sociable afterwards (Kelly and Rodriguez, 2006).…”

Understanding Self-Effects in Social Media

“…Several other authors have emphasized the central role of imagined audiences in the formation of our self-concepts (e.g., Schlenker, Wowra, Johnson, & Miller, 2008). Imagined audiences are the (groups of) people whom we mentally envision during our self-presentations.…”

“…Imagined audiences are the (groups of) people whom we mentally envision during our self‐presentations. An imagined audience may be just as influential for self‐concept changes as actual audiences are (Schlenker et al, ). Indeed, a number of experiments have shown that subjects' self‐concept reports are more affected after they are led to believe that their self‐presentations are public than private (e.g., Kelly & Rodriguez, ), a difference that is explained by public commitment.…”

Triggering Self-Presentation Efforts Outside of People’s Conscious Awareness

“… 2. In related work, research in the relational self area shows that priming specific important others can influence a variety of people’s subsequent activities (e.g., Andersen & Chen, 2002; Baldwin, 1992; Schlenker, Wowra, Johnson, & Miller, 2008). …”