WHEN MODESTY PREVAILS - DIFFERENTIAL FAVORABILITY OF SELF-PRESENTATION TO FRIENDS AND STRANGERS

Although most interpersonal interactions take place between people who know each other, most self-presentation research has focused on self- presentation to strangers. Five studies showed that self-presentationa l favorability differed as a function of whether the interaction partn er was a friend or a stranger. Studies 1 and 2 found that self-present ations to friends were consistently more modest than self-presentation s to strangers. In Studies 3 and 4, self-presentations were manipulate d by instructing participants to present themselves in either a self-e nhancing or modest manner. Modesty with strangers and self-enhancement with friends both resulted in impaired recall for the interaction, co nsistent with the view that those strategies contradict familiar, over learned patterns. Study 5 distinguished self-deprecation from modesty. Taken together, the results indicate that people habitually use diffe rent self-presentation strategies with different audiences, relying on favorable self-enhancement with strangers but shifting toward modesty when among friends.