THE IMPACT OF SELF-PRESENTATIONS ON SELF-APPRAISALS AND BEHAVIOR - THE POWER OF PUBLIC COMMITMENT

Strategic self-presentations can have a far-reaching impact on an acto r's identity. Subjects who presented themselves as sociable to an inte rviewer, compared with those who did not present themselves, later rai sed their self-appraisals of their own sociability, behaved more socia bly (i.e., spoke sooner, more frequently, and longer) in a different s ituation, were viewed as more sociable by a confederate and by judges, and recalled personal experiences that indicated they were more socia ble. Strategic self-presentations thus produced both a phenomenologica l and a behavioral carryover that influenced the actor's identity in a new situation with a new audience. Two further experiments explored t he processes responsible for these effects and found that private self -reflection was not sufficient to produce the changes. Rather, public commitment to the, identity portrayed in the self-presentation was a c rucial antecedent of changes in self-appraisals.