What self-monitors don't monitor

Snyder's self-monitoring scale, which is designed to assess subjects' abili ty to modify their self-presentations and to read those of others, may inve rsely reflect the cognitive effort subjects direct toward other focal infor mation. In an information-processing experiment, low self-monitoring subjec ts exhibited significantly higher mean recognition scores than high self-mo nitoring subjects. Many reasons might account for this behavior, but none d etracts from its social-psychological import.