Impression management - Assignment Example

Impression management It would not be a mistake to suggest that impression management is an important part of social life.At a particular point every person has felt the need to consciously adjust the influence that one has on others. In this paper I will reflect on general instances of this practice and engage some example from my own life.One would make no mistake suggesting that it is advantageous to use impression management in the situations when a good reputation will become a serious advantage in the future development.

For example, when one is applying for a job, it is crucial to make a good first impression as it will largely affect the development of a person in the future (Giacalone, 1989, 25). I would most certainly do so. On the other hand, I believe that there are some situations when impression management is unnecessary. Thus, there is no doubt that while getting closer to a romantic partner should be a genuine process and any impression management would only decrease the amount of trust in the future couple (Cunningham, 2013, 15).

The typical difference between these two situations lies in the area of social life. On the one hand, the former situation deals more with external part of living in the society which is largely conditioned by the social conventions. On the other hand, the latter situation is much more private and is not subject to scrutiny of the social environment.I remember one particular example when I used impression management and succeeded. I was applying for a job and had an interview. I did my best to influence the interviewer: my speech was sophisticated, I seemed to be a professional and built a great rapport in no time.

They hired me on the next time. The success can be explained by the fact that I worked on my impression at home, thinking about effective ways to be appealing to the company. Contrary to that, once I had quite an opposite experience. I was trying to make friends with a colleague, but my behavior was different from my usual one. What is worst, we had some mutual friend and the colleague was able to verify if I am acting in a natural way. This difference is largely responsible for the failure. I do not think that the latter situation could have been helped if I had used a self-handicapping strategy.

It is obvious that I could have used diminished my abilities and appear to be willing to accept help or guidance, but that would bring quite the opposite effect that I was looking for. One should point out that turning self-handicapping strategy into a the strategy that is used on a regular basis brings terrible outcomes for a person since it does not allow one to build sincere relationships with others as they will be bases on some kind of lie or manipulation. As a result, when the person stops self-handicapping , the general pattern of the relationship with fail which will surely contribute to a bad reputation of such an individual.

ReferencesCunningham, C. (2013). Social networking and impression management: Self-presentation in the digital age. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Giacalone, R. (1989). Impression management in the organization. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates.