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

Abstract

Three studies utilized priming techniques to examine whether self-presentations can be activated without conscious awareness. The results across all experiments consistently demonstrated nonconscious self-presentation effects, in that people were unaware that their self-presentations were triggered automatically and that their self-presentations were comparable to participants who were explicitly instructed to self-present. The findings are novel because they are the first to demonstrate that self-presentations can be triggered without conscious awareness in a manner similar to self-presentations that are strategically selected. In addition, the results help undermine the common misconception that self-presentation typically involves conscious deliberation, pretense, or outright deception.

Keywords

self-presentation nonconscious awareness

Self-presentation has often been described as comprising strategically controlled behaviors where people deliberately attempt to project a desired identity image to others. With little doubt, self-presentation can involve this form of conscious tactic, but as many theorists have posited, self-presentation is just as likely to consist of an automatic, nonconscious component (Baumeister, 1982; Paulhus, 1993; Schlenker, 2003).

Although the number of studies examining automatic self-presentation is not abundant, the evidence available shows that once self-presentation goals are overtly initiated, subsequent self-presentations can then occur more or less autonomously, outside of conscious awareness (e.g., Baumeister, Hutton, & Tice, 1989; Pontari & Schlenker, 2000; Tice, Butler, Muraven, & Stillwell, 1995). However, it is of key importance to note that the design of these studies typically involves participants receiving explicit instructions to self-present in a particular manner.¹ Hence, this evidence does not allow us to assess whether self-presentations are automatically triggered outside of conscious awareness (i.e., in the absence of self-presentation instructions), in that people are unaware of the initiation and flow of their self-presentations. In short, there is no extant research that directly examines the nonconscious activation of people’s self-presentation efforts.

Without such evidence, a significant gap exists in self-presentation literature between what recent theories suggest concerning nonconscious self-presentation and what the evidence can empirically support. The aim of the current studies is to help bridge this gap. Specifically, we employ priming methodologies as a means to examine whether self-presentations can be triggered without conscious awareness in a manner comparable to efforts that are consciously and strategically selected.

Behavioral Priming, Automatic Goal Pursuit, and Nonconscious Self-Presentation

Over the past 25 years, research has documented that priming trait constructs, social behaviors, stereotypes, and social categories can influence people to nonconsciously express the targeted behavior (e.g., rudeness, intellectual performance, helping behavior; see Dijksterhuis, Chartrand, & Aarts, 2007, for review). Moreover, increasing evidence suggests that goals can also be activated and pursued in a nonconscious fashion (Chartrand & Bargh, 1996; Fitzsimmons & Bargh, 2003). Specifically,

goal pursuit can arise from mental processes that are put into motion by features of the social environment outside of conscious awareness. Central to the idea of automatic goal pursuit is the assumption that goals are represented in mental structures (i.e., knowledge structures) that include the context, the goal, and actions that may aid goal pursuit, and they can therefore be primed automatically by relevant environmental stimuli, much in the same way that social attitudes, constructs, stereotypes, and schemas are. (Custers & Aarts, 2005, p. 129)

As a result, when such goal representations are primed, it serves to increase people’s efforts to achieve the activated goal (Aarts, Gollwitzer, & Hassin, 2004). For instance, Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, and Trotschel (2001) illustrated that activating the goal to perform well (i.e., participants were primed with performance-related words: succeed and win) exerted an unconscious positive effect on participants’ subsequent performance on an intellectual task.² Thus, evidence shows that goal activation sequence and the operations to obtain a particular goal can unfold in the absence of a person’s intention or awareness.

In much the same manner as automatic goal pursuit, theorists posit that self-presentations can also be nonconsciously activated by features of the social environment (Schlenker, 2003). Indeed, self-presentations are characterized as a goal-directed effort designed to convey a particular identity image of the self (DePaulo, 1992).³ Like automatic goal pursuit, it is assumed that self-presentation goals comprise cognitive structures that include the context, the goal, and the actions to achieve the goal. And “because the mental representations of the situation, goal, and respective goal-directed actions are interconnected, perception of the situation may automatically activate the representation of the related goal and the connected goal-directed actions” (Aarts et al., 2004, p. 24). As a result, people may strive to achieve their self-presentation goals, although they are not consciously aware of doing so. Put differently, people may engage in goal-directed behavior where they attempt to communicate a desired identity that is appropriate to and matches with a given social context. In short, self-presentations may be guided outside of conscious awareness when interpersonal goals, behavior, and motivation are automatically triggered. Once activated, people’s self-presentational efforts may persist until the desired goal is achieved (e.g., conveying a desired identity image).

Although a number of studies have examined self-presentation within the framework of an automatic versus controlled process, these studies relied on direct prompts to activate self-presentations (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1989; Paulhus & Levitt, 1987; Pontari & Schlenker, 2000; Tice et al., 1995; Vohs, Baumeister, & Ciarocco, 2005). That is, they explicitly instructed participants to engage in a specific type of self-presentation, for example, one that was either congruent or incongruent with what would be expected in a particular situation. Hence, they do not demonstrate that automatic self-presentations were necessarily activated outside of conscious awareness, only that such behavior appeared to unfold in the absence of controlled efforts (i.e., autonomous). By comparison, the current research utilizes priming methodologies to directly examine the nonconscious activation of self-presentation.

Experiment 1 Overview

With Experiments 1 and 2, we primed participants with words associated with impression-oriented people (e.g., appearance, face, image, impression, identity, portrayal, role). These words originated from earlier pilot work; they were shown as relating to people who typically behave in a positive and friendly manner to present a favorable and likable persona (details available from corresponding author). For the dependent variable participants completed a self-descriptive questionnaire and the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SDS; Crowne & Marlowe, 1960). In addition, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE; Rosenberg, 1965) were also measured to examine the possibility that the priming manipulation was exerting a general influence on participants’ mood and self-esteem and not just on their self-presentations. In short, we expected participants’ responses on the self-descriptive questionnaire and the SDS to be more favorable when participants were primed with impression-oriented words versus neutral words.

Method

A total of 58 undergraduate students at a large university received extra credit in their courses for participating (35 women). Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (impression prime vs. neutral prime). On arrival, participants were seated at individual computer terminals. The researcher explained that participants would complete a new test that was described as a “linguistic task.” The task in actuality was the priming manipulation, which, following Bargh et al. (2001), took the form of the Scrambled Sentence Test. Specifically, participants were provided with a scrambled list of five words and were instructed to create a grammatically correct four-word sentence. In total, there were 30 five-word strings on the test. In the impression prime condition, 15 strings contained impression-oriented words, as discussed in the overview, and 15 strings contained neutral words (e.g., box, desk, engine). In the neutral prime condition, we used the same 15 neutral words (repeated twice).

After finishing the priming task, participants were taken to a different lab room where they were issued research credit slips. At this point, a different researcher approached the participants and explained that he or she was trying to finish his or her thesis and asked if they would participate in another study for additional credit. This ostensible second study involved the completion of a number of questionnaires. After agreeing to participate (all participants agreed), the experimenter mentioned that he or she needed to make more copies of the questionnaires and left the room. On returning, the experimenter explained that the printer was broken. At this point, participants were told that the experimenter would read each question out loud (off computer monitor) and the participant would verbally indicate his or her response, which the experimenter would record on a separate sheet of paper.

The questionnaire required participants to rate themselves on various self-descriptive items (e.g., social skills, creativity, physical adeptness, academic capacity, relationship success, friendliness; items were adapted from prior work on self-presentation; Baumeister et al., 1989; Tyler & Feldman, 2005). All items (25) were rated on a scale anchored, for example, at 1 (not very friendly) and 9 (very friendly; α = .97; items were reverse coded where appropriate). The questionnaire also included the SDS (true or false to 33 items), the PANAS anchored at 1 (not at all) and 5 (extremely; α = .96), and the RSE anchored at 1 (agree very much) and 5 (disagree very much; α = .70). All items on the self-descriptive questionnaire were randomly ordered, followed by the SDS, PANAS, and RSE.

After completing the questionnaire, participants answered two items (α = .71) adapted from Bargh et al. (2001): “How important was it for you to make a favorable impression while you responded to the questionnaire items?” and “How committed did you feel to the goal of making a favorable impression?” rated on a scale of 1 (not important or not committed) to 7 (very important or very committed). Following the typical debriefing procedure from previous priming studies, participants were probed for any suspicion concerning the relationship between the two tasks (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). None of the participants expressed any awareness or suspicions that the two tasks were related.

Results

Manipulation checks

Initial analyses indicated that participants’ mood and self-esteem were not significantly different in the impression prime (M_mood = 2.62, SD = 0.48; M_SE = 3.97, SD = 0.46) compared to the neutral prime condition (M_mood = 2.66, SD = 0.63; M_SE = 4.00, SD = 0.45), ts < 1.00, ps > .80. This suggests that the effects of the impression prime on participants’ responses cannot be attributed to a change in mood or self-esteem. In addition, analysis of the two items concerning the participant’s desire to convey a favorable impression indicated no significant differences as a function of the priming conditions (M_impression = 2.55, SD = 0.43; M_neutral = 2.57, SD = 0.46), t < 1.00, p > .80. This suggests that participants were unaware of the activation and the subsequent operation of the prime.

Primary analysis

As predicted, participants’ self-descriptive responses in the impression prime condition (M = 6.12, SD = 0.31) were significantly more favorable than participants’ responses in the neutral prime condition (M = 4.98, SD = 0.59), t(56) = 9.15, p < .001, d = 2.42. Moreover, as expected, participants’ score on the SDS mirrored the self-descriptive measure, that is, participants were more likely to present themselves favorably in the impression prime condition (M = 16.34, SD = 1.79) compared to the neutral prime condition (M = 13.31, SD = 1.42), t(56) = 7.14, p < .001, d = 1.87. Adding gender to the analysis produced no significant effects (Experiments 2 and 3 also showed no gender effects, and thus gender will not be further addressed).

Discussion

These results provide the first evidence demonstrating nonconscious self-presentation. Although we used a supraliminal priming task, we follow previous priming studies that frequently employ similar explicit primes to initially demonstrate a priming effect on a particular behavior of interest. Likewise, we followed debriefing procedures typically used in prior priming work, which indicated that participants were unaware of the goal manipulation task and the relationship between the two studies. Thus, it seems that goal effects occurred outside of participants’ conscious awareness. It is also possible that the results represent semantic priming effects rather than goal priming effects. However, Bargh and Ferguson (2000) noted that a temporal delay can serve as a means to differentiate goal-directed effects and semantic priming effects (also see Aarts et al., 2004). With the current study, the time lapse between the end of the priming task and the completion of the questionnaire was between 5 and 7 min (we did not measure the exact time). Although we did not employ an immediate versus delay condition to specifically examine this issue, we would expect that the 5- to 7-min delay would have substantially decreased the effect, if indeed the priming effect we observed was actually caused by semantic priming only. However, this was not the case; the priming effect remained quite robust. One might also posit that participants would express higher self-esteem or mood as part of their self-presentation. To be transparent, we did not necessarily expect this effect to emerge; indeed, some research suggests that such measures are not always influenced by self-presentation motivations (Tyler, 2009). However, we cannot report with certainty why this lack of effect occurred with the current data. It is plausible that a ceiling effect may have limited the self-presentation value of these items, although the means of both measures seem to indicate sufficient room for increase. Another reasonable possibility suggests that the priming effects may have dissipated given that the PANAS and RSE were completed after the other questionnaire items. Or it may simply be that such measures are not uniformly influenced by self-presentation motivations.

Experiment 2 Overview

The primary goals of Experiment 2 were twofold: first, to conceptually replicate Experiment 1 using a subliminal priming task and, second, to demonstrate nonconscious self-presentation in a social interaction. For Experiment 2, the priming procedure involved a lexical decision task (see details in the method section) where participants were primed with either impression-oriented or neutral words (same words as used in Experiment 1). In addition, we included an explicit self-presentation instruction condition, which was expected to produce the same outcome as the nonconscious priming of self-presentation (this follows the logic of explicit goal instructions vs. primed goals as outlined in Bargh et al., 2001). After participants completed the priming task, they engaged in a conversation with a confederate, which was videotaped. To create the dependent variable, independent coders rated how favorable the participants presented themselves (see details in the method section). We hypothesized that in the impression prime and explicit self-presentation instruction conditions, participants would engage in more favorable self-presentations compared to participants in a neutral prime condition.

Method

Participants and procedure

A total of 75 undergraduate students at a large university received extra credit in their courses for participating (49 women). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (impression prime vs. neutral prime vs. explicit self-presentation instructions). On arrival, participants were told that they would complete a number of tasks from a variety of research teams. Each participant was first seated at a separate cubicle equipped with an individual computer terminal. The initial task was described as a word recognition task (i.e., lexical decision task in which participants were subliminally primed with impression or neutral words; this procedure follows the design used in previous priming work; Smeesters, Yzerbyt, Corneille, & Warlop, 2009; also see Smeesters, Wheeler, & Kay, 2009). Participants were instructed that they would view 30 letter strings (i.e., 30 trials) presented one at a time on the computer screen. In half of the cases the strings were actual words (e.g., desk), whereas in the other half they composed nonsense syllables (e.g., afhjts). The participant’s task was to press a “yes” or “no” button as fast as possible to indicate whether a string of letters was an actual word or not. Each of the 30 words was preceded by a subliminal prime. In both the impression and neutral prime conditions we used the same words that were used in Experiment 1 (words were repeated twice). In each condition, the prime word was presented for 17 ms and was masked by a row of Xs (“XXXXXXXXXX”). The row of Xs then remained on the screen for 225 ms, after which the target word was immediately presented. As soon as participants responded (i.e., pressed a key) the target word disappeared; after a 1,500 ms pause, the next trial began.

After finishing the priming task, participants were told that they would complete one last activity with another student. At this point, they were taken into another lab room and introduced to the student (a confederate). The researcher explained that he was running a bit behind schedule and that he would be back in about 10 min to conduct the last activity and that the participants should feel free to talk while they waited. The researcher then left the room.

To maintain consistency with those in the priming conditions, participants in the explicit self-presentation instruction condition completed an unrelated questionnaire on the computer that required approximately the same amount of time as the priming task. After completing the questionnaire, participants in the explicit condition received the same instructions as those in the priming condition concerning the final activity to complete with another student. In addition, these participants were told that the researchers were examining whether the final task was more effectively completed when participants felt comfortable working together. Thus, participants in the explicit condition were instructed to present themselves in a favorable manner by highlighting their positive qualities, but to do so without distorting or misrepresenting the truth (adapted from Jones, Rhodewalt, Berglas, & Skelton, 1981). In all conditions, the participant and the confederate engaged in a 10-min conversation, which was covertly videotaped. The confederate was instructed to maintain moderately neutral but encourage behavior, and was not privy to the hypotheses or the experimental conditions.

At the conclusion of the 10-min conversation, participants completed a postexperimental questionnaire (included the two favorable impression items from Experiment 1; α = .96). Participants were also probed for any suspicion concerning the relationship between the two tasks and the subliminal nature of the priming task. As with the first experiment, none of the participants expressed any suspicions that the two tasks were related or any awareness concerning the subliminal priming.

Dependent measure

To create the self-presentation measure, three coders, who were blind to experimental conditions, independently watched each videotaped interaction. After viewing the videotape, the coders answered the following items concerning the target participant: “How favorable did the person present him or herself?” (1 = very unfavorably to 9 = very favorably), “How likable was the person?” (1 = very unlikable to 9 = very likable), and “What overall impression did the person make?” (1 = very negative impression to 9 = very positive impression). Analysis indicated an acceptable interrater reliability (range = .71–.81; interrater reliability = .77). The coder’s ratings were averaged to derive a measure for each participant, with higher values indicating a more favorable image. To ensure that confederates maintained a moderately neutral but encouraging reaction to the participant, coders also rated the confederate’s overall demeanor on a scale anchored at 1 (extremely negative reactions) and 9 (extremely positive reactions).

Results

Manipulation checks

Importantly, an initial analysis indicated that the confederate’s overall demeanor remained moderately positive and did not significantly differ across conditions, F < 1, p > .70, impression prime: M = 4.99, SD = 0.82; neutral prime: M = 5.12, SD = 0.88; explicit self- presentation: M = 5.19, SD = 0.81. Consistent with Experiment 1, analysis of the two items concerning the participant’s desire to convey a favorable impression indicated no significant difference between the impression (M = 2.44, SD = 0.39) and neutral prime (M = 2.46, SD = 0.35) conditions, t < 1, p > .80. However, as expected, participants indicated greater concern with making a favorable impression in the explicit self-presentation instruction condition (M = 6.34, SD = 0.28) compared to both the impression and neutral prime conditions, respectively, t(72) = 40.18, p < .001; t(72) = 39.98, p < .001. Thus, it seems that participants in the prime conditions were unaware of the activation and subsequent operation of the primed goal.

Primary analysis

To test the primary hypotheses, a one-way ANOVA (impression prime vs. neutral prime vs. explicit self-presentation) was computed. Similar to Experiment 1, the analysis revealed a significant main effect, F(2, 72) = 108.22, p < .001, η² = .75. Planned contrasts showed that self-presentation in both the impression prime (M = 6.18, SD = 0.26) and explicit self-presentation conditions (M = 6.31, SD = 0.41) were significantly greater than in the neutral prime condition (M = 5.01, SD = 0.35), respectively, t(72) = 11.99, p < .001, d = 3.79; t(72) = 13.37, p < .001, d = 3.41. Moreover, an additional contrast showed that participants’ self-presentation in the impression prime condition essentially mirrored and did not significantly differ from the self-presentation efforts of participants who were given an explicit self- presentation goal, t < 1.50, p > .15.

Discussion

Using a subliminal priming task and a social interaction context, the results again clearly demonstrate that self-presentations can occur outside of conscious awareness and that such efforts are comparable to more explicit types of self-presentation. We now turn to Experiment 3, where we used more situationally oriented cues as the priming stimulus to examine the self-presentational effects found in the first two experiments.

Experiment 3 Overview

The aim of Experiment 3 was twofold. The primary goal was to conceptually replicate and build on the nonconscious self-presentation effects found in the first two experiments. To do so, we continued to follow the ideas outlined in the introduction suggesting that features of the social environment can serve as nonconscious cues to trigger self-presentation efforts. Although Experiments 1 and 2 used words associated with impression-oriented people, Experiment 3 utilizes words that are related to social interactions. Specifically, although there are myriad features available, we focus on the general idea that the participating audience that one is interacting with may serve as a nonconscious cue (Andersen & Chen, 2002). For example, one can interact with friends or strangers, fellow employees or supervisors, or even siblings or parents. In each case, people may respond to the particular audience with different self-presentation efforts ranging from modesty to self-promotion; people may even wish to present a somewhat unfavorable persona on certain occasions. Hence, we reasoned that different types of audience members (i.e., as a feature of the social environment) might serve as nonconscious cues to activate various self-presentations. This variability of self-presentation efforts relates to the second goal of Experiment 3. That is, although our earlier data showed participants presented themselves more favorably in the condition of interest, we are not suggesting that nonconscious self-presentations will always be favorable irrespective of the social context. Indeed, as noted above, we expect the nature of an individual’s self-presentations to be relatively sensitive to nonconscious environmental cues (e.g., audience).

The priming conditions for Experiment 3 are grounded in Tice et al.’s (1995) work, where she found that people’s self-presentation efforts are modest with friends but self-enhancing with strangers. As noted earlier, these studies involved overt instructions for participants to engage in specific self- presentations (i.e., congruent or incongruent with what would be expected in a situation). Nonetheless, they hint that features of the social context may serve as nonconscious cues that trigger self-presentation efforts. Given Tice et al.’s findings, we reasoned that friend-related words might serve as a cue associated with more modest responses, whereas stranger-related words might serve as a cue associated with more self-enhancing responses.

In short, to examine whether nonconscious social cues (e.g., audience) trigger self-presentation, participants in Experiment 3 were subliminally primed with either friend-related words (e.g., friend, acquaintance, well known, familiar) or stranger-related words (e.g., stranger, unacquainted, unknown, unfamiliar) using the same lexical decision task from Experiment 2 as the priming procedure. These words were pretested in pilot work and were shown to have clear category distinctions (details available from the corresponding author). There was also a third no prime condition. For the dependent variable, participants were asked to write a personal description of themselves, which they were told would remain anonymous. Two independent coders judged the participants’ description with regard to how favorable the participants described themselves using a scale anchored at 1 (very unfavorable) and 9 (very favorable; interrater reliability = .83).

Participants were told that their descriptions would be anonymous because we wanted to minimize as much as possible any conscious self-presentations (e.g., if they believed their description would be shared with a friend it would be confounded with the priming stimulus; that is, we would not be able to discern whether any effects were the result of the friend or to the nonconscious prime). However, we realize it is likely that participants assume their description would be read by the researcher. With this in mind, we utilize the no prime condition as a quasi-baseline for participants’ responses. That is, consistent with Tice et al.’s (1995) findings, we would expect descriptions in the no prime condition to be somewhat self-enhancing if participants assumed their description would be read by the researcher. It would follow that descriptions in the friend and stranger conditions should be relatively similar to those in the no prime condition if the primes have no effect. However, if there is a priming effect, compared to the descriptions in the no prime condition, descriptions in the friend condition should be more modest, whereas those in the stranger condition should be more self-enhancing.

Method

A total of 78 undergraduate students at a large university received extra credit in their courses for participating (41 women). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (friend prime vs. stranger prime vs. no prime).

On arrival, participants were told the researchers were developing and testing stimulus material for use in future research and participants would work on a number of different tasks and then answer questions concerning the material. Each participant was first seated at a separate cubicle equipped with an individual computer terminal. The first task involved the priming manipulation, which was described as a word recognition task; this was the same lexical decision task used in Experiment 2. In this case, participants were subliminally primed with either the friend- or stranger-related words as discussed in the overview. In the no prime condition, participants completed an unrelated questionnaire on the computer that required approximately the same amount of time as the priming task.

After finishing the priming task, participants were taken to another lab room and told that they would complete one last activity. At this point, they were instructed to write a self-description as outlined in the overview. They were told to describe themselves in any manner they chose and that their description would remain anonymous. Participants were given 10 min to complete the description, after which they completed a postexperimental questionnaire (included two favorable impression items from Experiment 1; α = .87). They were probed for any suspicion concerning the relationship between the two tasks and the subliminal nature of the priming task. As with Experiments 1 and 2, none of the participants expressed any suspicions that the two tasks were related or any awareness concerning the subliminal priming.

Results

Manipulation checks

Consistent with Experiments 1 and 2, analysis of the two items concerning the participant’s desire to convey a favorable impression indicated no significant difference among the friend (M = 2.37, SD = 0.48), stranger (M = 2.44, SD = 0.54), and no prime conditions (M = 2.31, SD = 0.60), F < 1, p > .65. Thus, it seems that participants in the prime conditions were unaware of the activation and subsequent operation of the primed goal.

Primary analysis

A one-way ANOVA (friend prime vs. stranger prime vs. no prime) was computed to test the primary hypotheses. The results indicated a significant main effect, F(2, 77) = 32.46, p < .001, η² = .46. Planned contrasts showed that descriptions in the friend condition (M = 4.08, SD = 0.60) were significantly more modest than descriptions in the no prime condition (M = 5.39, SD = 1.07), whereas descriptions in the stranger condition (M = 6.10, SD = 1.01) were significantly more self-enhancing than in the no prime condition, t(75) = -5.14, p < .001, d = 1.51; t(75) = 2.80, p < .01, d = 0.68.

Discussion

As in Experiment 2, the results using a subliminal priming task demonstrate that self-presentations can be triggered to occur outside of conscious awareness. The findings are consistent with and complement prior work (Tice et al., 2005), illustrating that people may vary their self-presentations as a function of nonconscious social cues.

General Discussion

Using different methodologies and measures, the findings across all three experiments consistently demonstrated nonconscious self-presentation. The primary contributions are straightforward. As noted earlier, although many have theoretically posited the idea, there is little evidence available to support the claim for nonconscious self-presentation (however, see Baumeister et al., 1989). It is important to emphasize that we are not arguing that the current findings of automatic self-presentation represent a significant advance to work on nonconscious priming, although they do inform the literature. Rather, the more important advance that we claim focuses on the contribution to the self-presentation literature. Specifically, the results fill a significant gap in the literature by being the first to demonstrate nonconscious self-presentation, in that people are unaware that their self-presentations are being triggered automatically. Moreover, nonconscious self-presentations were similar in form to those consciously initiated (i.e., when participants were explicitly instructed to self-present). This latter finding adds to the sparse evidence from previous research (Custers & Aarts, 2005) suggesting that unconsciously and consciously activated goals may control behavior in much the same way. In short, the findings extend both theory and research as outlined in the introduction and bring data in line with more recent theorizing on self-presentation and social cognition (e.g., Baumeister, 1982; Hogan, 1982; Leary, 1995; Paulhus, 1993; Schlenker, 2003).

One may, however, question whether the findings are just another example of social behaviors that are already known to be nonconsciously primed and, therefore, not novel. We argue that this is not the case. First, although we outline theory and research that expands the concept of self-presentation, many continue to view self-presentation as chiefly involving strategically controlled behavior carried out with conscious awareness, often involving deliberate manipulation, pretense, and often outright deception. The intent here is not to disparage these beliefs, in fact, they may be reasonable assumptions—to date there is minimal evidence to show otherwise. Rather, our point is that these typically held characterizations suggest that self-presentation can be distinguished as a unique subtype of social behavior—one that is typically assumed to involve consciously controlled efforts in which people act in a manner inconsistent with their “true” self-beliefs. Thus, we posit that the current findings go beyond the viewpoint of simply demonstrating that yet another social behavior can be primed. Why? Because by demonstrating nonconscious self-presentation, the current findings provide clear empirical support for a broader conceptualization of self-presentation, one that challenges the more limited and narrow view that self-presentations are consciously controlled and often manipulative.

In part, the present work shares some similarity with the chameleon effect, in which the “mere perception of another’s behavior is believed to automatically cause nonconscious mimicry” (Chartrand, Maddux, & Lakin, 2005, p. 351). The typical research design involves participants interacting with a confederate who exhibits a repetitive behavior (e.g., foot tapping, face touching), with results showing that participants unconsciously mimic the repetitive actions of the confederate. More specifically, evidence shows that the chameleon effect occurs automatically and outside of awareness, is exhibited more by people who desire to make a good impression or who have personality characteristics typical of good impression managers (e.g., high self-monitoring), and produces liking, rapport, and affiliation (Ashton-James, van Baaren, Chartrand, Decety, & Karremans, 2007; Cheng & Chartrand, 2003; Lakin & Chartrand, 2003). With that in mind, mimicry research may be plausibly linked to nonconscious self-presentation, in that merely seeing another’s observable behavior may automatically trigger a self-presentation goal, leading to the mimicked action, which in this case would represent the self-presentation behavior. However, although the current research may allow conceptual links to be drawn between the chameleon effect and work that follows a more classical self-presentation tradition, it is important to note that empirically connecting this process to nonconscious self-presentation remains speculative.

Likewise, the current research may also offer conceptual links between goal contagion and self-presentation. With goal contagion, “simply perceiving another’s goal-directed behavior can cause one to unconsciously pursue the goal as their own” (Loersch, Aarts, Payne, & Jefferis, 2008, p. 1555). The typical design involves participants observing a goal-implying behavior that another appears to be striving to achieve, with results showing that participants unconsciously pursue the goal-implying behavior as their own. Thus, it is possible that nonconscious self-presentations may be triggered when an individual observes another who appears to be engaged in self-presentation goal-implying behavior. However, again we are clearly speculating, and such a potential relationship remains for future research to examine.

In addition, as noted earlier, we are not arguing that nonconscious self-presentations will always be favorable regardless of the social situation. In fact, as the data from Experiment 3 show, the nature of an individual’s self-presentations may be influenced nonconsciously by cues embedded in the social environment (e.g., audience). Future research would benefit by examining whether other features of the social setting (e.g., goals, partner attractiveness, and other types of audiences) likewise serve as nonconscious cues that trigger particular self-presentation efforts.

Conclusion

By demonstrating nonconscious self-presentation, the current results not only fill an important gap in the self-presentation literature but also offer a fuller, more nuanced view of self-presentation, one that may help to undermine the common misconception that self-presentations primarily involve consciously controlled efforts.

Footnotes

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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