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Doing More Harm Than Good: When Is Impression Management Likely to Evoke a Negative Response?
Author(s) -
Crant J. Michael
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1996.tb00080.x
Subject(s) - impression management , impression , psychology , impression formation , harm , social psychology , consistency (knowledge bases) , precedent , perception , social perception , advertising , computer science , public law , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , law , political science , business
Impression management tactics do not always successfully influence observers, and may in fact create undesirable impressions. Hypotheses are derived concerning the conditions under which observers may respond more or less positively to impression management tactics. Qualitative data from an experiment manipulating two impression management tactics—self‐handicapping and causal accounts—in conjunction with successful or failed performance outcomes were content‐analyzed for subjects' general impressions of an actor. In turn, these ratings were subjected to an ANOVA. Results suggest that impression management tactics are differentially effective and under certain conditions can actually create negative images. The consistency of impression management tactics, performance outcomes, and observers' expectations form the basis for observers' general impressions of impression managers.