Exposure to Inauthentic Impression Management and Its Effects on Self-Presentation and Meta-Perception

This project investigates whether exposure to different impression-management styles and performance quality influences how people subsequently present themselves in evaluative contexts. Building on theories of social contagion and norm learning, the research examines whether observing others’ ineffective or unsuccessful self-presentation shapes participants’ own self-presentation style and their confidence in how they believe that presentation will be evaluated (meta-perception). Study 1 is an online survey experiment in which participants are randomly assigned to view examples of humble-bragging, overt bragging, or neutral self-presentation and are then given the opportunity to write a short self-presentation intended to make a positive impression. Study 2 extends this question to a job-interview-like setting, where participants first view short videos of applicants who appear to perform poorly or struggle in their interview responses, and are then asked to provide their own interview-style self-presentation. Across both studies, we examine whether exposure to these forms of impression management and performance quality produces downstream shifts in authenticity, strategic tone, and anticipated social evaluation. We expect that exposure to ineffective or strained performances — relative to neutral or more straightforward examples — will influence participants’ subsequent self-presentation choices and may reduce confidence in expected evaluation. We are interested to see whether impression-management norms and expectations are transmitted through observation across online and interview contexts.