The Handbook of the Psychology of Communication Technology by Sundar S. Shyam

Author:Sundar, S. Shyam
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781118426524
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2015-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

The Warranted Self-Presentation Perspective

Deception is almost always used to accomplish goals, such as appearing attractive or interesting for a romantic partner or appearing competent to an employer. Self-enhancing deceptions are common, and typically motivated by a desire to present oneself positively to others. In the self-presentational framework of deception, DePaulo et al. (2003) suggest that lies are used to manage our self-presentations. This framework suggests that self-presentation lies are motivated by the psychological rewards that come with conveying a more positive self-presentation to others. Lies are a self-presentational strategy that allow the individual to appear more positively than their actual traits suggest, but also allow them to avoid the consequences that they might experience from revealing their true characteristics (e.g., disapproval, ridicule, etc.).

DePaulo argues that self-presentational lies can be self or other-oriented. Self-oriented lies are those told to protect or enhance one’s self-presentation. For example, in a self-oriented lie, a job seeker might lie about their how long they worked at an organization to appear more experienced in hopes of being hired. Other-oriented lies are those told to protect others’ feelings while maintaining a positive impression of the self. For example, in an other-oriented lie, a person might tell a friend that they are on their way to a meeting place when they have not yet left the house, which both conveys to the friend that they have not forgotten their plans while simultaneously maintaining the person’s identity as a considerate friend.

DePaulo’s research provides a detailed picture of lies told to accomplish self-presentation goals, but what happens when our self-presentations move to online contexts? As we have described, the online environment has evolved dramatically over our traditional FtF form of interaction. While we discuss the opportunities for deception in various media earlier, changes to communication capabilities provide abundant opportunities for self-presentation. For example, we craft detailed profiles on social networking websites, often sharing details about our personal and professional lives in great detail. In addition, many of our online activities are tracked and shared with members of our social network. Many websites and mobile-based applications allow users to share their online activities with members of their social network, providing unique information about our identity.

These traces of our online activity provide members of our social network with a highly detailed picture of our characteristics and behaviors that would be difficult, if not impossible, to match with information gleaned in offline contexts (e.g., Backstrom & Kleinberg, 2014). These changes in the amount of and accessibility to self-presentational context raise the question of whether deception for self-presentation operates differently online. Does the online environment lead to radical changes in the way that deception occurs, or do the same principles for deception in offline contexts apply online?

While some of the unique features of online communication that enable deception are described earlier, these new opportunities for self-presentation online, such as social networking websites, present important new constraints to deception. Perhaps the most important of these constraints is described in what we call the warranted self-presentation perspective.

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