1. To Thine
Own Self
Be TrueUpstate Researchers Study
Self-Presentation, Impression Management
28 GREENVILLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2016

2. BY EMILY STEVENSON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMY RANDALL PHOTOGRAPHY
C
ompanies that treat their employees to
a big end-of-year bash might want to
rethink that strategy,according to Dr.
Monica McCoy,professor of psychology
at Converse College.
“Businesses do this to be nice and reward us,
but there’s a high level of discomfort that comes
from it,” says McCoy.“You hear of all the horror
stories of things that go wrong at Christmas parties,
and I think a lot of it is the mixing of different
audiences.”
MORE AUDIENCES, MORE PROBLEMS
That situation, the Multiple Audience Problem,
is one of many topics McCoy, along with recent
graduate Brenna Byler, has researched. In short,
the MAP occurs when someone is in a situation
involving people from different aspects of their
life, or people with differing levels of authority.At
an office holiday party, for example, an employee
is interacting with their spouse or partner, their
colleagues, their boss and possibly subordinates –
and that’s where the problem comes in.
“When those audiences merge, it can be
difficult to decide which way to act,” says
Dr. Beth Pontari seeks to
understand why people do the
things they do.
FEBRUARY 2016 | GREENVILLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE 29

3. McCoy.“Do you act like the ‘you’ that
your spouse is used to or that your busi-
ness is used to?”
Across the Upstate, Dr. Beth Pontari,
Furman University Associate Psychol-
ogy Professor and Chair of the Psychol-
ogy Department, is asking the same
question.
Pontari, who describes herself as a
social psychologist, seeks to understand
why people do the things they do.
“Research has shown that people’s
self-concepts are complex,” she says.
“Different parts of the self come to
the forefront depending on who we’re
interacting with. Choosing which
part of oneself to emphasize becomes
complicated when various groups of
acquaintances collide.”
At the heart of the issue is self-
presentation. Often mistaken for a
devious or vain undertaking, self-
presentation is merely how much we try
to manage other people’s impressions of
us and how aware we are of whether or
not it’s working.
Pontari believes that the public
aspect of self doesn’t get the attention it
deserves.
“So much of how we define
ourselves is based on how we’re
received,” she says.“It depends on if
we’re loved, supported, accepted.”
Individuals who are high self-
monitors key into feedback from people
around them, such as nonverbal cues,
facial expressions, and body language,
to see if they’re conveying what they
need to convey.A low self-monitor is
more likely to ignore external cues and
instead project the same persona no
matter the situation.
There are positives and negatives to
both: high self-monitors are typically
more well liked because they give the
group what it wants. Low self-monitors
appear more genuine, and you’re less
shocked when you see one out of
context because they maintain a similar
personality across the different aspects of
their life.
One way to tell if you’re a high or
low self-monitor is to imagine that you
are attending a party with every single
person you know. If that would be a
nightmare for you, you’re probably a
high self-monitor and adapt yourself to
your surroundings. Low self-monitors
wouldn’t mind the large party because
they typically maintain their persona
throughout all the aspects of their lives.
It’s one reason that weddings, gradua-
tions, and other major life events often
become stressful and conflict-ridden.
However, they don’t necessarily have to
be.
“You find that people mellow out
how much they use any one trick to try
to play to all the people in a group,” says
Byler.“They’ll go between the different
techniques and find a balance between
what they’re used to using and how that
will work with the different sorts of
relationships in the group.”
IN THE CORPORATE WORLD
Self-presentation has enormous
implications in the business world.
When interacting with others, it’s
important to know your audience –
even if it’s wider than you’d like.
“How you package the information
is critical,” says Pontari.“To do that well
is to acknowledge who the information
is going to and what their needs are.”
Depending on your ranking in the
office hierarchy, your strategies might
vary.
Byler, in her research with McCoy,
found that people higher up the power
chain are more likely to use strategies
like intimidation with their subordi-
nates in order to command attention
and respect. Conversely, individuals
dealing with their bosses or supervi-
sors typically employ a tactic called
exemplification, where they attempt to
portray themselves as a model example
of their profession.Among equal level
colleagues, a technique called ingratia-
tion, or trying to make yourself more
likeable, was more prevalent.
The findings seem fairly predictable,
but even so, self-presentation research
comes with some surprises.
“A lot of current research is focused
on people attempting to ingratiate
themselves to superiors, and we didn’t
find that in our research,” says Byler.
“Our professors were really looking to
ingratiate themselves more with their
colleagues.”
Even when colleagues, supervisors
and subordinates mix, there are ways to
manage the multiple audience problem.
In her research, Pontari has found that
Self-presentation is at the heart of the
multiple audience problem.
30 GREENVILLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2016

4. claiming a lack of information (saying,
“I’m not sure – I need more time to
think about it”) and being noncom-
mittal (saying “Those are both good
points”) are good ways to navigate a
situation with differing viewpoints.
“It’s not about changing who you
are.You’re simply changing how your
message is expressed,” says Pontari.
“When you consider effective lead-
ers, they know how to do that really
well.You have to be empathetic to be
successful.”
AN UNLIMITED AUDIENCE
There’s one place, however, that
empathy is sorely lacking: the Internet.
All three researchers cited a startling
lack of attention to multiple audiences
online.
“One of the things that has become
problematic with people in using social
media is that it collapses the audiences
you have,” says Byler.“Unless you start
really understanding how important it
is to limit your audience, you wind up
dispersing information across a wide
network of people.”
Because there is no immediate
tangible feedback and even people who
like or comment on a social media post
are physically removed from the person
posting, people behave online in ways
they wouldn’t dare in person.
That post about last night’s drinking
binge intended for friends can easily
reach bosses, professors, pastors, parents,
and grandparents.According to Pontari,
while her students claim to use filters in
their social networks, almost every one
says they’ve offended someone online at
some point. McCoy says she’s seen posts
from students complaining about the
workload in her courses.
“Someone needs to figure out why
people can’t remember [the multiple
audiences] when they post on social
media,” says McCoy.“People love that
they have 500 friends, but they don’t
think about all 500 when they post.”
In short, even individuals who are
high self-monitors in person tend to
become a low self-monitor (ie, what
you see is what you get) when they are
interacting on social media.While all of
the researchers emphasize strongly that
being fake or deceptive should never
be the intent, modifying your behavior
to your audience(s), especially online, is
crucial.
“It’s not like people are totally
different, but in different places people
emphasize different parts of themselves,”
says McCoy.“It just makes life easier if
you don’t offend your audience.”
Dr. Monica McCoy
FEBRUARY 2016 | GREENVILLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE 31