Chapter 2: Perceiving the Self and Others

Technology: Managing the Self and Perceptions

If you’re wondering how your friend Ned is doing, all you need to do is check out his Facebook profile—right? There you see photographs of his recent visit with his longtime girlfriend’s family in Texas. You read funny status updates about his apartment hunt. And you see that others wrote on his wall to congratulate him on his recent promotion. Life is going well for Ned, so you send him a private message to let him know that you’re glad for him. Would you be surprised if Ned responded to share that he is considering a breakup with his girlfriend, that he hates his job, and that he can’t afford a decent apartment because his student loans are crushing him? How is this possible (you wonder) when Ned’s profile seems to indicate that his life is fulfilling and happy?

This is possible because blogs, tweets, chat rooms, and dating and social networking sites allow you to control the presentation of self far more carefully than in face-to-face encounters. When you manage the self online, you can much more easily choose what to reveal and what to conceal. You can decide whether you will reveal your gender, ethnicity, and race, as well as your religious or political preferences. What’s more, you can edit, revise, and organize the information you disclose before the message goes out. In this way, you can present an image that is smart, charming, and eloquent, even if you tend to be nervous or timid in face-to-face communication. You are ultimately the one who controls this information; the media you choose are not responsible for what you share or how you share it (Keller, 2013).

In Ned’s case, he chose to present a self that is carefree and happy—even though his current situation is quite the opposite. Of course, it is important to remember as a user of social media that if you can choose what to present about yourself, so too can everyone else. Recall that recent studies (for example, Kross et al., 2013) have found that more time spent on Facebook seeing everyone else’s seemingly “fabulous” lives can make you feel worse about yourself and your own life!

In addition, how you present yourself online may not be the only factor in how you come across to others. Statements made by your friends on Facebook, for example, can significantly affect people’s impressions of you. One study found that when people post on their friend’s wall positive statements about their friend’s behavior, their friend’s credibility and “social attractiveness” increased, compared to negative statements (for example, about excessive drunkenness or sexual behavior); in addition, the perceived attractiveness of friends affected perceptions of self-attractiveness (Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008). Even the number and type of friends you have on Facebook can have an influence—if you have “too few” or “too many” friends, your reputation could suffer (Tong, Van Der Heide, Langwell, & Walther, 2008).

AND YOU?

Question

BU7ktS9Nctm0zEznEfmGkFP3uaLhjaSTmoXpZeiZkVpaOKdyenj0t4Jv27vW1o/4Op3TF5CCen9W/0M+6hQjaqi6DHVycNfXcta3Htr55VNh8nw60W53us7Z1+AzV8XVnuMB5onYhXutN5ZooaeTjclPG+1fLt0DVSsHmRgEBH/Gip/nox9QCNYTGU5yVb9Fnswn9Ip0f8pp10EZNVvWDfR1r0yf3HymttVF3ZMaFewepQltCEORS6XekCYoCTGG6IoTRd/83XAvxhzyASBwtjrp0X870XkdI/1/CuAqNaem2Sd1XIM5xKlgAAzu4Tu102hCIZGpRv4diSzXX339bPpX1n3ht6IMQXyxQFo1ed34zqHrXk1XondBUXwENsijaiOcWIUf9uo2wMYL55Vh+hOuRNeu/QHJecfhypUKs1z7mWifIiJsUR1GmERcdOJg

BACK TO

Boy Wizard No More.

At the beginning of this chapter, we talked about how child actors (like Daniel Radcliffe) struggle with audiences’ perceptions of them. Let’s reflect on what communication and perception scholarship might have to say about this phenomenon.

When an audience’s perception of a performer becomes deeply embedded in the popular psyche, it’s easy for actors to get pigeonholed into particular roles, a type of stereotyping known as typecasting in the business. Some simply stick to the characters they’re known for (Samuel L. Jackson usually plays a tough guy, Dame Maggie Smith is the go-to actress for British matriarchs, and Sandra Bullock rarely plays a villain). But others work hard to resist typecasting: Bill Murray, Robin Williams, Denzel Washington, Anne Hathaway, and the late Heath Ledger all garnered critical praise (and in some cases Oscars) for playing against type. For Radcliffe, the key to gaining respect as an actor has been to take on projects quite different from the Harry Potter blockbuster franchise—challenging roles on stage and in small independent films.
Note that “former child star” also calls to mind schemas unrelated to particular roles. The brief careers of Gary Coleman and Macaulay Culkin are testaments to audiences’ tendency to lose interest in precocious children once they outgrow childish roles, and the erratic personal lives of Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes, and Miley Cyrus often overshadow the long, steady careers of former child stars like Keenan Thompson, Jodie Foster, Jason Bateman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Anne Hathaway. We also ignore the countless child stars who have gone on to successful careers behind the camera (like Ron Howard and Peter Billingsley) or to happy, successful, and somewhat anonymous lives outside Hollywood. In other words, the fundamental attribution error makes us remember the messes while we forget all about the quieter successes.
Radcliffe also struggles with perceptions about child stars and worries that everyone he meets—especially colleagues on the set—will expect him to be spoiled and demanding. He works to replace such stereotypes with his own cognitions: his self-concept of being a hardworking professional. The actor says he tries to counter those perceptions by introducing himself humbly when he meets someone new (“Hi, I’m Dan”), even though he knows that they already know who he is. He also relies on a uniquely British brand of self-deprecating humor that he calls the “comedy of embarrassment” to break the ice, apologizing for not being a wizard or for growing up and making fans feel old, and frequently mocking his own fame, his luck, or his diminutive stature (Dominus, 2013). Finally, he makes it a point to be the consummate professional on set, bearing in mind his father’s advice: “On a film set there’s always somebody who’s going to be causing a delay. . . . Make sure it’s never you” (Dominus, 2013, p. 28).