I had an assignment on impression management not too long ago. It went something like this. Maybe my answers will help you?1. In what situation are you most likely to use impression management? What situation are you most likely not going to work to use impression management? What is the typical difference between these two situations?
Impression management can best be used in political campaigns. It is tough to maintain a positive public image to be elected and re-elected. A simple mistake can destroy the political career of a person. A person needs to use impression management to maintain a good image and make people love them.
Impression management should not be used when trying to make good friends who one will rely on in the future. Friends are supposed to know the real you, and one should not make an effort to try and win their friend's loyalties. It would be awful to pretend to impress a friend and later learn the truth.
The first situation differs from the second in that the first situation does not require any loyalty and pure truth and what matters is people to like you so as they can vote for you. In the second situation person's personal life is involved and it is paramount, to be honest, and truth to friends who can help.
2. Provide an example of when you used impression management successfully. What was the outcome and why?
The time I used impression management was when I wanted the vote to be the class representative in high school. I had to impress, many people and show them that I was worth a class representative and it did work at last because even though I was not elected, I became number two which was a very minimal chance. I was not known and liked but after that people started liking me very much.
3. Now provide an example in which you attempted to use impression management and it failed. Why did it fail, and what was that outcome?
Being a new college student is tough. A person is forced to use impression management to try and be liked and also make good friends. I tried to impress a group of high-class level students when I was the first year in the college and when they later knew the truth about who I was and how I behaved, they removed me from their group. They also went to the extent of embarrassing me, and my self-esteem was highly affected.
4. In this last situation would the outcome have felt better if you had used a self-handicapping strategy? What type of self-handicapping strategy could you have used? Finally, what are the dangers of turning to this kind of strategy on a regular basis?
Self-handicapping strategy would have helped me to avoid the situation. If I used the anticipatory excuse making, it would have helped me a lot. Anticipatory would have helped me come up with a reasonable excuse that would have made the group friends understand and let it go. However, using impression management can make a person leave a fake life, and under a lot of depression thus a lot of using the strategy use of it is very dangerous.
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