Publication Type: GIFTS
Abstract: In this activity, students use their Facebook or MySpace profiles to analyze self-disclosure and self-presentation. They print out their Facebook or MySpace profiles and bring them to class. In groups of four or five, students examine their profiles. They discuss characteristics of self-disclosure, benefits of self-disclosure, appropriate self-disclosure, and self-presentation in terms of how information is published on their profiles. The small groups then join the class in a summarizing discussion.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study of female engineering students attending a prominent technical college in an urban center in the southeastern United States aims to determine how these students make choices about their self-presentation and how such choices affect their interactions with professors and peers. Within this study, a grounded theory style of analysis is used to address the following specific questions: How do students make decisions about how to present themselves? How are such decisions related to their actions and behaviors? and How do such decisions intersect with their gender identity? The findings from 10 semi-structured in-depth interviews reveal the varied ways female engineering students perceive and use self-presentation as a means of navigating their way in a male-dominated environment. These choices affect and are affected by students’ sense of identity, self-efficacy, and self-esteem, all of which are determined within social institutions via interactions with others that are fundamentally shaped by gender. Furthermore, all of these aspects of self-concept are shown to have implications regarding the motivation of female students to remain in or leave male-dominated engineering programs.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Hosting a profile at a social network site gives everyone the possibility to present numerous aspects of the self online. The increasing popularity of sites like MySpace or Facebook raises various research questions with regard to motives and other factors that influence the individual usage and the form of self-presentation. Previous research has mainly dealt with the related phenomenon of personal homepages and focussed on describing the self-presentation. Emerging research on social network sites within Web 2.0 first of all analyzes the motives for participating. Given the obvious importance of impression management, this study examined the so far scarcely regarded relationship between self-esteem, personality and the self-presentation on a profile within the online-community MySpace. Self-report data on self-esteem, personality and motives for participating of 107 members of the community were assessed by questionnaire and related to the specific form of self-presentation (private details displayed, number of words, number of friends, design). By comparing German and US-American users we further investigated if the self-presentation differs depending on the country of the user. The results show that it is not the motivation but the self-esteem and aspects of personality which influence how the users present themselves online. Also, the study reveals significant differences in self-presentation between the two countries.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Japanese are said to be self-critical or have lower self-esteem than Americans. We create a mathematical model which hypothesizes that Japanese alleged low self-esteem is self-effacing presentation.
However, why do they present lower than they really are? It is difficult to understand for Westerners. Some researchers say it is to maintain interpersonal harmony or it is a communication style resulting from norm. However, this kind of explanation does not explain why there is such social value or norm.
Our model is dynamic and universal. We hypothesize personal benefit is earned by exchanges with neighbors (micro process), information about people flows through social networks (macro process), and the networks change based on the exchange and the information.
The result of the model show conditions when self-enhancement is effective, and when self-effacement is effective.
We make further discussions about Japanese self-esteem and self-presentation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Self-presentation in a public mediated environment, such as a blog, can cause a person to internalize the self-presentation and make it part of their identity, a process labeled identity shift (Gonzales & Hancock, 2008). This study extends previous work on identity shift by examining the impact of affordances and certainty across face-to-face and computer-mediated presentations. Seventy-eight people produced either introverted or extroverted self-presentations either in a blog or in a video condition to test whether the asynchronicity and visual anonymity of computer-mediated communication (CMC) augment the effect of identity shift relative to face-to-face. The results indicate that for presentations of extroversion, presenting one’s self virtually enhances identity shift relative to physical self-presentations as expected. And, consistent with the public commitment framework, being certain of the self-presentation mediates the effect of media on identity shift. Implications for future tests and areas of theoretical development in CMC research are discussed.