Self-Presentation in Childhood: Managing Public Identity after Rule Violation, 2007-2009

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.Self-presentation refers to behaviour designed to shape the way one is seen by other people. Although such 'impression management' is recognised as a core part of human social interaction, little research has looked specifically at its development in childhood. This project investigated young children's reasoning about self-presentational processes in the context of rule violations, since children are likely to come to understand how one can use certain behaviours after a rule violation (e.g. excuses, apologies) in order to maintain a positive public 'face'. The aims of the project were to describe and evaluate young children's reasoning about self-presentational processes when different kinds of rules have been broken, and to determine the extent to which attention directed towards oneself can make concerns about one's public image more salient. The research project had three key objectives: 1) To establish whether young children show understanding of self-presentation in the relatively simple and familiar context of rule violations. Children were asked questions about hypothetical vignettes involving rule violations in order to test the hypothesis that they would be capable of identifying self-presentational consequences of, and motives for, behaviour following rule violations, but that this capacity would tend to increase with age. 2) To determine whether early self-presentational understanding differs over social-conventional and moral transgressions. The researchers hypothesised that self-presentational concerns are particularly important in the context of social-conventional rule violations, because these transgressions typically occasion audience responses that promote self-focused attention (e.g. derision, laughter, etc.) 3) To investigate whether the salience of self-presentational concerns can be explained in terms of self-focused attention on the part of the transgressor. The researchers used experimental manipulations of self-focused attention to test the hypothesis that this variable does indeed predict the salience of self-presentational concerns. Further information about the study may be found on the Project web pages Self-Presentation in Childhood: Managing Public Identity after Rule Violation, 2007-2009. Main Topics:Topics covered included: children's social-cognitive development; children's reasoning about self-presentation; children's reasoning about moral and social-conventional rule violations; children's reasoning about apologies and excuses; the impact of self-focused attention on self-presentational reasoning