Approaches to Personality Self-Presentation Through the Lens of Consciousness

Abstract

The paper aims to review the theoretical approaches to personality self-presentation as a social psychological topic developed since 1950s, and discuss the problem of determination of conscious and unconscious self-presentation behavior. The author suggests an original definition and a model of structure and functions of self-presentation, extending the understanding of this phenomenon in social psychology. Personality self-presentation is seen as a general, fundamental characteristic of social behavior that may have conscious or unconscious origins. According to the theoretical concept of self-presentation developed by the author, interaction with others involves a continual process of presentation of self-relevant information, regardless of the degree of awareness by the person of own behavioral self-presentation. The resulting structural and functional model of personality self-presentation includes also the situational, motivational, and personality factors that influence the degree of awareness of own self-presentation behavior aimed towards impression management. The model provides a means for social psychological analysis of different aspects of personality self-presentation and can be used in practice of human-oriented professions.