Contrasting tactics in deceptive impression management

Abstract

The deceptive tactics used to manipulate impressions people gave to others of themselves and other individuals were investigated. In the first phase, all participants told about the most memorable event that happened yesterday. In the second phase, one group of participants in the self-aggrandizement condition were asked to distort the original statement to give the impression that they were competent or socially desirable. Another group of participants assigned to the other-belittlement condition were asked to distort the original statement to give an impression that other individuals in the original telling were incompetent or socially undesirable. The results show that participants in both conditions used two deceptive tactics. One is a direct tactic, which is a direct manipulation of the target's evaluation. The other is an indirect tactic, which is indirect manipulation of the target's evaluation by contrasting with a nontarget person.