Liam is in 4th grade and goes to Smith Elementary School in Massachusetts. There have been several circumstances where Liam has complained to his mom about an uncomfortable feeling he gets when around other children. When asked to explain further, Liam stated that he feels nervous around people that he does not know when doing group work. She finally decided to take Liam to a clinical counselor to see what was going on as it was starting to affect Liam’s attendance at school. After several meetings between Liam and his new clinical counselor, she seems to believe Liam has social anxiety. Social anxiety tends to be a fear of individual or multiple circumstances where an individual is in a social situation and has potential close examinations by others (Gruman., et al, 2016). This definition could not only explain why Liam tends to stay away from social situations but could also potentially help Liam get treatment.
In this week’s chapter reading, I learned about the relationship between social anxiety and the self-presentation theory. The self-presentation theory considers that people who are socially anxious try to manipulate the impressions others make of them (Gruman., et al, 2016). This theory can be seen in Liam’s case because when he is in front of his classmates who he doesn’t know well, it makes him nervous and he wants to flee the situation he is in. Another part to this theory is that it explains that the importance of how others see individuals is in a way that rewards or punishes them (Gruman., et al, 2016). This means that the way that Liam reacts to other people stirs a specific behavior back towards Liam. Liam could quite possibly want to escape from these scenarios because he may think it’s noticeable when he acts in a certain manner.
Another factor that goes hand-in-hand with the self-presentation theory is self-presentation motivation. Self-presentation motivation is how much an individual is worried about how other individuals are observing them (Gruman., et al, 2016). In Liam’s situation, he would have high self-presentational motivation because he is extremely concerned with how his classmates and teachers view him. Self-presentation theory also concludes that an individual could be motivated to portray a specific impression in accordance to how much is at risk (Gruman., et al, 2016). This means that people could be more anxious if they knew that something was on the table. In Liam’s particular case, he was stressed out about a group project and letting his classmates and teacher down.
Overall, those who have social anxiety disorder can easily be explained by the self-presentation theory. People who have social anxiety disorder have a depleting fear of being in situations with other people present as they feel an overly excessive feeling of weakness (Gruman., et al, 2016). This is a feeling that Liam feels when he is in the presence of his classmates doing group work. The self-presentation theory explains what can make people more likely to be anxious and how symptoms can be reduced (Gruman., et al, 2016). Overall, this week’s chapter reading helped teach me how the self-presentation theory was developed for social anxiety.
Reference
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology :
Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE Publications,
Incorporated.
I think many of us can relate to Liam. I can see this in my children and myself. The part that I am interested in is the self-presentation motivation. Self-presentation motivation is how much an individual is worried about how other individuals are observing them (Gruman., et al, 2016). This interests me most because if we look at social media we see people who want to feel like they are part of something. Furthermore, have you ever met someone who has to get on facebook and be a part of every conversation or have to know what is going on in someones life even if they never see this person face to face?
I found a study that was looking at the use of social media as a means of self- presentation.
The conclusion of this study said, “The present study examined the relationship between the Big Five and the use of Facebook to fulfill belonging and self-presentational needs. The Big Five traits are openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism. Extraversion is characterized by sociability, energy, and talkativeness. High agreeableness and neuroticism were the best predictors of belongingness. Belongingness motivations are strong in agreeable individuals and these results suggest that Facebook is one tool by which they meet these needs. Neurotic individuals often have social difficulties; thus Facebook may be a way for them to meet belongingness needs not sufficiently”(Seidman, 2012)
Take this further and we see people only posting the best of themselves. You do not see the bad. Filters are adding even more of a false image. Do you think this may be playing a role in low self esteem and us falling into a vicious circle of social anxiety and self- presentation?
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social
Seidman, G. (2012, November 9). Self-presentation and belonging on Facebook: How personality influences social media use and motivations. Personality and Individual Differences. Retrieved September 21, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886912004916
Poor Liam! Middle school is already such a transformative time full of hormones and awkwardness. Throw in social anxiety and I can imagine everything is 10x worse! I agree that self-presentation motivation is a great way to predict and mediate social anxiety. However, I feel that combined with social-self efficacy, which is a person’s confidence in their ability to interact and project a certain persona to another (Gruman, J. A., et. al. (2017) page 103), is an even better way to analyze or measure social anxiety. Research has even found that the interaction between self-presentation motivation and self-efficacy work well for predicting social anxiety (Gruman, J. A., et. al. (2017) page 106). For if Liam was able to work on his confidence in socializing with others, he may feel more capable in working with his classmates on group projects and he might not feel like he will let them down. This would increase is self-efficacy while meeting the needs of his high self-presentation motivation. Of course, like all skills, working effectively with others is something that takes time to develop. But with the knowledge of Self-Presentation Theory, one can help create an intervention that could benefit those who get social anxiety, especially in their formative years.
References
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems