Managing impressions: Children’s understanding of performance and dispositional disclaimers as self-presentational tactics.
Negotiating everyday social interactions requires a variety of social skills, such as the ability to reflect on the thoughts, feelings, and expectationsof others. This research investigates developmental trends in children’s understanding of how disclaimers (a self-presentational tactic) can be used to manage the impressions others may have of the self. Anticipation of poor behaviour on an imminent task may result in the use of a disclaimer – verbal statement used to protect oneself from negative social evaluation by dissociating the poor behaviour from their identity. Disclaimers can refer to unstable causes (e.g., the flu), stable causes (e.g., not good at something), or personality factors (e.g., is not smart).
Past research has found that 11-year-olds are able to recognise how a disclaimer for a negative behaviour/event may be result in a more positive outcome than if no disclaimer was offered (e.g., to avoid punishment; Bennett, 1990). It is also known that children are generally more positive about future behaviour performance when a disclaimer is used (Watling & Banerjee, 2012). Yet, little is known about children’s understanding of the self-presentational function of disclaimers (i.e., to avoid today’s behaviour from influencing an audience’s beliefs about the individual). This research explores how 8- to 14-year-olds understand disclaimers, including those that are related to their performance (ability) and to dispositions (personality).
Researchers will be visiting children and adolescents in local schools. Children will hear some short stories on a computer program and will be asked some questions after each story with a goal to understand how children think about disclaimers as a self-presentational tactic. Children will also complete a couple of brief questionnaires that assess how they interpret why they themselves and others behave in particular ways.
This research, which is led by Dr Dawn Watling and was sponsored by the British Academy, to offer particular insights into how children interpret the social behaviour of others’ and will allow us a greater understanding of this key social skill.
Researchers on this project included:
- Dawn Watling
- Caroline Durlik
- Laura Mallott
- Selina Nath (March 2011 – August 2011)