Examine the tactics we use, both positive and negative, to manage other people’s impressions and to achieve our goals, in this illuminating course taught by a professor of psychology.
Your Public Persona: Self-Presentation in Everyday Life is rated
3.0 out of
5 by
18.
Rated 4 out of
5 by
Gabriela7 from
I have a background in psychology, and I enjoyed this foundational course. Good learning and reviews. The professor is a concise lecturer. I appreciate the incorporating of research studies.
Date published: 2021-02-24
Rated 1 out of
5 by
Kimo from
Had to return this course!!!I have more than 200 Great Courses and this is only the second course that I have ever returned. I watched segments of the first three lectures of this course and a short segment of the 7th. Generally the content that I did watch was common sense and boring but the reason I chose to return the course was the presentation. Professor Leary is very articulate but he has voice-activated hands. When he stops speaking his hands are at rest but when he speaks his hands begin flapping with literally every syllable. I find other lecturers in the Great Courses that tend to talk with their hands but Dr. Leary is an extreme case. Anyone who lectures for a living should be more aware of their gesturing while speaking. Perhaps The Great Courses could encourage lecturers to avoid annoying gesturing during the recording sessions. This course is on Self-Presentation and he does not present himself well.
Date published: 2020-11-25
Rated 1 out of
5 by
Boby95 from
No Tips, Not goodVery basic did not learn anything, nothing special.
Date published: 2020-10-17
Rated 3 out of
5 by
Moshen from
Simplistic and a bit patronizingThis course did not feel like a college-level class. It was quite slow-paced and repetitive, making certain points countless times. The professor belabored many fundamental ideas, as if he wasn't sure whether we'd really be able to follow him. Come on now, Great Courses customers are smart!
I was hoping to get insights into the multitude of ways we signal affiliations and beliefs to one another, but he spent too much time on the most obvious points. For instance, how much of the way we manage our self-image is verbal and how much is non-verbal? What happens when we focus on controlling others' impressions of us verbally and mess up non-verbally, or vice-versa? Why are some people much less able to perceive how they are coming across than others? What is the role of pretending when it comes to impression management? The course had nothing to offer on those topics.
One positive is that the professor speaks extremely clearly and without any unexplained jargon. I should also say that the material on the nature of embarrassment and imposter syndrome was interesting.
Date published: 2020-10-12
Rated 1 out of
5 by
Jakes from
Super Basic CourseThis course is very very basic, did not learn much from it.
Date published: 2020-10-12
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reina99 from
Thoroughly enjoyable!This course helped me gain insight into what a public persona is, and how people utilize their public persona on a daily basis. Much of the information, after listening and seeing the main ideas and examples, could be considered common sense knowledge. Having the explanations was very helpful as the ideas became more articulated.
I thoroughly enjoyed this lecture series.
Date published: 2020-10-11
Rated 1 out of
5 by
fld315 from
Dull and uninformativeThere was surprisingly little interesting or useful information in this course. It would be 90 percent shorter if the professor cut out the obvious stuff. I get it: We care what people think of us in many aspects of our lives - our work, home, family, friends etc. Tell me something I didn't know. The course is packed with passages like this: "A certain amount of self-presentation is essential anytime a person applies for a job. Applicants who don't care what impression they make on their resume, on the application or in the interview, aren't very likely to be hired. Of course everybody tries to put their best foot forward by presenting their education, abilities and experience in ways that highlight their qualifications to an employer." Wow - I had no idea.
Or this passage on self-presentation at work: "Most people dress a particular way to go to work. Of course, some employers have expectations about how their employees should dress. And some organizations have explicit dress codes or require their employees to wear uniforms. And those corporate decisions about what employees should wear are certainly affected by a desire for the employee and the company to make certain impressions on customers, clients and the public in general." Such passages follow one after the other. There are occasional interesting observations, for example, in his discussion of the evolutionary roots of our excessive concern about what other people think of us or the social value of visible embarrassment. But I've listened to dozens of courses from this company, and I've never encountered one so padded with trite, obvious observations.
Date published: 2020-10-09
Rated 1 out of
5 by
EngineerinVA from
NoPeople tend to behave in a way calculated to get them what they want. Having said that, there is now no need to watch this course. It adds little or nothing to that statement.
The lectures are in generalities. There is little take-away to benefit the student. Also, the presentation is rather pedestrian. For example, there are few visual aids.
Examine the tactics we use, both positive and negative, to manage other people’s impressions and to achieve our goals, in this illuminating course taught by a professor of psychology.
Most of the important things that happen in life involve our encounters and relationships with other people. I became interested in scientific psychology to help us understand both ourselves and the people with whom we interact.
ALMA MATER
University of Florida
INSTITUTION
Duke University
About Mark Leary
Professor Mark Leary is Garonzik Family Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, where he heads the program in Social Psychology and is faculty director of the Duke Interdisciplinary Initiative in Social Psychology. He earned his bachelor's degree in Psychology from West Virginia Wesleyan College and his master's and doctoral degrees in Social Psychology from the University of Florida. He has taught previously at Denison University, The University of Texas at Austin, and Wake Forest University, where he served as department chair. Professor Leary has published 12 books and more than 200 scholarly chapters and articles on topics dealing with social motivation and emotion and the negative effects of excessive egotism and self-focus. He has been particularly interested in the ways in which people's emotions, behaviors, and self-views are influenced by their concerns with other people's perceptions and evaluations of them. Professor Leary's books include Social Anxiety; Self-Presentation: Impression Management and Interpersonal Behavior; The Curse of the Self: Self-Awareness, Egotism, and the Quality of Human Life; Handbook of Self and Identity; and Introduction to Behavioral Research Methods. Based on his scholarly contributions, the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin designated him among the top 40 social and personality psychologists in the world with the greatest impact. In 2010, he received the Lifetime Career Award from the International Society for Self and Identity. In addition, he was the founding editor of the journal Self and Identity and is currently the editor of Personality and Social Psychology Review. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
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