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Your Public Persona: Self-Presentation in Everyday Life

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.
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Your Public Persona: Self-Presentation in Everyday Life

Trailer

Self-Presentation in Everyday Life

01: Self-Presentation in Everyday Life

32 min
Tactics for Managing Impressions

02: Tactics for Managing Impressions

32 min
Fitting In and Playing Roles

03: Fitting In and Playing Roles

33 min
Playing to the Audience’s Values

04: Playing to the Audience’s Values

33 min
When Undesirable Personas Are Deliberate

05: When Undesirable Personas Are Deliberate

34 min
Your Public Persona and Your Self-Image

06: Your Public Persona and Your Self-Image

33 min
Self-Presentation in Close Relationships

07: Self-Presentation in Close Relationships

33 min
Managing Your Image at Work

08: Managing Your Image at Work

33 min
Social Anxiety and Self-Presentation

09: Social Anxiety and Self-Presentation

32 min
Self-Presentation Dilemmas and Disasters

10: Self-Presentation Dilemmas and Disasters

34 min
The Dangers of Self-Presentation

11: The Dangers of Self-Presentation

29 min
Behind the Mask: Who Are You Really?

12: Behind the Mask: Who Are You Really?

35 min

Overview Course No. 10010

Humans are social animals, and the impressions we make on others can critically impact the quality of our lives. Consequently, we spend much of our lives, both consciously and unconsciously, working to shape other people’s ideas about who we are. In this eye-opening, 12-lecture series with Professor Leary, explore the “self-presentational underpinnings of human behavior” as well as the what, how, and why of impression management.

People form impressions of us—who we are and what we’re like—very quickly and, right or wrong, those impressions determine significant aspects of our outcomes in life, both in the present as well as the future. In just a few short minutes, others assess our personality, interests, attitudes, and moods, taking into account everything from the content of our words to the style of our clothing, and much more. Sometimes their assessments are accurate, other times less so, but the impressions other people form of us significantly impacts how they treat us.

Social interactions and the impressions that drive them are vitally important aspects of human behavior. In this compelling course, learn about how we shape the impressions other people form of us—at work, at home, in our social lives, and in the world at large.

About

Mark Leary

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.

INSTITUTION

Duke University

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.

By This Professor

Your Public Persona: Self-Presentation in Everyday Life
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Why You Are Who You Are: Investigations into Human Personality
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Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior
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