 Today, we're going to talk about self-presentation. Self-presentation is how we perceive ourselves, whether that be in front of others or when we're alone. The fascinating thing about people is how different our self-presentation can be. How we behave when we are alone can contrast to how we behave around others. Why do we behave differently? It's partially due to something called the comfort zone. While you might make your own decisions about what comfort zone means to you, generally our comfort zone is the state where we feel as though we can do whatever we want while not being criticized or dealing with anxiety. It can be divided into a zone of privacy or a zone of familiarity. In the zone of privacy, we feel alone and secure with no one to judge us or watch us. In the zone of familiarity, we feel secure and have a sense of comfort and trust with the people around us. In this zone, you don't necessarily feel shame or guilt if you do socially unacceptable things. Often, this zone is full of your friends and family who have come to accept you for who you are. Feeling such as embarrassment, anxiety or shame, come when you are, you guessed it, out of your comfort zone. These zones like to dictate how we present ourselves. Knowing which zone you're in is very important when it comes to physical interactions with another person. People are concerned with the impression they give to others. For example, even if a couple were to fight all the time in the private zone of their own home, they will most likely not do that in public. This way, it does not draw unwanted attention to them, and it gives a more positive impression. This is a form of self-presentation. Self-presentation is a set of methods and strategies we use selectively to apply in situations to shape and enhance or change our self-image to others. This can be conscious or unconscious. Sometimes your personality can be accurate, but sometimes it can be misleading. We typically have two goals in mind when it comes to figuring out how to act, dress and talk. Strategic self-presentation and self-verification. Strategic self-presentation is when you will manipulate how you perceive yourself to different people. Many people use this in order to gain sympathy or even approval from others. Edward E. Jones coined the term ingratiation, which means we behave a certain way to be liked or to satisfy a target audience, just so that we are able to get praise for actions later on. Another self-presentation behavior most people do is self-promotion. This means that you will boost your rewards of your positive traits and disregard your failures and negatives. This is a common way people use self-presentation to their benefit in the job market. However, self-presentation can't be too in your face. When people want to be liked, they will talk highly about themselves, but if no one is acknowledging them, then that person might resort to degrading others. This needs to have a tactic to keep it subtle or else people will think you are arrogant and self-absorbed. Self-verification is a little different. This means that we want people to perceive us how we perceive others. Psychologist William Swan says that we are passionate to prove to others how we behave. If society labels us one thing and we believe it, that proves to be an accurate description of our personality. But if society labels us as something negative or something that we might not think is true about our personality, we will go far lengths to prove it wrong. Most people do not want to know or learn about their flaws. They would rather reflect and learn from their positive ones. Even though we want to leave a good impression, we also want an accurate representation of our behavior and personality. There's nothing worse than being told where something were not, and there's nothing better than having people know us for who we really are. This is why we like to cherish those in our comfort zone. We don't need to worry about self-presentation or self-verification. Make sure you like this video and subscribe to our channel. Thank you for watching Psych2Go.