Self Monitoring

Self Monitoring
Self monitoring means the extent to which external situation and the reactions of
others help one to regulate behaviour. Thus politicians, sales persons and artists
are high self monitoring persons. The people who are low self monitors regulate
their behaviours on the basis of internal factors such as beliefs, attitudes and interests.
It has been found that high self monitors pay attention to others and low self
monitors pay attention to themselves. Also, the high self monitors select a companion
on the basis of how well the others perform and low self monitors choose a
companion on the basis of liking. People who are high on self monitoring seem to
have a repertoire of selves from which to draw. They are quite sensitive to the
concerns of strategic self-presentation.
Self-monitoring
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the theory. For emotional self-regulation, see Monitoring competence.
Self-monitoring is a theory that deals with the phenomena of expressive controls. Human beings generally
differ in substantial ways in their abilities and desires to engage in expressive controls (see dramaturgy).
[1]
People concerned with their expressive self-presentation (seeimpression management) tend to closely
monitor themselves in order to ensure appropriate or desired public appearances. People who closely
monitor themselves are categorized as high self-monitors and often behave in a manner that is highly
responsive to social cues and their situational context. High self-monitors can be thought of as social
pragmatists who project images in an attempt to impress others and receive positive feedback. Conversely,
low self-monitors do not participate, to the same degree, in expressive control and do not share similar
concern for situational appropriateness. Low self-monitors tend to exhibit expressive controls congruent with
their own internal states; i.e.beliefs, attitudes, and dispositions regardless of social circumstance. Low self-
monitors are often less observant of social context and consider expressing a self-presentation dissimilar
from their internal states as a falsehood and undesirable.[2]
Historical context
During the 1970s when the self-monitoring concept was introduced it became part of two larger
ongoing debates. Within personality research there was the tension between traits and situation; one
could think of this as the nature versus nurture debate. Were people more inclined to behave
consistent with innate personality traits or were they shaped by their environment? The self-monitoring
construct offered a resolution to this debate because there was no need to argue that humans needed
to fit entirely into the nature or nurture paradigm. High self-monitors were better predicted by their
environment (situation/nurture) while low self-monitors were better predicted by their traits
(traits/nature). Another debate that was raging during this time period within social psychology was
whether or not attitudes were good predictors of behavior.[3] The self-monitoring construct offered a
resolution to this debate as well because it posited that low self-monitors would behave largely
consistent with their attitudes, while attitudes would be poor predictors of behavior for high self-
monitors. :) The self-monitoring construct fit neatly into the arguments of the day where high self-
monitors affirmed the situation-oriented view typically associated with social psychology, while the low
self-monitors affirmed the trait-oriented view typically associated with personality psychology.[2]
[edit]Self-monitoring scale
Snyder originally developed the scale in 1974 as a 25-item measure. In his original study he found that
Stanford University students scored significantly higher on the scale than did psychiatric inpatients, but
significantly lower than people in the acting profession. The scale was revised into an 18-item measure
that is considered psychometrically superior to the original scale and has been used extensively in
self-monitoring studies.[4] There has developed great debate over whether or not the self-monitoring
scale is a unitary phenomenon. During the 1980s, factor analysis postulated that the self-monitoring
scale was actually measuring several distinct dimensions. The three-factor solution was the most
common and usually interpreted as Acting, Extraversion, and Other-Directedness (see willingness to
communicate).[5][6][7]There has developed consensus about the multifactorial nature of the items on the
self-monitoring scale; however, there remains differing interpretations about whether or not that
jeopardizes the validity of the self-monitoring concept.[2]
Applicability to social psychology theory
There are several theories within social psychology that are closely related to the self-monitoring
construct. Icek Ajzen argues that subjective norms are an important antecedent to determining
behavioral intention in the Theory of Reasoned Action/Theory of Planned Behavior.[8] High self-
monitors tend to weigh subjective norms more heavily than low self-monitors. Studies that evaluate
private attitudes and public actions include Ajzen, Timko, & White, 1982; and DeBono & Omoto, 1993.
Informational cascades theory is related to observation learning theory which was developed by
Bikhchandani, S., Hirshleifer, D., and Welch, I. (1992) and describes how people will follow, sometimes
blindly, the actions of others. The self-monitoring construct would identify that high self-monitors may
be more susceptible to informational cascades andherd mentality. The difference between high self-
monitors and low self-monitors has also been studied in relation to advertisements congruent with
the Elaboration Likelihood Model where high self-monitors are more prone to react favorably to
peripheral processing of images consistent with high social status.[9][10][11]

Self Monitoring

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Self Monitoring

from their internal states as a falsehood and undesirable.[2]

Applicability to social psychology theory

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