A Pilot Investigation of Goffman’s Self-Presentation Theory as Applied to LinkedIn

Study Rationale

“We are all just actors trying to control and manage our public image. We act based on how others might see us” (Goffman, 1959, p. 22). People consciously and/or subconsciously represent themselves to others in a variety of ways to control their image. Goffman’s (1959) work on self-presentation and impression management describes this most notably for face-to-face interactions. However, modern day self-presentation with others increasingly occurs online through social networking sites (SNS). According to the Pew Research Center (2012), about two-thirds (63%) of adults maintain a profile on a social networking site, while Pring (2012) claims that 50% of social media users check in to their favorite networks while having their first cup of coffee in the morning. Numerous studies explore peoples’ “true” selves versus online profiles on such sites as Facebook. How people perceive themselves (self-esteem, etc.) may influence what/why/how they represent themselves online.

In recent years, LinkedIn has become one of the most popular SNS, particularly in the professional world. Hundreds of millions all over the world utilize LinkedIn to advance their careers, and/or find the next ideal employee. Despite the ubiquitous use of LinkedIn, and the importance of the relationship between true self and on-line representation seen in research on other sites, there is a dearth of research exploring this relationship on LinkedIn.

This pilot investigation sought to begin filling the gap in the literature by providing useful information in understanding self-presentation in professional online networks. While impression management, the process by which people control the impressions others form of them, on Facebook draws a great deal of scholarly interest (e.g. van der Heide, D’Angelo & Schumaker, 2012), LinkedIn use prompts far less impression management research beyond demographic data. However, because of LinkedIn’s large user-base and unique social media focus, the social networking site could present meaningful differences in online self-presentation.

The purpose of this study’s examination of LinkedIn is to better understand how it may differ in important ways from other types of social media, particularly those that are more about expressing their individuality rather than their professional skills. To that end, the researchers applied Goffman’s Theory of Self-Presentation (1959), which focused originally on person-to-person exchanges, to the presentation of self in virtual social media networks. Researchers hypothesized a strong correlation between impression management and self-esteem on the professional networking site LinkedIn.

Theoretical Foundation

How do we represent ourselves online professionally? How much truth exists in social media? Social media pervades and invades our daily lives. The response to “Who are you?” and the quest to define “identity” have been pondered by literary types, philosophers, and researchers for millennia. Whether focusing on the uniqueness of personal identity or the roles and responsibilities of social identity, how we perceive and show “self” has evolved over time. The philosopher George Herbert Mead (1913) maintained that the notion of “self” develops through social behaviors that affect the creation of personal identity.

The ways in which people “communicate” and “manage” their personal impressions with others and exhibit “sense of self” play out on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn with every profile update, like, and page posting. Communication via social networks, both social and professional, has introduced changes to how people communicate and interact.

Goffman’s Theories – Self-Presentation & Impression Management

Erving Goffmans book Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) provides a helpful framework for analysis of social media. Goffman worked from the premises of his time by focusing on traditional interpersonal interactions. Very few people in 1959 could have surmised the influence of technology on identity representation, but the broad brush of Goffman’s theory paints an accurate picture of self-presentation in professional online social networks.

Goffman employs the “dramaturgical approach,” which aids him in presenting his ideas on viewing the self within the social context (240). Goffman describes interaction as “performance” that is influenced by both environment and audience. In the process, actors impart “impressions” that are in harmony with the actor’s intentions (17). The theory’s main premise is that social interaction is at the heart of communication, using actors as symbols of individuals and performances as the impressions made to others.

Goffman’s research indicates that people are social actors who have the ability to choose a stage and props, as well as the “costume,” or front, put before a specific audience. The main goal of actors is to be coherent and adapt to different situations. The acting metaphor provided new insight into the features of social interaction and the psychology of the individual.

According to Goffman, people establish their social identity largely by putting up a “front,” defined by Goffman as “that part of the individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance” (22). Hence, the Theory of Self-Presentation provides a rich theoretical background on which to investigate the perceptions of “performance” and “impressions” not just of face-to-face interactions but also of LinkedIn, the largest professional social media network profiles and interactions.

Our review of the literature sought to integrate existing theory about Goffman-based impression management with emerging work in how people use social media to present their selves to groups of others. While much of the early work in impression management focuses on face-to-face interpersonal interactions, many aspects of this work also apply to the hypermedia environments of social networking sites (SNS).

Early Days of Impression Management

The concept of “impression management” has been described as the process by which a person — the actor — tries to influence perceptions of him or her held by the recipient [the audience] of a situation — the stage (Schneider, 1981). Additionally, Leary and Kowalski (1990) describe impression management as the process by which people control the impressions others form of them. They state that “the impressions people make on others have implications for how others perceive, evaluate, and treat them, as well as their own views of themselves, people sometimes behave in ways that will create impressions in others’ eyes” (p. 34). These definitions imply that people intentionally impression manage others.

Whether the behaviors are intentional and explicit or unintentional and tacit continues to be the subject of much debate in the literature. Some researchers proposed that the actions are habitual and ingrained so that individuals engage in them automatically in an unthinking manner (Jones & Wortman, 1973). Other researchers claim that situations trigger impression management behaviors, and that these situations cue people to perform scripts (Schlenker, 1980). The debate continues.

The idea of impression management grew out of Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical perspective. The dramaturgical perspective proposed that most social interactions are an individual’s attempts to fulfill the expectations associated with a particular social role, which he referred to as “self-presentation.” Self-presentation can be understood as a category of behavior that intends to convey information about how one wishes to be perceived to others, either actively or passively (Goffman, 1959).

As scholars (Arkin & Shepperd, 1989; Cialdini, 1989; Jones, 1964; Jones & Pittman, 1982; Leary, 1996; Leary & Kowalski, 1990; Martinko, 1991; Schlenker, 1980; Schlenker & Pontari, 2000; Schlenker & Weigold, 1992; Schneider, 1981; Tedeschi & Melburg, 1984; Tedeschi & Riess, 1981) explored Goffman’s theory (1959), the naming of the theory moved from “self-presentation” to “impression management” to include not only the face-to-face interactions outlined by Goffman, but also to reflect a more accurate nomenclature and scope of increasingly mediated interactions.

Adding to Goffman’s (1959) work on self-presentation, Leary and Kowalski (1990) described impression management theory using a two-component model by grouping existing and proposed theory into “impression motivation” and “impression construction.” The first broad category or description of the process, impression motivation, is the “desire to create particular impression in others’ minds, but may or may not manifest itself in overt impression-relevant actions” (p. 35). The second broad category, impression construction, refers to the alteration of behaviors in order to affect the impressions held by others. They identified five factors that mine the kinds of impressions people try to construct: the self-concept, desired and undesired identity images, role constraints, target’s values, and current social images. This two-component model supplies a framework for studying impression management.

In a follow-up work, Leary (1996) describes more specifically the impressions people try to present. He proposed that the images function for both the situation and the individual involved. In an extensive list of characteristics, he detailed influential personal attributes to include, among other variables, social behavior, gender, culture, role and the specific context, and audience values/expectations.

Impression management involves a habitual activity of determining which qualities are appropriate to exhibit, displaying those qualities to the audience, assessing if the audience forms the desired perceptions, and attempting to correct discrepancies in the desired image (Bozeman & Kacmar, 1997). According to Goffman (1959), the process is a normal part of all social interactions; therefore, impression management should be considered an expected endeavor within professional organizational activity (Giacalone & Rosenfeld, 1989).

Importantly, organizational processes that are likely to prompt impression management tactics are employee hiring and promotion (Feldman & Klich, 1991; Kacmar & Carlson, 1999). From an organization’s perspective, a primary goal of selection is to attract and identify the applicant most likely to meet the employer’s requirements for successful job performance (Barber, 1998). Therefore, an applicant’s aim should be to convince an employer that he or she meets or exceeds those requirements by presenting an image harmonious with the organization’s expectations as studied in employment interviews (Baron, 1986), goal setting (Huber, Latham & Locke, 1989), performance evaluations (Wayne & Kacmar, 1991; Wayne & Liden, 1995), feedback seeking behavior (Morrison & Bies, 1991), negotiations (Wall, 1991), crisis/conflict management (Ginzel, Kramer, & Sutton, 1992; Rahim & Buntzman, 1991), cross-cultural management (Giacalone & Beard, 1994; Mendenhall & Wiley, 1994).

Qualified applicants who are unable to present the most desirable image to positively influence an audience will be at a disadvantage in the selection process. Conversely, if unqualified applicants are able to leverage a desired image using impression management strategies, they may gain an advantage over their more qualified peers. This suggests that understanding the nature of and strategies for impression management is critical. In the modern workforce, new media and social networks are a significant means of establishing impressions, and therefore, require more investigation.

Recent Research on Social Networking and Impression Management

Boyd and Ellison (2007) define social network sites (SNS) as “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.” Further, social network sites have four consistently available affordances per Treem and Leonardi (2012): Data permanence, communal visibility of social information and communication, message editability, and associations between individuals, as well as a given message and its creator. These affordances allow humans to shift self-presentation styles on social network sites easily to suit a variety of needs, though these affordances vary from site to site.

People are motivated to manage their impressions when the impressions they make are relevant to the goals of social and material outcomes, self-esteem maintenance and identity development Leary and Kowalski (1990). Overall, the more public one’s behavior, the more likely one is to be concerned with how it appears to others, and the more motivated one will be to impression-manage (Artkin, Appelman, & Berger, 1980: Baumgardner & Levy, 1987; Bradley, 1978; House, 1980; Reis & Gruzen, 1976). This concept can be applied to social networking sites. These sites encourage users to have lots of followers with whom they can interact in a public forum. In the case of LinkedIn, members are continually encouraged to have others join their professional networks and become ‘connections” by sending out invites to their e-mail contacts.

The general advantages of social networking sites make them significant venues for self-expression and presentation with 71% of online adults in America using Facebook alone in 2014 (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart & Madden, 2015). While individual platforms may come and go, the uses of social networking as a tool for identity formation appears to have become a persistent part of our online lives. The ubiquity of social networking may have implications on how human beings in the developed world and beyond learn about themselves and each other. How will we use the broad range of identity-shaping tools available to us in the years to come?

Yet, a challenge to that strategic self-presentation is the problem of “context collapse,” as described by Boyd and Marwick (2011), Marwick and Ellison (2012) and Vitak, Lampe, Ellison and Gray (2012). Context collapse occurs when groups of people who otherwise occupy much different spheres of social influence (as described in Marwick and Boyd (2010)) are consolidated into a simple “friends list,” as often occurs on social media. Various strategies to handle “context collapse” are employed by users of social media, ranging from highly monitored, cautious portrayals of the self (per Hogan, 2010), or assorted segmentation strategies using privacy settings (per boyd & Marwick, 2011).

A side effect of context collapse is that this larger, heterogeneous audience may pressure people to be careful about how accurately they depict themselves. Schlenker (1980) claims that larger audiences prompt more truthful self-presentation, as the stakes of deception rise with more witnesses. A general trend toward honest portrayals appears on social media in a variety of settings, particularly if there is an expectation of a face-to-face encounter at some point (i.e. Gibbs, Ellison and Heino, 2006; Haferkamp & Kramer, 2010; Litt, 2012). The group norms of online communities reinforce this further by treating flagrant deception as unacceptable (Joinson & Dietz-Uhler, 2002).

Users can address context collapse by a variety of audience management strategies. One strategy involves the conscious use of platforms with variable levels of communication publicness and directedness (e.g. Bazarova, 2012; Burke, Marlow & Lento, 2010; Kramer & Chung, 2011; Yoder & Stutzman, 2011). Publicness refers to the idea of a visibility of a presentation, while directedness refers to the idea of more limited presentation. For example, Wall posts on Facebook can be very public, while direct messages sent through the Messenger interface can be as directed as one-to-one (or one to few) communication.

The kind of publicness and directedness a social network site has describes how people use the service, otherwise known as its participation structure (Herring, 2007), and should logically influence how its users use the site for impression management. For instance, the kind of language people use in Wall posts is less immediate and familiar than in private messages (Bazarova, Taft, Choi & Cosley, 2013).

The proliferation of alternative social media sites to Facebook has created more opportunities for people to curate their online presentations more effectively. While the design of Facebook and similar social networking sites encourage connectivity between people, LinkedIn intends for their users to present themselves as marketable brands to potential employers and professional contacts. To this end, users can use both services to present different aspects of themselves to different audiences (see van Dijck, 2013).

Role of LinkedIn

Social networking sites allow for a far greater strategic self-presentation than face-to-face communication (Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs, 2006). Users choose what information ends up on their profile page by curating the precise image they wish to show to others. They may choose to affiliate themselves with brands, celebrities and popular culture references to consciously present themselves in a specific way, as well as uploading photographs of themselves or others to show a specific kind of lifestyle to their friends. In particular, LinkedIn focuses on building strategic relationships for professional networking. Users can add information to their profile page including resume information, summary about themselves, links to their website and/or blogs, books written, and professional photos. Members can also upgrade to one of the paid LinkedIn subscriptions: Job Seeker, Business Plus, Executive, Sales Navigator, and Recruiter Life.

The implications of how people use professional social networking services are not trivial. According to the LinkedIn website as of the first quarter of 2016, the social service boasts a membership of 433 million in more than 200 countries and territories, with 75% of the members located outside of the United States. On average, the service grows at a rate of two new members per second, and approximately 28 billion views of member pages were conducted within the platform in 2014. The platform appears to be vibrant and growing, but is understudied in the scholarly literature relative to research on Facebook, Twitter or other emerging “recreational” social media platforms.

LinkedIn as Impression Management Forum

LinkedIn is a service whose intended use is by professionals for professional purposes, sometimes called “Facebook in a suit” (van Dijck, 2013). While Facebook seeks out the broader details of a person’s life, LinkedIn wants to build its social capital by ensuring that its users present themselves in the best possible way. It avoids features that emphasize emotional connection in favor of encouraging users to demonstrate mastery by answering questions, presenting their CVs in a clean and organized way, and participating in professional discussion forums to highlight both their sociality and their expertise.

Research Questions

RQ1: How can Goffman’s Theory of Self-Presentation be applied to the professional networking site LinkedIn?

As previously discussed, how people communicate using the LinkedIn platform is not as extensively studied. Aside from the occasional comparison with Facebook (as seen in van Dijck, 2013), most social scientists have focused on Facebook rather than LinkedIn because of its wider-ranging emotional and psychological content. Yet, LinkedIn provides insight into a more structured and focused self-presentation style built into the interface itself. The constraints of LinkedIn are not truly “constraints” for its target audience. Its users intend to express a controlled, professional side of themselves to seek out employment, long-term or otherwise.

LinkedIn use should differ meaningfully from their “recreational” use of services like Facebook, which are curated platforms intended to show more of what they would like their “real” selves to appear to be. Neither social networking platform aspires to show the truth of someone’s life, with self-presentation strategies being deployed actively in both to create the illusion of an idealized personal and professional self.

To this end, this study focused on LinkedIn because of its importance to the job searches and professional networking of many people. How people present themselves on LinkedIn may also provide insight into how they expand on themselves on Facebook, as both presentations demand a core of truthfulness from their respective audiences. While shaping that presentation to be desirable is a natural (and indeed, expected) part of the experience, these variable aspects of the self should have areas of congruence for narrative consistency.

RQ2: What relationships exist between LinkedIn usage and impression management?

This question has been explored by research on social networking sites such as Facebook, as described above. However, it has not been studied on LinkedIn. This pilot study begins to address this question.

RQ3: What relationships exist between LinkedIn usage and self-esteem?

Again, research on this topic exists regarding Facebook, but not LinkedIn. This investigation begins to answer this research question with LinkedIn. The researchers will use previously validated self-esteem scales and other measures of perceived identity. This issue brings up a corollary question - how much difference will there be between the LinkedIn self and the Facebook self? One can imagine a scenario in which a very controlled person would have functionally identical spaces to avoid disclosing personal information to a context-collapsed audience. Alternately, one can also imagine a situation where a Facebook page and a LinkedIn page belonging to the same person may seem to reflect entirely different perspectives on reality.

RQ4: Is there a gender difference in whether a user uploads a profile picture?

Photographs are an important signaling device on social media. While van Djick (2013) observes that LinkedIn’s use of photography has a more formal look to it than Facebook, a picture remains a potent signaling tool.

Earlier work has shown that there may be gender-based differences in impression management that would manifest in different patterns of image uploading. Strano’s (2008) study of Facebook profile pictures claimed that females engage in more impression management than males, with females being particularly interested in demonstrating attractiveness. Similarly, Siibac’s (2009) study of photo selection on social networking sites (SNS) in Estonia found that visible gender differences occur in the reasons for selecting particular profile images. Females more than males emphasized the need to look beautiful in the photos and to select photos that showed their “ideal self” based upon norms and values associated with traditional female gender roles.

Well-posed photography intended for LinkedIn allows males and females to show signaling cues of both professionalism (by style of dress) and attractiveness (by overall composition) within the appropriate norms of LinkedIn.

Will social media behaviors seen in more relaxed contexts remain in place on a more professional social media service? Previous studies indicate that these broad gender-based trends should still be present, but the different emphasis of LinkedIn may provide disruption to patterns seen in more “recreational” social media.

RQ5: Does LinkedIn use tend to be habitual or volitional?

Social media behaviors may be habitual. Lally, Wardle and Gardner (2011), along with Verplanken and Wood (2006) and Wood and Neal (2007) define habit as any automatic behavior developed when people repeat the same behavior as a response to similar circumstances or contexts. Bargh and colleagues describe automatic behaviors as processes that lack intentionality, controllability, attention or awareness (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Wegner & Bargh, 1998).

Humans automate behaviors to pursue their goals more efficiently. Having to exert cognitive effort to actively engage in a behavior undertaken roughly identically across contexts creates friction that the human person rightfully tries to minimize. Repeatedly going on LinkedIn to check for new connections or job opportunities may be something that people tend to automate. However, the active process of self-presentation may make automating the process of using LinkedIn infeasible to its users.

Methods & Design

As part of a quantitative pilot investigation, researchers sought 30 participants to complete a 20-minute questionnaire using Survey Monkey. The researchers identified and recruited participants through an email invitation to each of the individual researcher’s LinkedIn networks. The survey included three parts: an impression management scale modified from Bolino and Turnley (1999) to focus on LinkedIn use; Rosenberg’s (1965) self-esteem scale; and Verplanken and Orbell’s (2003) Self-Report Habit Index (SRHI), which deals with habitual behaviors as it would pertain to LinkedIn use. Operational definitions of impression management and self-esteem were used.

Impression management

The study measured impression management using an adaptation of Bolino and Turnley’s (1999) instrument focusing on LinkedIn use. Measurement of each item used a semantic differential ranging from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). The stem “On LinkedIn, I…” prefaced all items.

The self-promotion portion of the impression management instrument used five items: “Talk proudly about my experience and/or education”; “Make people aware of my talents and/or qualifications”; “Let other people know that I am valuable to the organization I am affiliated with”; “Let other people know that I have a reputation for being competent in a particular area”; and “Make people aware of my accomplishments”.

The ingratiation portion of the impression management instrument used five items: “Compliment my colleagues so they will see me as likable”; “Take an interest in my colleagues’ personal lives to show them that I am friendly”; “Praise my colleagues for their accomplishments so they will consider me a nice person”; “Use flattery and favors to make my colleagues like me more”; and “Do personal favors for my colleagues to show them that I am friendly”.

The exemplification portion of the impression management instrument used five items: “Try to appear like a hardworking, dedicated employee”; “Seem like I work late so people know I am hard working”; “Try to appear busy even at times when things are slower for me”; “Seem like I come to work early to look dedicated”; and “Seem like I work at night or on weekends to show that I am dedicated”.

The intimidation portion of the impression management instrument used five items: “Look like I am a businesslike professional who is serious about getting things done”; “Look like someone who can get people to go along with my orders”; “Look like I will not tolerate other people interfering with my business”; “Look like I am not afraid to get tough with people to get things done”; and “Look like I can make tough decisions even if they interfere with other people’s business”.

The supplication portion of the impression management instrument used five items: “Look like I know less than I do so people will help me out”; “Try to gain assistance or sympathy from people by appearing needy in some area”; “Pretend not to understand something to gain someone’s help”; “Act like I need assistance so people will help me out”; and “Pretend to know less than I do so I can avoid an unpleasant assignment or task”.

Self-esteem

According to Hass (1981), one’s self-esteem is affected by their evaluation of their own performance and their perception of how others react to their performance. As a result, people actively portray impressions that will elicit self-esteem enhancing reactions from others. Therefore, this study examined self-esteem using Rosenberg’s (1965) self-esteem scale. The scale has ten items, all measured on a semantic differential between 1 (lowest) and 5 (highest).

The ten items were: “I feel that I’m a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others”; “I feel that I have a number of good qualities”; “All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure”; “I am able to do things as well as most other people”; “I feel I do not have much to be proud of”; “I take a positive attitude toward myself”; “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself”; “I wish I could have more respect for myself”; “I certainly feel useless at times”; and “At times I think I am no good at all”.

Five items were reflected during the analysis: “All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure”; “I feel I do not have much to be proud of”; “I wish I could have more respect for myself”; “I certainly feel useless at times”; and “At times I think I am no good at all”.

SRHI and SRBAI

Verplanken and Orbell’s (2003) Self-Report Habit Index was used in the study to measure habit. The full SRHI was deployed during data collection. The stem “Logging into or checking LinkedIn is something…” prefaced all SRHI items.

The SRHI has twelve items: “I do frequently” ’; “I do automatically”; “I do without having to consciously remember”; “that makes me feel weird if I don’t do it”; “I do without thinking”; “that would require effort not to do it”; “that belongs to my daily or weekly routine”; “I start doing before I realize I’m doing it”; “I would find hard not to do”; “I have no need to think about doing”, “that’s typically “me.”“; and “I have been doing for a long time”.

This analysis excludes four items from the SRHI based on theoretical concerns. Items involving frequency of use (“I do frequently”, “that belongs to my daily or weekly routine” and “I have been doing for a long time”) were excluded due to their focus on number of repetitions of a behavior, which is not as theoretically important as automaticity. The item “that’s typically ‘me’ ” was also excluded due to its weak contribution to explaining habitual behavior.

These methodological problems with the default SRHI have led researchers to propose the use of a sub-scale, the Self-Report Behavioral Automaticity Index (Gardner, Abraham, Lally & de Brujin, 2012). The SRBAI uses four items from the SRHI that measure the automatic nature of habits more specifically: “I do automatically”; “I do without having to consciously remember”; “I do without thinking”; and “I start doing before I realize I’m doing it”. This study uses both the modified SRHI and the SRBAI in data analyses.

Other items

The survey also asked participants how often they used LinkedIn, as well as whether participants had a picture on their profile pages. Additional demographic information was also collected.

Ordinal options: “Daily”; “2-3 times a week”; “Once a week”; “2-3 times a month”; “Monthly”; “A few times a year”; and “Rarely (yearly at most)”. A related question asks participants to estimate in hours and minutes how often they use LinkedIn per session.

The questionnaire asks whether participants have a picture on their LinkedIn profiles with a yes or no question. The questionnaire also collects information about the age, gender and racial/ethnic background of participants, along with their estimated income, educational attainment and professional background.

Data collection

A survey instrument was distributed online using snowball sampling of social media (Facebook, LinkedIn). The researchers distributed the instrument from April 15, 2013 to May 15, 2013.

Results

Sample characteristics

Twenty-four people took part in the online pilot study. The sample was mostly white (91.7%), male (58.3%) and affluent (54.3% made $75,000 a year or more), with the majority having a master’s degree (41.7%). The non-profit sector employed the majority (41.7%) of respondents. The average age of the sample was 39.9 years, with the youngest person being 24 and the oldest being 69.

LinkedIn use

The typical session for a LinkedIn user in the sample was between 15 and 30 minutes, with the mean session value being 24.5 minutes. Two outlier values of 90 and 300 minutes were recoded to 60 minutes to help in the interpretation of results.

Profile pictures

A slight majority of all participants (58.3%) had a picture on their LinkedIn profile pages. Male participants were just as likely to have a picture on their profile than not, but 77.8% of female participants had a picture on their profiles.

Scale diagnostics

Table 1 shows scale means, standard deviations, correlations and alpha values for the scales used in the data collection. Scale values ranged from 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest value of the variable and 5 being the highest value. The analysis excluded missing data.

All the scale instruments had an acceptable level of reliability, with alphas ranging from .8 to .97 for all instruments.

Of particular interest is the high correlation between the modified SRHI and the SRBAI (.986, p .01). The high correlation between the two scales is consistent with the expectations of Gardner et al. (2012), as are their functionally identical scale reliability values (.94).

Table 1. Measures of Dispersion, Reliability and Correlation for Study Scales

M (SD)

Self-Promotion

Ingratiation

Exemp.

Intimid.

Supp.

Self-Esteem

SRHI

SRBAI

Self-Promotion

3.73 (.98)

.93

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

Ingratiation

2.37 (.84)

.575**

.91

—

—

—

—

—

—

Exemplification

2.52 (.76)

.656**

.701**

.80

—

—

—

—

—

Intimidation

2.58 (.84)

.771**

.774**

.667**

.88

—

—

—

—

Supplication

1.59 (.60)

.233

.501*

.482*

.388

.97

—

—

—

Self-Esteem

4.00 (.72)

.078

-.062

-.271

-.126

-.614**

.90

—

—

SRHI

2.15 (1.02)

.475*

.484*

.581**

.448

.040

-.087

.94

—

SRBAI

2.30 (1.22)

.439*

.551**

.566**

.436*

.141

-.091

.986**

.94

Notes. Values on the diagonals are scale alpha values. * p .05, two-tailed. ** p .01, two-tailed.

Discussion

With more and more interactions taking place in online environments, the applications of impression management theory for research have expanded along with increased interest in investigating online self-presentation methods of individuals and organizations. This pilot study adds to the growing field by beginning to expand the framework of Goffman’s Theory of Self-Presentation in face-to-face interactions to the mediated interactions that take place in Linkedin.

Goffman’s Theory of Self-Presentation on LinkedIn

As anticipated, users of LinkedIn used it as a platform for self-promotion most often. LinkedIn’s design specifically favors using it as a way to present a person’s self in a positive light. LinkedIn’s explicit purpose is to help people establish professional connections, and the best way to do so is to appear to be a desirable colleague.

Users in this limited sample appeared to perform their identities in a constructive way, though also with elements of exemplification and intimidation. Professionals sought to be taken seriously as no-nonsense, businesslike people who could demonstrate leadership in their fields. Similarly, users rarely used LinkedIn for supplication, as that could possibly make them appear to be less desirable, weaker colleagues.

Goffman’s theory of self-presentation provides context for these findings. Shakespeare once wrote, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more…” (Macbeth, trans. 2010, 5.5). Similar to the actors on a stage, the performance on LinkedIn illustrates impression management through the development and management of profiles that include front staging related to experience, skills and expertise, honors and awards, and background and education. Self-promotion is essential to users so that they stand out amid a field of many other professionals.

Furthermore, the social setting of dramaturgy is where interactions take place and the choice of “props” to give the audience a sense of what we deem important. LinkedIn is the largest professional network with millions of users choosing to use it as a stage for professional expression. Props may include inspirational quotations, lists of certificates and degrees, artwork, etc. Similar to the way in which we decorate offices, LinkedIn users decorate profiles to influence how others view them.

Goffman also highlighted manners of interacting as important to self-presentation. Manners of interacting involve the verbal and nonverbal means by which we share information with one another. In Linkedin, manners of interacting include endorsements, likes, affinity groups, discussion threads, and news article posts. Finally, personal space within dramaturgy refers to the amount of space we claim, and how we allow others to move within that space, which could be linked to completeness of a users LinkedIn profile. The more we know a person and the more intimate the relationship, the closer we allow an individual to stand next to us or not. Although LinkedIn is a virtual space, parallels can be drawn to the amount of personal space a person claims with the size of their profile, number of connections, number of projects/publications, number of groups, and number of endorsements.

Profile picture use on LinkedIn

In addition, appearance in the form of profile photos also plays a role in the presentation of self on LinkedIn. Notably, some gender differences are evident with more female LinkedIn users posting profile pictures than male LinkedIn users. While our sample size prohibits broad generalizations, it may be that the specific signaling value of pictures is more important to females than males, particularly as it relates to attractiveness (e.g. Buss, 1994; Feingold, 1992). A more directed study of this topic would be important to future work.

Habitual LinkedIn use

Different social media may encourage different types of use. Because of the high-stakes identity curation that takes place on LinkedIn, using that SNS may be a behavior that is too highly volitional and purposive to automate readily. The use of the service as a method to attract customers or employers appears to encourage attentive observation of the environment and active authorship of messaging. As a result, using the service may be more active and thoughtful than services like Facebook or Instagram. However, the limited, non-representative sample used for this pilot test is not adequate to provide a conclusive answer to this question.

Limitations & Potential for Future Study

Some critiques of other SRHI-driven habit studies (i.e. Gardner, de Bruijn, & Lally, 2012; Lally, van Jaarsveld, Potts, & Wardle, 2010; LaRose, 2010; Sniehotta & Presseau, 2012) raise the point that they often do not tie the automatic behavior in question specifically enough the prompting that triggers that behavior, often interpreted as the environment. Future studies should determine where and when most LinkedIn use occurs and tailor questions to address those specific contexts for action.

Since this study was a small pilot investigation, in follow-up studies researchers will increase the sample size, and use mixed methods to collect a purposeful sample from the survey for in-depth interviews and focus groups, and conduct a content analysis of participants’ user profiles. With additional investigation, researchers may be able to identify evidence-based “best practices” for profile pages and LinkedIn interactions.