Patterns of Self Presentation Tactics in Young Adults

Since the time immemorial the desire of people to control how others perceive them has been a constant phenomenon; though the ways of controlling other’s notion about oneself have been proliferated and widened. Young adults often get engaged in controlling other’s notion about them, as they are aware of the fact that the impression formed by others will affect their success in many walks of life. However, these ways are highly influenced by culture contexts, gender roles and identities of the participants. The present study aimed to investigate the dominating pattern of self-presentation in young adults, and how this pattern was directed and shaped by gender. A total of 169 college going young adults from Delhi-NCR participated in the study, out of which 97 were female and 72 were male. The data was obtained using Self-presentation Tactics Scale (Lee et al., 1999). The result obtained revealed that the most prominent self-presentation tactic among young adults was apologises and the least prevailing was intimidation. Male young adults were found to be significantly more involved in assertive self-presentation than female young adults however no such difference was obtained on defensive self-presentation. Furthermore, young adults irrespective of their gender were found to be more involved in using defensive self-presentation than assertive self-presentation.