51. Self-monitoring: appraisal and reappraisal.
- Author
-
Gangestad SW and Snyder M
- Subjects
- Humans, Models, Psychological, Models, Statistical, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales standards, Psychometrics, Self Concept, Interpersonal Relations, Self-Assessment, Social Control, Informal
- Abstract
Theory and research on self-monitoring have accumulated into a sizable literature on the impact of variation in the extent to which people cultivate public appearances in diverse domains of social functioning. Yet self-monitoring and its measure, the Self-Monitoring Scale, are surrounded by controversy generated by conflicting answers to the critical question, Is self-monitoring a unitary phenomenon? A primary source of answers to this question has been largely neglected--the Self-Monitoring Scale's relations with external criteria. We propose a quantitative method to examine the self-monitoring literature and thereby address major issues of the controversy. Application of this method reveals that, with important exceptions, a wide range of external criteria tap a dimension directly measured by the Self-Monitoring Scale. We discuss what this appraisal reveals about with self-monitoring is and is not.
- Published
- 2000
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