The Development of Self-Presentation: Self-Promotion in 6- to 10-Year-Old Children

The present study explored the development of self-presentation. Subjects were eighty-five 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds. Subjects were asked to tell children at another school about themselves three times: (1) a baseline self-description; (2) a self-description intended to convince the children to pick them as a partner for a game (goal-directed condition); and (3) a self-description intended to convince children who really wanted to win prizes to pick them as a partner (enhanced goal-directed condition). The self-presentational strategies of self-promotion and ingratiation were measured through increased production of game-related and social positive self-statements in the experimental conditions. The results revealed a developmental increase in selective self-presentation. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that kindergartners did not engage in selective self-presentation, whereas second and fourth graders exhibited more self-promotion than ingratiation in the enhanced condition. Attributional knowledge was also shown to have a significant effect on self-promotion.