The "self-disclosure" and "self-presentation" views of item response dynamics and personality scale validity.

This study investigates whether objective self-report measures of personality are better regarded as sources of factual information about the self (i.e., as self-disclosures) or as ways to instruct others about how one is to be regarded (i.e., as self-presentations). The two perspectives were compared by testing the unique, divergent predictions each perspective made about the kinds of personality vari-ables associated with consistency in self-description. For three groups of subjects (155 normal adults, 69 murderers, and 47 college students) almost all of the "self-presentation variables " were correlated significantly with consistency, whereas none of the "self-disclosure variables " was correlated with the criterion. Limitations of the study are discussed. When people talk about themselves-whether in a laboratory experiment, in psy-chotherapy, or in everyday life-their verbal reports can be conceptualized as either sim-ple factual communications about the self (i.e., self-disclosure) or as ways to instruct others about how they are to be regarded (i.e., self-presentation): The distinction be-tween self-disclosure and self-s resent at ion has been a common topic of concern to social psychologists, personologists, and clinicians