The Beacon Effect: A Model of Humanistic Impression Management

Impression management is often portrayed as a self-serving strategy for personal gain. We propose that impression management can also operate as a humanistic act—one in which actors generate favorable impressions through non-exploitative efforts to satisfy the psychological needs of audiences. Drawing on self-determination and signaling theories, we theorize that expressions of mindfulness, curiosity, and encouragement function as relational signals that fulfill audiences’ needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. When these signals are received as clear, reliable, and need-supportive, they generate experiences of validation, interest, and confidence that foster favorable impressions. We introduce the beacon metaphor to organize this process, illustrating how impression management can shift from instrumental self-presentation to need-supportive signaling, and we conceptualize impression formation as a reciprocal process whereby audience responses operate as countersignals. Our model shifts attention to the audience's experience of signaling and explains impression management as a relational, need-based process that is dynamically co-constructed.