Impact of Shyness on Self-Esteem: The Mediating Effect of Self-Presentation

Background: Although the relationship between shyness and self-esteem is well described in the psychological literature, far less is known about the potential mechanisms that underlie this association. The main goal of the current work is to verify whether self-presentation acts as a mediating variable between both constructs. Methods: The study was carried out among 198 adults. The Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Self-Presentation Style Questionnaire were applied. Results: A large and positive correlation coefficient was observed between the following variables: (1) self-esteem/self-promotion; (2) shyness/self-deprecation. All other variables correlated negatively: (1) shyness/self-esteem; (2) shyness/self-promotion; (3) self-esteem/self-deprecation; (4) self-promotion/self-deprecation. Moreover, both self-promotion and self-deprecation acted as mediators between life satisfaction and self-esteem. Conclusion: The outcomes of the present study show a new mediating aspect for the direct relationship between shyness and self-esteem in the form of two styles of self-presentation. The results indicate that the tendency of shy people to avoid others can have a lower effect on their overall sense of self-esteem when they try to present themselves in a clearly favorable light. By contrast, shyness may have a stronger impact on their sense of self-worth when they present themselves as helpless, unsure, and incompetent.

Impression Management

Impression management is defined as controlling how one is seen by others. Most of the important outcomes in life, including friends, romantic partners, job opportunities, and happiness, are contingent on how one is perceived in social situations. Since the 1950s scholars across multiple disciplines of social science have noted the importance of impression management and have developed key theoretical interpretations and taxonomies of how, why, and for whom impression management occurs and whether it is likely to have its intended effect. Virtually any behavior can be used for impression management purposes, and the desired outcomes range from positive, when the behaviors are intended to be seen in a favorable light, to negative, when the behaviors are intended to be seen in an unfavorable light. Although impression management has been relatively free of controversy as a scholarly topic, some disagreements have formed around the ethics of managing impressions, how to best measure impression management, and whether impression management explains some of the more venerable topics in social science such as prosocial behavior, cognitive dissonance, and moral judgment. A typical episode of impression management occurs when an actor performs an act in the hope of influencing targets in a certain way, and scholarly work has noted the importance of the target in this process since the target is not only the audience who judges the actors’ performances but also the critic who provides the actors with feedback that can be used in subsequent performances. Other work has investigated how easy it is to mismanage an impression, such as when “humble bragging” and giving “backhanded compliments.”

Wayward Sons and Wandering Bacchic Revels

In the years between Plautus and the heyday of Terence (160s BCE), Rome made a series of momentous conquests, including victory over Antiochus III in Asia Minor. Beginning from this historical background, Chapter 2 considers the wandering, exilic journey of a soldier, Clinia, in Asia while in service to an unnamed “King,” and his Odysseus-like return to his waiting girlfriend, Antiphila. Clinia’s story forms a part of Terence’s Heautontimorumenos, a play put on at the Roman festival of Cybele in 163 BCE. Other plays of Terence as well as the fragments of Caecilius Statius and Ennius add depth and context to the discussion. The chapter argues that Clinia’s lovelorn wandering presents an amusing image of Greek military activities in the East, but simultaneously alludes to Roman expansion through its recollection of Seleucid aggression. Further, by portraying the residents of an Attic deme struggling with the negative effects of an alluring Dionysiac figure, the itinerant prostitute Bacchis, Terence presents Bacchus’s cult in a less favorable light than that of Cybele. Bacchis’s submissive lover, Clitipho, who expresses a close bond with Clinia, is in his own fashion becoming lost, morally as well as spatially, from the moment we first meet him. The behavior of the comic adulescentes Clinia and Clitipho, the chapter suggests, is usefully regarded as queerly deviant in Ahmed’s terms, because seeing their behavior in this way helps illuminate the connection between their failure to live up to Roman gender expectations and the disorienting effects of the East.

Hope’s Place in Our Lives

This chapter explores the nature of hope. It argues that hope is a way of seeing in a favorable light the possibility that an outcome one desires and believes to be possible obtains. This understanding of hope is similar to many competing accounts of the nature of hope in the philosophical literature. Setting the debate about which precise theory of hope is correct aside, the significance of human difference to experiences of hope and our relative power to affect the world is explored. A feminist perspective on hope reveals that oppression is a threat to hope. Attending to the power dynamics that shape how we hope, this chapter illustrates the ways in which people and institutions in positions of power use hope to further their ends. It then traces the relationship between the hope we place in others, normative expectation, and trust.

Psychological Semantic Parameters of Adolescents’ Conformism in the Measurement of Value Orientations

The aim is to theoretically substantiate and empirically study the psychological semantic parameters of conformism of adolescence and to establish the relationship with values. Value orientations as an important regulatory mechanism of personality behavior are revealed. Conformism is interpreted through social desirability as the individual’s desire for positive and constructive interaction, exchange with society, during which the individual obeys the latter, presenting himself in a favorable light. It is noted that young people often change their values under the pressure of “significant others” and society, presenting themselves in a favorable light, implementing conformal behavior. It is established that conformism correlates with value orientations (p<.01; p<.05). It is noted that respondents with a high level of conformism are characterized by a change in values under the influence of the environment and people with low levels – this trend is not observed. It has been studied that in adolescence there is a shift in the orientation of the individual from focusing on other people to focusing on their own meanings and values. It is determined that a person with a high level of conformism can neglect his own values, and therefore change his own behavior, which can be regarded as a “challenge to the environment”. It is offered to apply the received empirical results in training and to implement in educational and professional preparation of students-psychologists.

Law and Literature after the Pacific War

Ginsburg examines ethical questions surrounding World War II from the perspective of the Japanese. Endō’s 1958 novel explores an infamous incident in which Japanese doctors performed horrific experiments on captured American airmen. The doctors were later tried as part of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. As Ginsburg explains, Endō asks “the eternal question: What is morality in wartime?” Ginsburg situates this question within the totalizing context of World War II, in which dehumanization on both sides paved the way for atrocity. He connects it with the War Crimes Tribunal itself, where morality took a back seat to America’s effort to shape the Japanese postwar narrative and write its own version of winner’s history. As Ginsburg explains, this history will not necessarily persevere; there are now significant efforts underway by Japanese nationalists to paint Japan’s actions in World War II in a more favorable light. That may be the cost and consequence of promoting a history divorced from morality.

The cyanobacterial taxis protein HmpF regulates type IV pilus activity in response to light

Motility is ubiquitous in prokaryotic organisms including the photosynthetic cyanobacteria where surface motility powered by type 4 pili (T4P) is common and facilitates phototaxis to seek out favorable light environments. In cyanobacteria, chemotaxis-like systems are known to regulate motility and phototaxis. The characterized phototaxis systems rely on methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins containing bilin-binding GAF domains capable of directly sensing light, and the mechanism by which they regulate the T4P is largely undefined. In this study we demonstrate that cyanobacteria possess a second, GAF-independent, means of sensing light to regulate motility and provide insight into how a chemotaxis-like system regulates the T4P motors. A combination of genetic, cytological, and protein–protein interaction analyses, along with experiments using the proton ionophore carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenyl hydrazine, indicate that the Hmp chemotaxis-like system of the model filamentous cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme is capable of sensing light indirectly, possibly via alterations in proton motive force, and modulates direct interaction between the cyanobacterial taxis protein HmpF, and Hfq, PilT1, and PilT2 to regulate the T4P motors. Given that the Hmp system is widely conserved in cyanobacteria, and the finding from this study that orthologs of HmpF and T4P proteins from the distantly related model unicellular cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. strain PCC6803 interact in a similar manner to their N. punctiforme counterparts, it is likely that this represents a ubiquitous means of regulating motility in response to light in cyanobacteria.

Recent Advances and the Design Criteria of Metal Sulfide Photocathode and Photoanode for Photoelectrocatalysis

Metal sulfides have emerged as promising materials for photoelectrochemical (PEC) applications due to their favorable light absorption ability, tunable structural and optical properties. With the rapid development of PEC systems,...

Photography as a means of building personal identity in the space of social networks

The paper examines the issue of self-determination in the context of social networks. The works of E. Erickson, I. Hoffman, Z. Bauman serve as its theoretical basis. Kimberly-Young's methods for determining the level of Internet addiction, as well as D. Russell and M. Ferguson's methods for determining the level of loneliness were chosen as its empirical base. In addition, the study involves a qualitative analysis of the profiles on the Instagram network. It showed that photographic content filling is used by modern users as a platform for constructing identities, where everyday life`s reflection is transformed, subject to a certain lifestyle (achieving recognition, success). Thus, we are dealing with a framed switched reality that intensively affects primary frame system of a social subject. Personal page of the account serves as a stage for displaying certain roles, demonstrating to the “Other” their life in terms of both significant events and routine everyday practices. The reality of everyday life embellished through photography becomes a means of gaining recognition which, in turn, is called to protect individual’s personality from feeling subjective loneliness and represent the illusion of achieving happiness and success in everyday activities. Based on theoretical and practical material, the authors came to the conclusion that “photographic reality” allows you to present your life in a favorable light and focus audience's attention on the happy sides of your everyday life, thereby gaining recognition from the “Other”.