Impression management in same- versus cross-sex friendships

Impression Management in Same- versus Cross-Sex

Friendships

Bachelorthesis

Sociale Psychologie

Name: Madeline Mol

Student number: 10014047

Institution: University of Amsterdam

Supervisor: Tim Faber

Contents

Abstract page 3

Impression Management in Cross-Sex Friendships page 4

Impression Management in Same-Sex Friendships page 6

Same- versus Cross-Sex Friendships page 12

Conclusions and Discussion page 17

References page 20

Research Proposal page 22

Abstract

In this review the function of impression management in same- versus cross-sex friendships is discussed. First, the functioning of impression management in same-sex friendships is discussed. Second, due to absence of research about impression management in cross-sex friendship, the differences between same- and cross-sex friendships and the workings of impression management in romantic relationships are discussed. Based on this, a theory is constructed about how impression management might work in cross-sex friendships. Because cross-sex friendships share an important aspect with romantic relationships, impression management in cross-sex friendship is supposed to work the same way it does in romantic relationships, depending on the friend's relationship status. For nonsingles, it works the same as in same-sex friendships. Lastly, a few ideas for future research are laid out.

Impression Management in Same versus Cross-Sex Friendships

Whether we arrive at a party where we don't know that many people or walk into the room for a job interview, we all know the feeling of wanting to make a good impression. People happen to be very interested in how the outside world perceives and evaluates them (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). Because the impressions others form of you influence the way in which they treat you, people often try to exert control over the impressions others form of them (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). Furthermore, the way in which your environment evaluates you can have an effect on your own view of yourself. Therefore, it can be very important to make a certain impression, and people sometimes behave in certain ways to create this impression. This strategy is known as impression management (Leary & Kowalski, 1990).

However, this social strategy does not only apply to people wanting to make a desirable impression of themselves. One can also help another person make a certain impression of him- or herself. Helping this other person strategically construct and maintain a certain impression can be seen as a form of social support (Schlenker & Britt, 1999. In: Schlenker & Britt, 2001). The other person may or may not be aware of this support. If the other is unaware of the support, the helper can not expect a reward, such as gratitude, from the person they have helped (Schlenker & Britt, 2001). This would make the helping behavior ultimately altruistic.

The closer the relationship that people have with each other, the more they engage in altruistic management of the other's impression. This is because the closer they become, the more they exhibit genuine concern for each other's welfare (Clark & Mills, 1979; Clark & Reis, 1988. In: Schlenker & Britt, 2001) and because making and maintaining a favorable impression is so

important, they are more willing to assist the other in making the desired impression.

However, this strategy of helping others make desirable impressions might not be as selfless as it seems. As people develop a close relationship with another person, they come to see the other more as an extension of themselves. They also start to define themselves in terms of their

relationship to the other person (Aron, Aron, Tudor & Nelson, 1991). It is therefore crucial for a person to make sure that the ones they are being associated with are seen in a favorable light: not only will this most likely affect how other people judge both components of the relationship, but because the other overlaps with the self to some extent, this is also an indirect way to manage one's own impressions.

This effect becomes stronger as the relationship becomes closer. A friendship is one of the closest relationships a person can have, and so it is probably a relationship in which this kind of self-extension is the strongest. Fehr (1996) defined friendship as being a personal relationship, characterized by its voluntarity and cooperativity and involving varying degrees of companionship, intimacy, affection and mutual assistance. However, it is an explicitly non-romantic relationship (Werking, 1997. In: Bleske-Rechek et al., 2012) and is not defined by blood relations or marriage (Fehr, 1996. In: Bleske-Rechek et al., 2012).

People appear to seek friendships with those who affirm their identities (Swann, Stein-Seroussi & Giesler, 1992), so affirming another person's identity could lead to that person seeking to become friends with you. Because people in general perceive themselves to be a little bit better than they actually are (Brandt, Vonk & Van Knippenberg, 2009), this would probably result in managing the other's impressions in a desirable way. The resulting closer relationship would in turn lead to increased extension of the self and cause both friends to engage in beneficial impression management on the part of the other. Managing other people's impressions therefore seems to be adaptive, because it helps you make new friends and maintain your old ones, all the while making yourself appear desirable as well.

There has been some research on how people assist their same-sex friends in managing their impressions. However, no research has been reported on this subject within cross-sex friendships. Therefore, the main question of this paper is what role friends play in impression management in same- versus cross-sex friendships. In order to answer this question I will examine research about friends helping their same-sex friends manage their impressions. Furthermore, I will look at the

differences between what people value in same- versus cross-sex friendships. With all this research in mind, I will then be able to theorize about the mechanisms of impression management within cross-sex friendships.

Impression Management in Same-Sex Friendships

Schlenker and Wowra (2001) conducted a study in which they demonstrated the basic mechanism of impression management. Participants completed what was supposedly a new test of social intelligence. They were told they would have to complete a second version of the test later in the experiment, after group discussion. After filling out the social intelligence measure, they were asked to complete a task manipulating the extent to which they would feel 'socially transparent', or to what extent they believed their true thoughts and intentions were easily discovered by others. This was done by having participants imagine and describe a situation in which they felt either socially transparent or socially impenetrable. Next, participants received instructions for the group discussion phase of the experiment. It was made perfectly clear that, although they would discuss several of the questions from the social intelligence measure in a group, their performance on both versions of the test would remain private.

While reading the instructions for the group discussion, some participants received an envelope with what was supposed to be feedback on their test results. This feedback was, however, false. Half of them received success feedback, the other half received failure feedback. The rest of the participants were told that the experimenter had not yet had the time to give them feedback on their results. Before the group discussion started, the participants were asked to complete a

questionnaire that tapped the same constructs as had been tapped by the social intelligence measure they had filled out earlier. They were led to believe that they would have to read out the answers to this questionnaire to the other participants, in order to get to know each other a little better.

The results showed that participants' self-presentations on this questionnaire were consistent with their supposed performance if they felt socially transparent, but that they presented themselves 6

more favorably regardless of their supposed performance if they felt socially impenetrable. This is an example of the functioning of impression management: people managed their impression on other people to appear more favorable than they really are.

However, this articlefocuses not so much on the functioning of impression management, but rather on the role it plays in friendships. Therefore, it is important to establish whether or not

friends have any influence on impression management in any way. This is what Pontari and Glenn (2012) explored in their study. They asked participants, who had been selected for being either high or low in social anxiety, as indicated by a pretest, to bring a same sex friend with them. Upon arrival, they were randomly assigned to either the 'friend present' or the 'friend not present'

condition. Participants and friends in the 'friend present' condition separately read the overview of the experiment. Participants in the 'friend not present' condition read the same instructions, while their friends performed a different, unrelated task.

Next, all participants and 'present' friends read instructions indicating that they would provide a future, strange, interaction partner with detailed personal information, before meeting them. 'Present' friends were encouraged to engage in every phase of the experiment. Participants filled out a written profile of themselves, helped by their friend, and in return received a fake written profile, which was supposedly another, same-sex participant's. They also had to record a video to help the other participant to get to know them better. After this, both the participant and the friend had to complete some measures to establish their reactions to the study. Participants

evaluated their own performance and friends evaluated the participant's performance and the extent to which their presence had influenced the participant's performance. Both filled out a measure of friendship strength. Lastly, both participants and their friends were led to believe they would have to interact face-to-face with another participant and were asked to select conversation topics that had varying degrees of self-disclosure. However, this meeting never took place and the experiment ended here.

The results showed that participants who were high in social anxiety presented themselves 7

more positively when their friend was present and they felt the friendship was strong as compared to when their friend was absent or the friendship was weak. For participants who were low in social anxiety there was no effect of the presence of their friend on self-presentations. This study shows that the presence of a good friend can influence the way in which people manage their impressions. This is especially the case for socially anxious people, or people who are uncertain of themselves. Even though this could be a trait, it is also possible that it can differ over situations. Some people are probably more disposed than others to feel socially anxious in a certain situation, but one could argue that ambiguous situations could make everyone feel socially anxious to some extent.

Now that it is established that friends do have a certain influence over how one manages one's own impressions, the question can be asked whether it is more beneficial to have your friend manage your impression, rather than doing it yourself. This happens to be the case (Brandt, Vonk & Van Knippenberg, 2009). The researchers told participants that they were conducting a study about people forming impressions of others based on personal advertisements. The participants read a description of a fictional person (the target), either written by the target individual (male or female) or by a friend of the person. The actual information did not differ over conditions and the target's gender was not specified. After reading these descriptions, the participants had to rate the target on different dimensions, such as likability and competency. A sociability scale was calculated from a selection of items from this rating scale. The results showed that the target was considered to be more likable if it was believed that the description had been written by a friend of the target.

Subsequent studies showed that people lower their perceptions of a target's sociability if he or she is believed to have engaged in boastful behavior about his or her competency or sociability as

compared to when a friend describes a target as being highly social or competent. This is because engaging in strategic boasting of one's own capacities violates the social norm, and describing oneself as being highly sociable or competent definitely falls under boasting. Furthermore, people are believed to fall prey to a bias in their self-perceptions, in which they perceive themselves more positively than they objectively are. Observers are not biased in this way and will therefore provide

a more truthful description of the target's sociability or competence.

Apparently, people will take the impressions friends make of you more seriously than your own strategic self-presentations because they feel these are more truthful. However, friends could also strategically manage your impressions. Research shows that this is indeed the case. People do actively manage each other's impressions, and this differs with respect to the relationship strength they feel towards them (Argo, Dahl & White, 2011).

One of the studies examined whether the assistance people offer to others differs when the person in question is perceived to be in high or low need of assistance. They expected that if a close friend was in need, it would not matter whether this need was high or low, because people are more receptive to people who are close to them. The researchers had their participants read a scenario in which they had to imagine sitting in class, being in conversation with another student, who was either an unknown classmate or a friend. At some point, the conversation partner (the target) mentioned the new car that he or she had just bought for a good price and showed the participant a photo of it. While the participant asked some questions about the car, a third person (a classmate) joined their conversation, saying that he or she had purchased the same model for a certain price, which was either $2000 or $200 lower than the price the target had paid. This person then asked the participant how much money the target had paid for their car. The greater the difference between the two prices, the higher the need for assistance was expected to be perceived. The participant was asked how likely he or she would be to make the target appear more favorable by lying about the price he or she had paid for the car. Making them appear as not having paid way too much was supposed to be seen as managing their impressions to make their performance appear more favorable. The results showed that the participants were more willing to manage a stranger's impression when they were in high need of assistance, but they found no difference for friends.

All the previous research I discussed deals with completely fictional situations. However, Schlenker and Britt (2001) tried to create a more real-life situation, in which participants were asked to bring a friend to the laboratory and were given the opportunity to actually engage in managing

their friend's impressions. This adds to the generalizability of their research. Participants did demonstrate managing their friends’ impressions: they made a more favorable representation of them as opposed to when a stranger was concerned.

The researchers explicitly asked participants to bring a same-sex friend to the laboratory. Upon arrival, they were separated and did not communicate until the experiment was finished. They were asked to complete a questionnaire about the relationship they had with the friend they had brought. After filling out this questionnaire, they were asked to act as research assistants in a supposedly unrelated study. They had to score a test that another participant had supposedly filled out to help assess the validity of this scale. However, the responses to this test were fabricated by the researchers.

Apart from having to score the test, participants were also asked to provide written

comments about the participant's performance. These would be used by the experimenter to form an evaluation of the participant that had filled out the test, but these comments would never be

disclosed to the participant him- or herself.

Half of the participants who took part in the experiment were led to believe that the participant they had rated was the friend they had brought with them to the laboratory. The other half were told that a stranger had filled out the test. Results showed that the participants who believed that the test they were scoring was filled out by a friend provided more positive comments than the participants who believed the test had been filled out by a stranger. Thus, participants managed the impressions of their friends to a greater extent than those of strangers. This study is a real life demonstration of the mechanism examined in the previous studies.

Now that it is established that people apparently do indeed help their friends manage impressions to a greater extent than if a stranger is concerned, it is important to see whether it actually pays off. A study by Pontari and Schlenker (2006) did indeed show that people actually liked other people better if they give a more favorable impression of their friends, as opposed to a more truthful one.

Participants read that the study was about the types of judgments people make about others based on short stories. This story was about same-sex friends attending a psychology experiment. The gender of the friends was always the same as that of the participant. The story depicted one of the friends (friend A) having a meeting to get acquainted with another participant in the experiment, who was always of the opposite sex. Afterwards, both filled out some questionnaires. The other friend (friend B) would see the questionnaires and he or she would then act as a third party who would convey information to the opposite-sex participant before this person and friend A met again.

Friend B saw the questionnaires after the first meeting. Friend A always indicated the

opposite-sex participant as finding him or her very attractive. The opposite-sex participant indicated that he preferred either extraverts or introverts as an “ideal date”, dependent on condition. After this, friend B was asked to describe his or her friend A to the opposite sex participant by filling out a questionnaire which asked about traits related to intro- and extraversion. This questionnaire would be handed to the opposite-sex participant prior to the second interaction with friend A. In this way, friend B could help friend A make a good impression on the opposite-sex participant by responding to the questionnaire in line with the opposite-sex participants' “ideal date” preferences, or friend B could be truthful, in which case friend A might not appear to the best to the opposite sex participant. Friend B either described friend A exactly how he or she was on the traits, exaggerated a little bit to help friend A make a good impression, or blatantly lied so friend A would seem a perfect match. After the story ended, the participants filled out a questionnaire which assessed, amongst others, their opinion of friend B. Participants indicated to like friend B more if they exaggerated or lied, but they respected friend B more if they were truthful. Apparently, managing your friend's impressions, and even lying when doing so, makes people like you more. People seem to like people who will help them manage their impressions more than people who are truthful about their friends. Choosing your friends can also be a way in which one can strategically manage one's own impression.

In summary, all the previous research suggests that people tend to present their friends more 11

favorably than they do if a stranger is concerned. People also happen to like people who engage in managing their friends’ impressions more than people who do not show this behavior. However, the research discussed has all been done in same-sex friendship couples. In order to be able to speculate about how impression management might work in cross-sex friendships, I will now turn to a

discussion of the research that examines the differences between same- and cross sex friendships.

Same- versus Cross-Sex Friendships

Because no research has been done to investigate how impression management works in cross sex friendship, there can not be said anything about this with certainty Even though, by looking at the aspects in which same- and cross-sex friendships differ from one another, it is possible to speculate about how impression management works in cross-sex friendships.

Cross-sex friendships are a relatively new phenomenon in research. Research by Lenton and Webber (2006) showed that the less people thought in traditional gender roles, the more cross-sex friendships they had. They provided their participants with a number of questionnaires they had to fill out. Women and men indicated to have the same amount of cross-sex friendships. Also, the more participants perceived cross-sex friendships to possess positive aspects of friendships, the more cross-sex friendships they actually had. This was regardless of their perceptions of same-sex

friendships and their perceptions of other features of cross-sex friendships. Furthermore, increasing masculinity in women and increasing femininity in men is associated with more cross-sex

friendships. For decreasing masculinity and femininity, the opposite is true. Thus, the more people move towards less specific gender roles, the more cross-sex friendships they have. This shows that cross-sex friendships are quite a non-traditional phenomenon.

Although men and women do not differ in the amount of cross-sex friendships they have, they do differ in the value they place on particular aspects of the friendship. Parker and De Vries (1993) had their participants make a list of their closest friends, at a maximum of ten friends and

with at least one cross-sex friend included. Next, they wrote down some particulars about these friends, such as sex, and rated their friends and themselves on several friendship dimensions. The researchers found that men and women do value the same dimensions in their friendships, but to a different extent. Women tend to place more value on and therefore offer more self-disclosure within a friendship as compared to men. In contrast, men attribute more importance to factors such as engaging in shared activities. For both sexes, trust and authenticity were reported to be the most important friendship dimensions. Furthermore, in their cross-sex friendships with women, men place more value on the dimensions women value in their friendships than in their friendships with other men.

These different values men and women place on certain friendship dimensions has

consequences for the behavioral norms that persist in the friendship and the reaction on a breach of these norms. Felmlee, Sweet and Sinclair (2012) presented their participants with several vignettes in which the actor was described to be a friend of the participant. The gender of this friend was varied randomly across vignettes. All of the vignettes described some kind of friendship norm-violating behavior. After reading the vignette, the participants were asked to rate the appropriateness of the behavior described. The researchers found that women who committed a violation of a norm that had to do with intimate behavior were judged more harshly than their male counterparts,

presumably because women are expected to place more value on these intimate connections. Also, it was more acceptable for women than for men to show physical affection with a friend. However, there do not seem to be explicit behavioral scripts for cross-sex friendships, and therefore people employ their well-known scripts for same-sex friendships in their cross-sex friendships.

Furthermore, the researchers found that women were more reluctant than men to admit that a friendship between a man and a woman was possible, possibly because they are more aware of the threat of eventually developing sexual attraction which would jeopardize the friendship.

But could this fear of sexual attraction be responsible for their response pattern? Research shows that the majority of people does not have a problem with the, as they call it, 'sexual

challenge' (Monsour et al., 1994). This is the challenge of knowing how to react to, eventual, sexual overtones in the cross-sex friendship. One could embrace the sexual tension to add a little zest to the relationship, or one could try to avoid it because one feels it could destroy the friendship. The challenge, if perceived by the cross-sex friends, can have very powerful effects on the individuals.

The researchers gave their participants two surveys. The first one was to be completed as soon as possible and consisted of demographic questions and questions about their cross-sex friendships in general. After handing in this first survey, the participants got a second one to keep for three weeks. This second survey was in a structured diary format with open-ended as well as closed ended questions. This survey asked more specifically about the different kinds of challenges the participants encountered in their cross-sex friendships. The results showed that the sexual challenge was only present in a small percentage in the friendships.

But the evidence is mixed. Research done by Halatsis and Christakis (2009) showed that sexual attraction is in fact a challenge for cross-sex friends. They conducted interviews with people in which they asked them several questions about cross-sex friendships. They also asked

participants about the impact sexual attraction in a cross-sex friendship had on the friendship. The results showed that sexual attraction is perceived as a challenge in cross-sex friendships.

Furthermore, they found that men do experience, and, for that matter, express, the sexual attraction they feel in friendships more than women do. It is, therefore, possible that the reluctancy of women to admit that a friendship between a man and a woman is possible is based on the threat of being told that the other person does feel sexual attraction, and so jeopardizing the friendship.

Men report to experience and express sexual attraction within their cross-sex friendships to a greater extent than women do. This could be because they actually do experience it more than women, but this could also be because women are more reluctant than men to admit their sexual attraction to their cross-sex friends. Bleske and Buss (2000) investigated whether there was a sex difference in the perceived beneficiality of sexual attraction in a cross-sex friendship.

They had their participants fill out a questionnaire in which they rated a list of possible 14

friendship features, such as sexual attraction, and provided the researchers with information about how costly or beneficial they would consider these particular features to be if they would happen in their particular cross-sex friendship, amongst other things such as biographical information.

Participants were asked to keep a specific cross-sex friend in mind while filling out the items. They had to rate both the beneficiality and costliness of each item. The results showed that women perceived the potential protection that being friends with a man embodies as more beneficial than men do, while men do perceive the potential sexual access that is inherent to a friendship with a women as more beneficial than women do. It could therefore be the case that men do express the sexual attraction they feel in their cross-sex friendships more than women do, because they regard it as a more positive aspect compared to women.

This idea, that men seem to value the sexual aspect of cross-sex friendships more positively than women do, has also been confirmed in research by Bleske-Rechek and Buss (2001). They presented their participants with a survey that asked about things like friendship history, initiation, selection and (reasons for) dissolution and sexual attraction in the friendship. They also specifically asked about protection in the friendship. Men reported, more than women, that the potential to have sex with the cross-sex friend was a motivator to initiate a cross-sex friendship. In contrast, women reported, more than men, that the potential for physical protection by their cross-sex friend was an important motivator for initiating such a friendship. However, these were definitely not the only motivators for initiating cross-sex friendships. Also, both single men and women judged the potential for sex as a more important reason for initiating such a friendship as compared to people who were in a relationship. Thus, it appears that cross-sex friendships may also be perceived as a medium through which one can find a romantic partner.

If this is true, it would be logical that the importance of the potential for sex decreases as people find their romantic partners. People in different life situations did report different

perceptions of their cross-sex friends (Bleske-Rechek et al., 2012). Participants from emerging- and young-adulthood and middle-aged samples were asked to fill out a questionnaire, a part of which

was about how many cross-sex friends they had and how these friendships benefited their lives or were costly to them. For the rest of the questionnaire, they were asked to keep a specific cross-sex friend in mind and provided information about the amount of sexual attraction they felt for this person, amongst other questions. Results showed that men and women from the young-adulthood and middle-aged sample reported less attraction to their cross-sex friends in general than men and women from the emerging-adulthood sample. However, single men and women in the young-adulthood and middle-aged sample reported just as much attraction to their cross-sex friends as single men and women in the emerging-adulthood sample, with men showing more attraction to their friend than women. The fact that single people showed the same amount of attraction for their cross-sex friends, regardless of their age, shows that people perceive their cross-sex friends as potential romantic partners when they are in need of one, as compared to when they are already attached to someone and therefore are not looking for a mate.

But the question remains how cross-sex friends manage each other’s impressions. There has been no research on this topic. There has only been research done on impression management in romantic relationships. These two forms of attachment, romantic relationships and cross-sex friendships, have one aspect in common, namely: sexual attraction. The way impression

management works in romantic relationships is quite different from the way it works in same-sex friendships. The extent to which people in romantic relationships make their romantic partner appear more favorably depends on the sex of the audience (Pontari & Schlenker, 2004).

In a series of studies, the experimenters either presented the participants with a scenario booklet in which they were asked to imagine their romantic dating partner as participating in a psychology experiment in which they had to interact with another participant or they led the participants to believe that the interaction actually took place. If they did not have a serious dating partner, they were asked to think about someone they would like to be dating more seriously than they were doing at the moment. This other participant was sometimes attractive and sometimes not, and either preferred an extraverted or an introverted individual as an ideal friend. The other

participant was either of the same or the opposite sex as the participants' romantic dating partner. After reading the scenario or after they were told the interaction had taken place, the participants were asked to describe the impression they would most prefer their romantic dating partner to make on the other person. People tended to wish their romantic partner to make a desirable impression if the other participant was of the same sex as the participants' romantic partner. However, if they were of the opposite sex, they wished their romantic partners to make a less desirable impression. This implies that they will probably engage in less positive impression management if the audience is of the opposite sex as their partner. They will, however, manage their partner's impressions in the same way if the other person is of the same sex as their partner. People do not want to make their romantic partner look too appealing to a possible rival.

In summary, it seems like cross-sex friendships and romantic relationships share an aspect that is very important in distinguishing between same-sex friendships and these other two

relationships. It is therefore quite possible that people in cross-sex friendship behave like people in romantic relationships in some way. However, relationship status of the person managing the other person's impression probably also has an effect. If this person is already in a romantic relationship, he or she will show less sexual attraction to the cross-sex friend compared to a single person.

Conclusions and Discussion

Despite all the elegant studies that have been discussed above, there is still not a clear answer to the question how people manage impressions in cross-sex friendships. However, it is possible to theorize about how this might work. At first, we saw that people in same sex friendships help their friends manage their impressions to help them appear as desirable as possible. Secondly, cross-sex friendships appear to differ from same-sex friendships mostly because they have a component of sexual attraction. Thirdly, people in romantic relationships manage their romantic partner’s impressions differently from people in same-sex friendships: for people in romantic

relationships the sex of the audience actually determines whether the romantic partner will be assisted in making a desirable impression. But what does this mean for impression management in cross-sex friendships?

Based on the research I have discussed, I think how cross-sex friends manage each other's impressions depends on the situation, just as it does in romantic relationships. People do appear to value one very important thing in cross-sex friendships as well as in romantic relationships: sexual attraction. People who are already in a romantic relationship show less interest in the sexual component of their cross-sex friendships, while for single people cross-sex friendships this sexual attraction plays a more important role. Therefore, in cross-sex friendships, the relationship status of the person managing the impressions affects the way this person goes about the actual impression management. If this person happens to be single, it is likely that he or she will manage the friend's impressions in the same way romantic partners manage each other's impressions: if the audience is of the opposite sex as the cross-sex friend, the impressions the person makes of their friend will be less desirable as compared to when the audience is of the same sex as the cross-sex friend. If the person managing the impressions is in a romantic relationship, he or she will probably manage the friend's impressions in the same way that same-sex friends do: the friend will always be depicted as being quite desirable, regardless of the sex of the audience.

An important thing to note here, is that this is all pure speculation. It is, of course, based on research, but there is no actual research that investigates the topic at hand. The only thing that could provide a conclusive answer is an actual experiment. Furthermore, one of the constructs that the research discussed above deals with, friendship, may be hard to define. Also, in the definition used in this article, the absence of romance and sex is very important in defining a friendship. Thus, it is possible that cross-sex friendships have to be regarded as a completely different category, instead of regarding it as some specific friendship constellation. However, this would also be dependent on the situation, because the relationship status of the friend doing the impression management may

influence whether the friendship is regarded to be more like a same-sex friendship or more like a 18

romantic relationship.

The fact that people perceive the other as an extension of the self as the relationship

becomes closer does not appear to be a satisfying explanation for the fact that people manage each other's impressions. If people did actually manage other people's impressions in order to make a desirable impression themselves, this beneficial impression management should be the same across different situations. After all, people would supposedly always be wanting to make themselves appear as favorable as possible. However, the extent to which people engage in beneficial

impression management is not always the same, as can be seen from the experiment with romantic partners.

Apart from researching how impression management works in heterosexual cross-sex friendships, it might also be interesting to investigate how it works in non-heterosexual same-sex versus cross-sex friendships. In theory, the pattern could be reversed, because all of a sudden a same-sex friend becomes a possible mate, as opposed to a cross-sex friend. Also, if a person is bisexual, same-sex as well as cross-sex friends are possible mates, and it would be quite interesting to see what effect this has on their assistance in their friend's impression management. In other words, a lot of research still lies ahead of us.

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Research Proposal

Impression Management in Cross-Sex Friendships

Abstract

This study will investigate whether the amount of sexual attraction one feels toward a cross-sex friend influences the extent to which one engages is beneficial impression management when faced with a possible threat to the relationship. 141 Pairs of heterosexual cross-sex friends will be invited to come to the laboratory, where they will be separated and prevented from having further contact. They will be led to believe they have to evaluate their friend's performance on a

questionnaire measuring social ability. Their written comments will be rated to determine the extent to which they engaged in beneficial impression management. It is hypothesized that the more sexually attracted one feels towards the friend, the less they will engage in beneficial impression management when faced with a possibly threatening situation. Suggestions for further research will be discussed.

Introduction

Previous research on impression management has only been conducted with same-sex friendship pairs or with heterosexual romantic couples. These two groups differ in the extent to which they manage each other's impressions: while same-sex friends help their friend appear as favorable as possible (Schlenker & Britt, 2001), the extent to which romantic partners engage in this beneficial impression management depends on the context. If the audience is of the opposite sex as the romantic partner, and thus could pose a possible threat to the relationship, people will engage in less beneficial impression management as compared to when the audience is of the same sex as the romantic partner, and therefore does not pose a threat (Pontari & Schlenker, 2004).

Romantic relationships and cross-sex friendships share at least one important aspect: the possibility for sexual attraction. Single people reported feeling more sexual attraction to their cross-sex friend as compared to people who were in a relationship. This is supposedly caused by the fact that people who are already in a romantic relationship have no need to look for a potential mate, while single people do have such a need and perceive their cross-sex friendship as a way to attain this goal (Bleske-Rechek et al., 2012).

The present study investigates whether the amount of sexual attraction that is felt in a cross-sex friendship influences the impression management strategy a person engages in. The more cross-sexual attraction one feels towards the cross-sex friend, the less one will engage in impression

management when faced with a potential threat to the relationship. The procedure of the study is based on the procedure followed by Schlenker and Britt (2001). Heterosexual cross-sex friendship pairs will be recruited from the University of Amsterdam to take part in the experiment. Upon arrival, the friends will be split and asked to fill out an extensive demographic questionnaire. Next, both friends will be asked to provide written comments about their cross-sex friend's performance on a questionnaire that measures social ability, which gives them the chance to engage in

impression management. In reality, this set of test responses is fake and both friends will be provided with the same responses. The construct of social ability was chosen because being highly social is in general regarded as something positive, and therefore appearing highly social is

desirable for most people. The participants will be told that their evaluations will be used by the researcher to form an impression of their friend before going through a face-to-face interaction with them. The gender of this researcher will either match the participant's own gender (and therefore pose a possible threat if the participant considers their cross-sex friend to be a potential mate) or match the cross-sex friend's gender (and being non-threatening to the participant). The gender of the researcher was varied because otherwise one of both sexes would always be the one feeling

threatened, and this would cause one condition to be made up of same-sex people. The experiment ends here and both participants will be fully debriefed and rewarded for their participation.

It is expected that single participants will provide less positive written comments in the threatening-condition compared to single participants in the non-threatening condition and nonsingle participants in both the threatening- and non-threatening conditions.

Method Participants

282 psychology students from the University of Amsterdam will participate for course credit or money. Since participation is only possible in cross-sex friendship pairs, half of them will be male, the other half will be female. These participants were recruited by distributing flyers at the university and through offering people the possibility to sign up via the University's participation website (www.proefpersonen.net). It will be made explicit that only heterosexual pairs can participate.

Design

The study can be considered to be a 2 (importance of sexual attraction) x 2 (gender of audience) between-groups factorial design. Sexual attraction will be operationalised by measuring participant's relationship status and has 2 levels: single and non-single. Gender of the audience will be operationalised by gender of the researcher assisting the participant and has 2 levels as well: threatening (same as participant) and non-threatening (opposite of participant). The dependent

measure will be the positivity of the written comments provided by the participant. Materials

Participants will be provided with a demographic questionnaire which, among other things, will assess the relationship status (single/nonsingle) and sexual orientation of the participant (to make sure that only heterosexual couples' data will be analysed). This questionnaire will consist of 30 items. In order to measure to what extent participants engaged in beneficial impression

management the positivity of the written comments will be rated by two independent raters, who will be blind to the conditions of the experiment. This scale ranged from 0, being 'very negative', to 5, being 'very positive', with 1 being 'quite negative', 2 being 'slightly negative', 3 being 'slightly positive' and 4 being 'quite positive'.

Procedure

141 Heterosexual cross-sex friendship pairs will take part in the experiment. The gender of the researcher will be determined randomly per friendship pair. Each friendship pair will be assisted by the same researcher, whose gender will therefore be apparent to them from the start and will inevitably pose a threat for one of the participants. The participants will be immediately separated from each other upon arrival and will not communicate with each other until the experiment is finished. They will both complete the same sequence of tasks. They will be asked to fill out a demographic questionnaire. After they finish, they will be told that they have filled out the questionnaire extraordinarily fast. The researcher will ask them to rate what is supposedly their friend's performance on a scale measuring social ability, to help the researcher to form an

impression of their friend before going through a face-to-face interaction with them. The researcher making the impression that he or she wants to get to know the other participant a little better before interacting with him or her is a signal that there might be a threat to the relationship if the researcher is of the threatening gender. The researcher will tell the participant that he or she would normally do this evaluation him- or herself, but because of time constraints the participant is asked to do it. After the participant has provided comments about their friend, the researcher will come back in and pick

up the evaluated test responses. Afterwards, both participants were debriefed and thanked for their participation.

Results

A between-groups factorial ANOVA with two independent variables was conducted which investigated whether there was an interaction between participant's relationship status and the positivity of the written comments they provided when evaluating their friends tests. If the expectations are confirmed, single participants in the threatening condition provided lower test scores and less positive comments than single participants in the non-threatening condition and nonsingle participants in both the threatening and non-threatening conditions. A Bonferroni post-hoc test will be conducted.

Conclusions and Discussion

If the results are as hypothesized, the more sexual attraction participants feel, the more they will engage in an impression management strategy that is similar to the strategy employed by romantic couples. Furthermore, if the predicted results will be found, it is interesting to think about comparing the way cross-sex friends manage each others' impressions with how romantic partners do this. Do cross-sex friends diminish the impression management of their friends to the same extent as romantic partners when a threatening third person is perceived? It is also interesting to think about whether sex differences might play a role: is the diminishing effect of a threatening third person on beneficial impression management in cross-sex friendships stronger for men than women, because men perceive the possibility of sex within their cross-sex friendships to be more beneficial than women do (Bleske & Buss, 2000)?

However, this research also has a few drawbacks. For one, we cannot manipulate the relationship status of the participants. Single people and nonsingle people may differ in important ways that also affect their impression management styles. Furthermore, it is possible that whether

the friend whose impression is being managed is in a relationship or not affects the way in which their impressions are managed. A friend who is already in a romantic relationship is, in principle, not available so it would make sense to manage their impressions in the same way as one would for same-sex friends.

One could question to what extent the participants who indicate that they are in a

relationship are in an actual, committed relationship, rather than just dating someone on a regular basis. This should not matter though: as long as the participants themselves perceive this as being a relationship, this will probably exert the same influence on their impression management strategy as being in a relationship for a longer period of time. However, as a first step into the domain of the workings of impression management in cross-sex friendships, the present study will be a very promising one.

References

Bleske, A. L. & Buss, D. M., (2000). Can men and women be just friends? An evolutionary perspective. Personal Relationships, 7, 131 – 151.

Bleske-Rechek, A., Somers, E., Micke, C., Erickson, L., Matteson, L., Stocco, C., et al. (2012). Benefit or burden? Attraction in cross-sex friendship. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 29, 569 – 596.

Pontari, B. A., & Schlenker, B. R. (2004). Providing and withholding impression management support for romantic partners: Gender of the audience matters. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 41 – 51.

Schlenker, B. R., & Britt, T. W. (2001). Strategically controlling information to help friends: Effects of empathy and friendship strength on beneficial impression management. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 357 – 372.