Incongruities in Self-Presentations and Judgments about People

Abstract

180 college students were asked to make judgments assumed to correspond with judgments about the mental illness of targets who projected various combinations of cues in attire and verbal messages. Procedures were designed to elaborate the position that the cues involved in making mental illness judgments about a target are not necessarily those associated with mental disease as traditionally defined; that the cues correspond with judgments of mental illness only in some cases and combinations, and that observers' construct systems affect judgments. Attire, message, and the degree of congruence between them were assumed to project to observers certain cues regarding the core-self and self-explaining role of the target. Different combinations of attire and message were presented to separate sample groups by the same target. Analyses of scores taken from semantic differential scales, a behavior check list, and a question about psychiatric condition showed a tendency for the targets with in-congruent attire and message to be judged as with more mental illness. In addition, older subjects and subjects with a more “demythologized” opinion about mental illness tended to attribute slightly less mental illness to targets in general.