What Self-Monitors Don't Monitor

Abstract

Snyder's self-monitoring scale, which is designed to assess subjects' ability to modify their self-presentations and to read those of others, may inversely reflect the cognitive effort subjects direct toward other focal information. In an information-processing experiment, low self-monitoring subjects exhibited significantly higher mean recognition scores than high self-monitoring subjects. Many reasons might account for this behavior, but none detracts from its social-psychological import.