Strategically Controlling Information to Help Friends: Effects of Empathy and Friendship Strength on Beneficial Impression Management

People will strategically regulate information about the identities of friends in order to help those friends create desired impressions on audiences. It was hypothesized that this social support will be greater when the friend confronts greater evaluative pressures, when people are more empathic, and when people have stronger feelings about their friends. Participants described friends or strangers to a researcher who was evaluating their partner's cognitive skills. As predicted, participants' descriptions were more positive when they believed their friend would go through a face-to-face evaluative interview about an important cognitive skill compared to when no face-to-face interview was anticipated, the skill was unimportant, or the partner was a stranger. These effects were significant only for those who were high rather low in empathy or those who had more rather than less positive attitudes toward their friends. The strategic control of identity-bolstering information provides an integrative theme for research on social support, helping behavior, and impression management.

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