Concern for self-presentation and self-congruence: Self-monitoring, machiavellianism, and social conflicts

It was predicted that high self-monitors experience self-presentational conflicts whereas low self-monitors experience self-congruence conflicts. It was also predicted that low self-monitors who were Machiavellian would experience self-presentational conflicts like their high self-monitoring counterparts. Participants read 8 scenarios involving social conflicts in 4 different contexts and indicated which of 2 conflicts in each scenario they themselves would experience. Participants were then classified as high or low in self-monitoring and in Machiavellianism. Although there was an unexpected prevalence of self-congruence conflicts, the results were consistent with our hypotheses. Alternative explanations and future research directions are discussed.