Anna Akbari spoke to our class about the different personas one plays out throughout their day-to-day life. Psychologists refer to this as "wearing masks" and each new situation you enter, new friend that you talk to, or country that you visit requires that you put on the appropriate mask. Some argue that this is skewing your identity and are somehow loosing yourself. But Anna disagrees.
To support her stance, she put together a collage of all the different hairstyles she's had throughout her life. She shows herself with big hair, short hair, curly hair, straight hair, and each picture looked like a fairly different person than the next. However, its still the same Anna in all of the pictures. So for those who feel like putting on a mask is somehow loosing yourself they would also have to agree that the hairstyle one choses to have defines that person; and to me, that just seems silly.
Putting on masks is simply, as Anna says, image management. Being in control of the way you are perceived by the world is not a bad thing. If anything, it gives you self-power and helps you to better understand social theories.
A good example of someone who completely understood the importance of image management is Ralph Lauren. Ralph Lauren's real name is Ralph Lifshitz. However, this waspy-Jewish was not going to work for the lifestyle he wanted to lead. So what did he do? He changed his name and took on the persona of this new identity: Ralph Lauren. His confidence in turn boosted his career and helped him to sell his lifestyle to consumers through clothes.
Anna conducted a personal experiment for herself that was both very interesting and enlightening. It was surrounded by the concept of Ethnographic Exploration: the study of a culture to understand a culture. In her experiment she dressed up in multiple stereotypical personalities and lived out that day as that person. These identities included a tourist, homeless person, prostitute, lesbian, etc. She found that this was an empathy building process because of how much people's reactions to each persona varied. It was a test for audience perception.
She concluded her presentation putting into perspective how influential image management can prove to be when it comes to being hired. When you strategically use self-presentation, your confidence will shine through, your positivity will inspire, and your professionalism will hopefully get you a job!
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