I’m sexy and I know it!

               Lyrics of that annoying song by LMFAO (2011) that get stuck in your head for forever suggest, “When I walk in the spot, this is what I see. Everybody stops and they staring at me”. I feel like at some point in life everyone wishes they could be that cool and able to immediately catch the public’s attention. But, unfortunately, it’s not that easy. At all! On the brighter side of the issue though – social psychologists know just what you need to learn to make everyone aware of how sexy you are!           
                According to Schlenker (2003), we use self-presentation as a way to make others form a certain opinion about us and attempt to get to know ourselves better too. It can occur both consciously and unconsciously, we might present correct or false information to others, as well as to ourselves (Schlenker, 2003).

               I personally think that one of the most important areas where one would have to use self-presentation strategies is while looking for a life-partner or a one-night-stand. You can decide on whether he/she is “the one” later, by all means you’ll have to attract your victim-crush first. And I feel like this is way harder to do for guys because society norms tell them that they have to make the first step, approach a woman and connect with her. Well, male and female worlds can contradict quite often, like:

               To deal with this responsibility, men developed pick-up, a movement whose purpose is to teach an individual how to approach, meet and seduce a partner. And since its first appearance in 1970’s, pick-up grew into a huge industry of books, video and live seminars, Internet forums and TV-shows. I never believed that it actually works until last year one of my close friends, a guy who doesn’t have a perfect body, never was a center of attention in any social group - in just a few months turned into a number one girls’ crush. So, I interviewed him on what he changed in his behavior in order to become popular with women and divided it into strategies of self-presentation: 

  

           1). Ingratiation, things you do to make someone like you (Arkin, 1981), works very well if you want to get a woman into bed – agree on everything, and that will inevitably make her feel like she is understood and she can trust you.

           2).  Self-promotion, making someone believe you are awesome and respected (Arkin, 1981). Pick-up industry suggests that even if you don’t obtain any cool qualities, just say, for example, that you are a DJ and it will get girls interested in you.

           3).  Another technique guys can use is exemplification, showing how moral they are by helping an elder citizen carry groceries or being nice to kids.

           4).  Surprisingly, supplication, presenting yourself as weak and helpless, makes girls want to help you. And if at the right moment you tell a heart-breaking story of how terribly you have been dumped by last 4 girlfriends and you are still a virgin, chances are, your potential victim-crush will want to fix that.

               All in all, as far as I believe, life proves that self-presentation strategies do work. So, ladies – beware! And gentlemen – learn social psychology and go conquer! But: 

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Arkin, R. M. (1981).Self-presentation styles. In J. T. Tedeschi (Ed.), Impression management theory and social psychological research (pp. 311-333). New York: Academic Press.

Schlenker, B. R. (2003). Self-presentation. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 492-518). New York: Guilford.

n=524