cost of pretending

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Journal of Adult Development pp981-jade-472065 September 29, 2003 22:18 Style file version May 31, 2002

Journal of Adult Development, Vol. 10, No. 4, October 2003 ( C 2003)

A Cost of Pretending

Murad S. Hussain1 and Ellen Langer1,2

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effect of pretending on the pretenders self-esteem. People use social pretenses to avoid criticism and receive praise to maintain andaugment this self-esteem. Nevertheless, there is a hidden opportunity cost of pretending.Participants were led (or not) to pretend that they possessed knowledge they did not have(i.e., made-up words), and did or did not receive praise for being knowledgeable. Pretendingblunts the effects of praise. Praise raised control participants self-esteem more than it did thatof pretenders.

KEY WORDS: self-presentation; pretending; social pretense; self-esteem; mindfulness.

Jebediah Springfield: A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.Edna Krabappel: Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield.Ms. Hoover: I dont know why. Its a perfectly cromulent word.

The Simpsons3

INTRODUCTION

Why do we care about how we are seen? Giventhat our culture is preoccupied with appearances, itseems prudent to entertain the question. Mead (1934)theorized that we internalize feedback received dur-ing interactions with significant otherswhich in-clude family, peer and ethnic groups, and social influ-ences like television and other media (Hussain, 1997;Newton & Buck, 1985)and come to construe our-selves as others see us. When others hold us in highesteem, we appropriate their positive views about us,which may reinforce us to elicit further positive feed-back and do what we can to avoid negative feedback.When we doubt that this can be done through gen-uine self-presentation, we may strategically employpretenses in order to increase the possibility of beingpraised and decrease the likelihood of being criticized.

1Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.2To whom correspondence should be addressed at Departmentof Psychology, Harvard University, 1330 William James Hall,33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138; e-mail:[email protected].

Goffmans dramaturgical metaphor for impres-sion management (Goffman, 1959) emphasizes thisrole of pretense in social behavior. By actively ma-nipulating others impressions of ourselves, we canreduce the negative feedback we receive and pro-tect our self-concepts from being associated with neg-ative characteristics (Roth, Snyder, & Pace, 1986).Self-presentation allows those with low self-esteem todemonstrate to themselves and others that they pos-sess favorable qualities (Baumgardner, Kaufman, &Levy, 1989), and even in the absence of positive feed-back, strategic self-enhancement alone can enhanceself-esteem (Jones, Rhodewalt, Berglas, & Skelton,1981).

The less genuine the impression managements,the greater the threat posed to the quest for praise. Asthe gulf widens between the pretended and the gen-uine selves, the pretense becomes more vulnerable todisconfirmation, particularly upon future encounterswith the deceived audience. In fact, if the audiencesuspects the presented behavior to be false, the praise

3THE SIMPSONSTM c 2003, Twentieth Century Fox Film Cor-poration. All rights reserved.

261 1068-0667/03/1000-0261/0 C 2003 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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262 Hussain and Langer

that the pretender seeks may give way to disapprovingfeedback (Tesser & Moore, 1986).

Nevertheless, suppose that a pretense goes un-detected, evokes no negative feedback, and elicitsglowing praise instead. How can positive feedback af-fect pretenders self-esteem if they do not possess theattributes being complimented? Pretenders not onlysidestep the risk of displaying their genuine selves fornegative evaluation, but also simultaneously sidestepthe opportunity for benefiting from positive evalua-tion, because praise directed at their pretended qual-ities cannot be directed at what they areonly whatthey are not. We hypothesize that this is a hidden op-portunity cost of social pretending, rendering ineffec-tive any praise won under pretense.

What Is Pretending

When pretense is used as exploration by chil-dren it may be beneficial (Heatherton & Engel, 1998).Pretense intended to deceive as impression manage-ment, however, is quite another matter. A job appli-cant who falsely implies to his interviewer that he isa skilled computer programmer uses pretense to dis-tort or conceal the truth. It is this genre of pretendingthat is the focus of the present research. Buss andBriggs (1984) refine Goffmans approach (Goffman,1959) and elaborate upon a dimension of pretense.At one extreme lies behavior that is completely gen-uine and spontaneous. Slightly higher in pretense isputting ones best foot forward, where actors selectonly genuine positive facets of themselves for pre-sentation but omit negative aspects, and thus lie byomission (Buss & Briggs, 1984, p. 1312). Still higherin pretense is unrehearsed exaggeration of the truth;higher yet is rehearsed exaggeration using premedi-tated strategy. Finally, the other extreme of the pre-tense dimension is marked by utter impersonationthe absence of truthful features, where actors (such ascon men) use only falsehoods to present themselves.

Deception = Lying = Pretending

We define pretending as intentional, implicit de-ception (Miller & Stiff, 1993; Russow, 1986).4

4Although lying is often viewed as more severe than pretend-ing (perjury, e.g., only covers knowingly false statements), thetwo should not be distinguished on the basis that lying is moreheinous. For example, You pretended to be my friend! connotesa cardinal interpersonal sin.

Pretending is the process by which an actor,through word or action,

(a) implies a premise for an observer to concludeas true, although the actor believes it to befalse, and

(b) intentionally causes the observer to believethat the actor embraces this premise as true.

Who Deceives? Although individuals believethat other people lie more frequently than theythemselves do (DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, &Epstein, 1996), and individual women tend to believethat others find lying more acceptable than theythemselves do (Backbier, Hoogstraten, & MeerumTerwogt-Kouwenhoven, 1997), women and men donot differ in their rate of telling lies and the rateis seemingly high (DePaulo et al., 1996).5 Jones,Brenner, and Knight (1990) found that high self-monitors who had pretended to be a reprehensiblecharacter exhibited increased self-esteem when theyheard personally disparaging feedback confirmingthe success of the pretense. The reverse was truefor low self-monitors, whose self-esteem decreasedupon hearing the same pretense-confirming negativefeedback.

Interpersonal Costs of Deception

When people pretend for self-centered reasons,they hope to avoid criticism and prevent loss in self-esteem (Roth et al., 1986), or to win praise and raisetheir self-esteem (DePaulo et al., 1996)sometimessimultaneously. We propose, however, that althoughwe may pretend in order to bolster our self-esteem,pretending blunts and may even decrease the effectsof praise. If we pretend and we are successful in ourdeception, praise will be ineffective.

Overview of the Studies

Two studies were conducted to investigate thegeneral hypothesis that pretense counteracts the

5Participants were told toand did indeedconstrue a lie as anytime you intentionally try to mislead someone (DePaulo et al.,1996, p. 981). Lies designated as subtle included literal truthsthat are designed to mislead and behavioral or nonverbal lies(e.g., He and I discussed sexual acts that I had performed, but heassumed that they had been performed with a woman) (p. 982).This encompasses the operational definition of pretending pro-vided earlier.

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A Cost of Pretending 263

effects of praise. The studies focused on the use ofpretense as a tool for hiding a lack of knowledge.While answering open-ended questions about a read-ing passage, half the participants came upon meaning-less words. Half the participants were later praised ontheir vocabulary ability (in a situation in which theywere unlikely to admit not knowing the word), andtheir change in self-esteem was measured by admin-istering Heatherton and Polivys 20-item State Self-Esteem Scale (SSES; Heathern & Polivy, 1990) beforeand after the experimental manipulations.

STUDY 1

Prior studies investigating strategic self-presentation have tended either to induce the self-enhancement of genuine aspects of the self (e.g.,Baumeister, Hutton, & Tice, 1989; Jones et al., 1981),or to instruct participants to intentionally deceivean audience (e.g., Jones et al., 1990; Riordan, Gross,& Maloney, 1994). Here we are interested in spon-taneous pretense.

In Pazy and Goussinskys phenomenological sur-vey of technical professionals (Pazy and Goussinsky,1995), four fifths of the respondents recalled onlynegative feelings in situations where they discoveredthat they lacked work-related knowledge. Forty per-cent wished they could escape the situation withoutexposing or further confronting this deficiency. Themajority of those who experienced lack of knowl-edge during an interpersonal context either remainedsilent during the interaction or actively attempted tohide their deficiency instead of openly admitting it. Inother words, they hoped to pretend that they knewsomething they did not. Further, the primary motivewas to preempt a loss of self-esteem. The presentstudy examined how such a desire to preempt nega-tive feedback might, in turn, unintentionally preemptthe effect of any positive feedback received by thepretender. In a questionnaire study, we found that 32out of 59 people felt that if they did not know themeaning of a word, they would ask. The word givenin that scenario was bresionary (a made-up word).The following studies examine participants who ac-tually pretend about their knowledge of this word,and how they react when their vocabulary ability ispraised.

Participants were recruited for a study in teach-ing styles to prime them for a context valuing aca-demic competence. Some were confronted with amade-up word, knowledge of which was essential for

answering a question. Participants were defined aspretending if they answered this question withoutindicating that they did not know the meaning of themanufactured word, because they could not have an-swered it on their own with any certainty as to whatthey were being asked to do. They also received writ-ten feedback complimenting their vocabulary com-prehension of the manufactured word.

Predictions

SSE levels. Pretending is hypothesized to insu-late pretenders self-images from the feedback theyreceive. It was thus predicted that praised pretendersSSE changes would not differ from those of unpraisedpretenders (nor from unpraised controls), and thatpraised control participants would exhibit SSE in-creases larger than any other group.

GRE completion time. Praised controls wouldcomplete challenging vocabulary questions fasterthan would praised pretenders.

Volunteer tutoring. Praised controls would volun-teer more hours towards teaching vocabulary to highschool students than would praised pretenders.

Method

Overview

Participants provided demographic informationand completed the SSES and Self-Monitoring Scale(SMS: Snyder, 1974). They then read a historicaloration and answered qualitative questions inquir-ing about the passage. Half the participants answeredquestions containing two words fabricated for thisstudy, knowledge of which was required in order torespond fully (Pretending condition).

All participants then filled out a survey unrelatedto this study. Half the participants then received writ-ten comments complimenting their responses to thepassages (Praise condition). After receipt of the feed-back, participants completed a second SSE scale andsolved GRE vocabulary questions.

Participants

Twenty students at Harvard University (19 un-dergraduates, 1 postbaccalaureate) volunteered fora thesis study on teaching styles in exchange forfinancial compensation. They were randomly assignedto one of four conditions.

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Materials

Participants completed the SSES and the 25-itemSMS. The reading passage provided was an excerptfrom Patrick Henrys Revolutionary War oration bestknown for its coda, Give me liberty or give medeath! Twenty-four items from the Kiersey Temper-ament Sorter (Kiersey, 1984), an Internet-accessiblepersonality inventory, were used here as filler mate-rial. Ten GRE vocabulary questions, taken from aGRE review book (ETS [Educational Testing Ser-vices], 1992), were chosen for their extreme difficulty.6

Procedure

Participants were seated alone in a seminar roomand given a packet of materials. The experimenter leftafter instructing them that he would be available in anearby room to answer questions, and that he wouldreturn in approximately 20 min to collect the packetand give them the next section.

Participants completed a cover sheet request-ing information about college year, gender, ethnic-ity/race, country of birth, languages spoken, SAT ver-bal score, number of English or literature coursestaken at college, and previous teaching or tutoring ex-perience. They then read a sheet explaining that theexperiment was an examination of teaching stylesand attributes, and were provided with the followingcover story:

In this study, your responses will be compared tothose of high school students who tutor their peers inmath, science, English and history. Through this andother studies, we hope to get a clearer understand-ing of the cognitive styles and personality attributespossessed by effective teachers.

Participants completed the SSES and SMS, andthen read an excerpt of Patrick Henrys oration andanswered five open-ended questions related to thepassage. Half the participants received questions thatcontained only legitimate vocabulary (Control condi-tion):

1. In the space below, elaborate upon the pur-pose of the oration.

2. In three or four complete sentences, discusstwo of the speakers references to God.

6Only 720% of GRE test-takers had successfully answered eachof these questions.

Table I. Comments Provided in Praise Condition for Study 1

Question 1 goodclear, yet concise, summary of materialunderstands key concepts

Question 2 excellent comprehension of vocabularyfirm grasp of specific themes

Question 3 good analysis of contextQuestion 4 firm grasp of specific themes

good comprehension of vocabularyQuestion 5 [no comment given]

3. From paragraph 6: Besides, sir, we have noelection. Define the meaning of election asit is used in this context.

4. George Beard, a 19th century historian, calledthis speech an example of how political de-bates can be influenced unduly by the ram-blings of a patriot too eager for martyrdom.Do you agree or disagree?7

5. Do you know the name of the orator who gavethis speech, or the specific timeframe in whichit occurred?

The other half (Pretending condition) receivednearly identical questions, except that the second andfourth questions contained nonexistent words createdfor this study:

2. In three or four complete sentences, discuss thespeakers two bresionary references to God.8

4. [. . .] how political debates can be influenced un-duly by the visinane9 ramblings of a patriot too ea-ger for martyrdom. Do you agree or disagree?

After 20 minutes had elapsed, the experimenterreturned to the room to collect the materials. Allparticipants were given the Kiersey sorter, afterwhich the experimenter then left the room for 6 min.

Upon his return, the Kiersey sorter was col-lected, and half the participants (Praise condition)were presented with a copy of the five oration-relatedquestions. Beneath the first four questions werestandardized hand-written comments (Table I) about

7 This quotation was also manufactured, although there was anAmerican historian names Charles Beard.

8 The passage contained four direct references to God, so partic-ipants who answered this question but did not ask what bre-sionary meant could not have known, not even from the wordscontext, how to select the two references. Therefore, they weredefined to be pretending to know what the word meant.

9 Visinane was added to reinforce the fact that there existed somewords that were unfamiliar to the participants. However, becauseseveral respondents interpreted to the word to be an archaic ver-sion of inane, only the word bresionary was considered as thecentral manipulation.

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Table II. Mean SSE Changes Scores for Study 1

SSE subscales

Condition n Total SSE Performance Social Appearance

Control/No praise 5 1M 2.0 0.2 0.8 1.0SD 1.6 0.5 1.5 0.7

Control/No praise 4 +3M 10.5 3.5 4.5 2.5SD 9.3 2.1 4.4 3.9

Pretending/No praise 5 1M 1.4 0.2 0.6 1.0SD 5.5 3.3 1.8 1.7

Pretending/No praise 4 1M 0.0 0.0 1.0 1.0SD 2.9 1.8 1.8 0.8

the subjects response to that question. This feed-back explained that tutors at the campus writingcenter provided a coding key by which participantsresponses were evaluated. The other half of theparticipants received no praise.

After giving all participants the final packet ofmaterials, the experimenter left the room. Partici-pants completed a second SSES, followed by fiveantonym and five analogy questions from past GREexams. Unknown to the participants, the experi-menter sat in an adjacent room, observed themthrough a one-way mirror, and measured the timetaken to complete the GRE questions. Participantsthen completed the final section, which asked howmany hours they would be willing to tutor local highschool students in SAT vocabulary skills, and whatlevels (basic through advanced SAT vocabulary) theywere interested in tutoring. After completing thepacket, participants were debriefed and paid.

Results

[The data for two participants (both females)were excluded because they expressed suspicionabout the made-up words and feedback. One partic-ipants GRE completion time was inadvertently notrecorded, leaving 17 points in that data set.]

State Self-Esteem

Participants premanipulation SSE scores weresubtracted from their postmanipulation SSE scoresto obtain the dependent variable of SSE change.Averaging participants SSE changes for each con-

dition yielded the mean SSE change for each con-dition (Table II). Contrast analysis used the weightsdisplayed in Table II, and yielded the data displayed inTable III.

Total SSE Change. A 2 2 (Pretending x Praise)ANOVA yielded a significant main effect for Pre-tending, F(1, 14) = 4.6, p = .05, but not for Praise(p > .15). Contrast analysis was significant, p = .023,r = .50.

Performance SSE Change. ANOVA yieldeda near significant main effect for Pretending,F(1, 14) = 3.55, p = .08, but not for Praise (p > .10).Contrast analysis was significant, p = .017, r = .53.

Social SSE Change. ANOVA yielded nonsignifi-cant effects for Pretending and Praise (ps> .10). Con-trast analysis was significant, p = .023, r = .47.

Appearance SSE Change. ANOVA yieldednonsignificant effects for Pretending and Praise(ps > .09). Contrast analysis was nonsignificant,p = .29, r = .15.

Discussion

The primary dependent measure, SSE, revealedsupport for the predicted results: praised pretendersdid not differ in SSE change from unpraised pre-tenders (nor from unpraised controls), whereaspraised controls exhibited larger increases on all SSEmeasure than did any other group. The strong effectsizes together with the strong correlations betweencontrast weights and observed means (ralerting)10

10 The ralerting for Appearance SSE was small, but because Ap-pearance items pertain mostly to physical appearance, it is notsurprising that feelings of academic competence may not involvea self-evaluation of ones body image.

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Table III. Contrast Analyses for Total SSE and Subscales for Study 1Miai MS-within t(df = 14) p reffect ralerting

Total SSE 28.1 29.73 3.03 .005 .54 .98Performance 10.5 4.76 2.83 .007 .52 .99Social 11.9 6.50 2.56 .01 .48 .99Appearance 6.5 4.36 1.83 .04 .37 .75aSum of condition means multiplied by condition contrast weights.

support the hypothesis that pretending blunts the ef-fect of praise. Manipulations had little or no effectupon secondary dependent measures (GRE comple-tion time, hours volunteered to tutor).

Nonetheless, the small sample size prevents any-thing but tentative conclusions. There is also a pos-sible alternate explanation for the differential SSEincreases. It may have been that the lack of SSE in-crease in praised pretenders, relative to praised con-trols, was due not to social pretending but to theirexposure to unfamiliar words. It is possible that ex-posure to a word they had never seen before couldhave humbled them enough to offset any increasein SSE due to praise. If so, this would undermine thehypothesis that pretending itself blunts praise. Withthis in mind, adjustments were made to the replica-tion study.

STUDY 2

The second experiment replicated the first withan added control group. Some participants were pre-sented with the same questions containing the made-up words, but were also provided with definitions afterbeing told a number of people had asked about themeanings (No Pretending condition). Thus, when par-ticipants encountered bresionary and visinanewhile answering the questions, they had no needto pretend, nor should they have felt humbledbecause many other people were also said not tohave known the words meanings. It was predictedthat praise would increase No Pretending partici-pants SSE levels comparably to participants answer-ing questions containing only real words (Control,identical to Study 2), because neither group wouldhave had the opportunity to pretend that they knewthe made-up words meanings. The cover story andpraise comments were simplified, and the dependentmeasures involving volunteer tutoring were omittedin this study.

Predictions

SSE levels. As in Study 1, it was predicted thatpraised pretenders SSE changes would not differ

from those of unpraised pretenders (nor from un-praised controls), and that praised control and NoPretending participants would exhibit SSE increaseslarger than any other group.

GRE completion time. As in Study 1, praised con-trols would complete challenging vocabulary ques-tions faster than would praised pretenders.

Method

Participants

Sixty-six undergraduates volunteered for a studyon teaching styles and attributes in exchange for ei-ther partial academic credit or financial compensa-tion. They were randomly assigned among conditions.

Procedure

Participants were seated alone in a seminarroom and given a packet of materials. One thirdof the participants received packets containing onlyreal vocabulary (Control condition). The remain-ing participants received packets using the two man-ufactured words. Of these, half were given no fur-ther instructions (Pretending condition), while theother half were told, By the way, a lot of peo-ple have been having trouble with these words,and then given definitions of the two words (NoPretending condition). The experimenter then left af-ter saying that he would be available in a nearby roomto answer questions, and that he would return in ap-proximately 25 min to collect the packet and give themthe next section.

As in Study 1, participants provided demo-graphic information and completed the SSES andSMS, read Patrick Henrys oration, completed theopen-ended questions inquiring about the passage,and then completed the Kiersey Temperament Sorter.The experimenter then returned for the praise manip-ulation, giving half of all participants complimentaryfeedback (Table IV) which detailed how an instructorwith the college expository writing program provideda coding key by which participants responses were

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Table IV. Comments Given in Praise Condition for Study 2

Question 1 clear summary of materialQuestion 2 good vocabulary comprehensionQuestion 3 good context analysisQuestion 4 good vocabulary comprehensionQuestion 5 [no comment given]

evaluated (Praise condition). The other half receivedno praise.

As in Study 1, after receipt of praise, participantscompleted a second SSES and solved 10 GRE vo-cabulary questions (during which they were secretlytimed). When participants had finished the materials,the experimenter returned to give them a question-naire being developed for another study, unrelated tothis experiment. After this had been completed, par-ticipants were debriefed and paid/credited.

Results

Classification of Participants

Omission of Data. The data for six participantswere excluded. Three of the participants (two fe-males, one male) in the Pretending condition explic-itly stated in speech or writing that they did not knowthe meaning of bresionary and thus did not pretendto have knowledge of the word. (Interestingly, two ofthese participants had perfect SAT scores.) Three (allmales) participants expressed suspicion of the manu-

Table V. Mean Changes in SSE Scores for Study 2

SSE subscales

Condition Total SSE Performance Social Appearance

Control/No praise 1M 2.3 0.4 1.0 0.9SD 6.8 2.1 3.2 2.0

Control/praise +2M 6.9 3.3 2.6 1.0SD 6.3 4.3 4.1 1.2

No Pretending/No praise 1M 0.8 0.7 0.4 0.3SD 4.0 2.3 2.0 1.7

No Pretending/praise +2M 6.0 2.5 2.6 0.9SD 4.1 1.0 2.8 1.3

Pretending/No praise 1M 1.8 1.0 0.8 0.0SD 3.9 2.0 2.0 1.2

Pretending/praise 1M 1.2 0.7 0.4 0.9SD 3.6 1.6 2.2 1.9

Note. n = 10 for each cell.

factured words and genuineness of the feedback. Theremaining 60 participants were spread evenly acrossconditions.

State Self-Esteem

Averaging participants SSE changes for eachcondition yielded the mean SSE change for each con-dition (Table V). Contrast analysis used the weightsdisplayed in Table V, and yielded the data displayedin Table VI.

Total SSE Change. A 3 2 (PretendingPraise)ANOVA yielded a significant effect for Praise,F(1, 54) = 5.71, p = .02. The contrast analysis alsowas significant, p = .0003, reffect = .44.

Performance SSE Change. The ANOVA alsoyielded a significant effect for Praise, F(1, 54) = 5.39,p = .02. The contrast analysis was also significant,p = .0009, reffect = .41.

Social SSE Change. Contrast analysis, p = .004,reffect = .38.

Appearance SSE Change. This ANOVA was notsignificant.

GRE Vocabulary Completion Time

The mean GRE completion times did not fitthe hypothesized pattern. Contrast analysis wasnonsignificant, t(54) = 0.08, p = .47, r = .00,ralerting = .48. Completion times only differed by

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Table VI. Contrast Analyses for Total SSE and Subscales for Study 2Miai MS-within t(df = 54) p reffect ralerting

Total SSE 19.70 24.70 3.62 .0003 .44 .97Performance 8.80 5.99 3.28 .0009 .41 .96Social 8.60 7.95 2.78 .004 .38 .92Appearance 2.30 2.53 1.32 .10 .11 .53aSum of condition means multiplied by condition contrast weights.

gender, with males taking less time (M = 271 s,SD = 16.7) than females (M = 333 s, SD = 15.9),t(58) = 2.50, p = .008.

Discussion

As with Study 1, the primary dependent mea-sure revealed support for the main hypothesis: praisedpretenders did not differ in SSE change from un-praised pretenders (nor from unpraised controls), andpraised controls and No Pretending participants hadsignificantly higher SSE increases than did any othergroup. The strong ralerting values (except for Appear-ance, all are greater than .90) indicate a particularlygood fit between the obtained means and the contrasthypothesis, which holds that pretending blunts theeffect of praise. Manipulations had no effect uponthe secondary dependent measure (GRE completiontime).

While two groups of participants were exposed tothe manufactured words, praise increased one groupsSSE more than the others. Therefore, the differentialeffect of praise cannot be attributed solely to exposureto unfamiliar words.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

In a study given to 59 Harvard students, they werepresented with a hypothetical opportunity to pretendabout their knowledge of bresionary. Thirty two outof 59 participants (54%) responded that they wouldnot pretend and would ask what the words meant.When knowledge of this same words was required inorder to correctly answer a question, only 3 out of32 people (9%) exposed to the word (but without be-ing given a definition) actually stated that they did notknow what it meant. There is a significant discrepancybetween the number of people who intended to pre-tend to know the word and who actually pretended toknow it, 2(1, N = 91) = 17.64, p < .001.

In both experiments, praise was ineffective inraising pretenders SSE, particularly when compared

to how robustly praise raised the SSE of participantsin the Control and No Pretending conditions.

Why did this happen? One possibility isthese pretenders were aware that their personae(bresionary-knowers) were not truly representativeof their genuine selves, and thus, they could not takepraise as an evaluation of their genuine selves per-formances. The pretenses may have acted as a barrierbetween their genuine selves and the positive feed-back, blunting the impact of praise upon their self-esteem. Another possibilitynot contradicting thefirstis that the praise complimenting pretenders vo-cabulary comprehension drew their attention to thedisparity between the praised qualities of the per-sonae (bresionary-knowing-ness) and the absenceof those qualities in the genuine self. As a result, theymight have felt, The pretend-me has quality X, whichhas been praised as a good thingbut the genuine-melacks this quality, and so I lack this good thing, andthus, I am not as good as I could be. This implicitsocial comparison could result in a decrease in self-esteem,11 which could cancel out the positive effectsof praise upon SSE.

CONCLUSIONS

If there is a cost of pretending, why are peo-ple not dissuaded from pretending? One explanationmight be that the cost is not absolute, but relative. Al-though praised pretenders may not feel worse thanthey did earlier, they have swept aside an opportu-nity to feel better about themselves by engaging inpraise-blunting pretenses. That is, when a pretenseis used to eliminate the possibility of a decrease inself-esteem, the possibility for a raise in self-esteemis also eliminated. Thus it is a hidden opportunitycost, whereby praised pretenders are left no betteroff than unpraised pretendersand may indeed be

11 Although praise only raised or had no effect on the SSE of Con-trol and No Pretending participants, two praised pretenders expe-rienced a decrease (|r|s < .50, ps > .15).

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no better off than if they had not pretended in thefirst place. The precise costs of knowing that onewas inauthentic are not clear. Still it is hard, at leastfor us, to imagine that they do not exist. At thispoint we can say that, although pretending may bereinforced by a mild affect increase from bluntedpraise, pretenders preclude the possibility of beingreinforced even more strongly when behaving moregenuinely.

Another possibility is that if praise does indeedinteract with pretending to decrease self-esteem, pre-tenders may reattribute their lowered affect to some-thing else; for example, they may conclude that thepretense was unsuccessful, or that the praise wasnot genuine but disparaging. Because these attribu-tions do not personalize the cost incurred, pretenderswould not necessarily be deterred from again seekingpraise with pretenses.

It may also be that when people execute intri-cate deceptions, with heavy risks of failure and psy-chological damage (e.g., loss of trust, loss of face inthe eyes of esteemed others), they are aware of thecosts precisely because they are so severe, but whenthe pretense is for something as insignificant asknowing a word, the preparation and risks are as-sumed to be negligible. The propensity to engagein a deception may increase as the perceived riskand cost decrease. Thus, the big lie, ironically, mayend up being less costly than the small one, becausethe deceiver has accounted for the consequences ofthe former while assuming that the latter, involv-ing such minimal effort, will have no detrimentaleffect.

In other research (Kawakami, White, & Langer,2000), we have found that people are aware of whenwe are inauthentic and clearly prefer us to be genuine.People who engage in small pretenses (e.g., pre-tending to know an unfamiliar word) may concludethat because the pretense is so narrowly defined andseemingly trivial, it cannot possibly be analogous to,nor nearly as costly as, pretending in a broader inter-personal setting. Yet, the results of the present stud-ies clearly indicate that despite the pretenses narrowboundaries, pretenders did not benefit as greatly frompraise as others did. Pretending is typically mindless,that is, scripted. As such, if extensive, it should resultin all of the negative consequences outlined elsewhere(see Langer, 1989, 1997).

As shown here, even the small pretense is disad-vantageous for the actor. This strengthens the conclu-sion that the cost of pretending is far more pervasivethan might normally be assumed.

Breaking the Cycle?

While people in an academic context may placea particular value on appearing academically com-petent, competence in general is greatly valued byour culture, and people will go to great and variedlengths to manipulate others assessments of theirown skill levels (Jones, 1989). The benefits of com-petence are instilled in us early in childhood and fos-tered through years of grades and accolades for be-ing the smartest, fastest, strongest, and most talentedamong our peers. As we grow older, we are expectedto increase our knowledge and capabilities, which nodoubt increases our opportunities and motives forpretendingas well as the costs for doing so.

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