你想給別人留下什么印象，你在跟別人接觸時(shí)可能就會(huì)刻意表現(xiàn)出那一方面的特質(zhì)，讓別人注意到。這種行為就屬于“印象管理”（impression management）。

In sociology and social psychology, impression management is a goal-directed conscious or unconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event; they do so by regulating and controlling information in social interaction. It is usually used synonymously with self-presentation, in which a person tries to influence the perception of their image.

在社會(huì)學(xué)以及社會(huì)心理學(xué)中，印象管理是人們以目標(biāo)為導(dǎo)向、試圖通過調(diào)整和控制社交活動(dòng)中的信息來影響別人對某人、某物或某事看法的過程，這種影響行為可以是有意識(shí)的也可能是無意識(shí)的。與印象管理相近的一個(gè)說法為self-presentation（個(gè)人展示），即某人試圖影響人們對其形象的認(rèn)識(shí)。

People adopt many different impression management strategies. One of them is ingratiation, where we use flattery or praise to increase our social attractiveness by highlighting our better characteristics so that others will like us.

人們使用的印象管理策略有很多。其中一個(gè)是逢迎，我們用奉承或贊賞來增加我們在社交活動(dòng)中的吸引力、凸顯我們性格中好的一面，以便讓別人都喜歡我們。

Another strategy is intimidation, which is aggressively showing anger to get others to hear and obey us.

另一個(gè)策略師威嚇，也就是向別人表現(xiàn)出攻擊性和怒氣，讓別人聽命于我們。

A strategy that has garnered a great amount of research attention is self-handicapping. In this case people create 'obstacles' and 'excuses’ for themselves so that they can avoid self-blame when they do poorly. (Source: Wikipedia)

另外一個(gè)被很多人研究過的策略是自我設(shè)障。人們給自己設(shè)定了很多“障礙”和“借口”，這樣，如果自己表現(xiàn)不佳，他們也就不用自責(zé)了。

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（中國日報(bào)網(wǎng)英語點(diǎn)津 Helen）

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