Providing and withholding impression management support for romantic partners: Gender of the audience matters

People will strategically control the information they express to others about friends in order to help those friends make a good impression. The present study sought to determine if romantic partners also engage in this behavior. Results from Experiment 1 indicated that people who express stronger feelings for their dating partners adjusted the descriptions of these significant others to help them make a desirable impression on a same-sex but not opposite-sex other. Experiments 2 and 3 provided support for the hypotheses that participants helped in the same-sex condition because they were focused on their partners’ impression management needs (partner-focused concerns) and failed to help in the opposite-sex condition due to their own preferences for how their partner should appear (self-focused concerns).