Tell Me Who You Are and I Will Tell You the Situation: Agentic Positively Valenced Self-Presentations and Communal Negatively Valenced Self-Presentations

We analyzed, using quantitative semantics, freely generated self-presentations by LinkedIn users randomly assigned to a recruitment or a friendship situation. Our findings account for how different situations elicit self-enhancement and self-protection through: (1) an agentic and positively valenced self-presentation (recruitment condition) or (2) a communal negatively valenced self-presentation (friendship condition).