You just finished a super important meeting with the CEO of the company you work for. You wore your most impressive suit, laughed at all their jokes, and asked them about their summer plans. As you leave the meeting, you realize your face is tired from smiling so much, and your shoulders are sore from keeping good posture. You're relieved to be back with your close colleagues, where you can relax and don't have to think so carefully about your words. 

This is a classic example of self-monitoring, where we adapt our behavior depending on the social context. To navigate society successfully, to a certain extent, we need to be aware of how our conduct might impact the outcome of our interactions. While it comes naturally to some people, self-monitoring can also be refined in order to improve your interpersonal skills and self-awareness. High self-monitoring may align with someone's extroverted personality, but high or excessive self-monitoring may also stem from social anxiety, leading people to overanalyze their behavior and that of others. On the other hand, low self-monitors usually value individualism and attempt to resist conformity; and while this can indicate integrity, a lack of self-monitoring can be seen as combative or socially disengaged.¹ 

Learning how to self-monitor, whether you're naturally a high, medium, or low monitor, can help you recognize behavioral patterns that you might not have noticed before, and give you a toolkit to make small changes to engage in more rewarding social interactions. If self-monitoring is a particular struggle and deciphering which behaviors are suitable for different social contexts is a daily challenge, talking to an expert may be worthwile.¹ However, for people simply wanting to develop their self-monitoring skills, you can do so informally by tracking your behaviors. For example, you can:

1. Build awareness of your behavior and reflect on social contexts: Ask yourself: How am I speaking? What is my body language saying? Who am I with? What outcome do I want? 
2. Experiment with adjustments: Identify simple target behaviors and try them out, for example: smiling more in conversation, speaking slower in meetings, and making eye contact. 
3. Seek feedback: Evaluate how people respond, or get honest feedback from people you trust. Do I seem approachable? How do I come across in meetings?²

It is important to remember that self-monitoring is a skill and, like any skill, it gets easier with practice. Instead of scrutinizing your every move, just try to notice patterns—your goal is not perfection but to connect more with yourself and the people around you. Additionally, be realistic and focus on small adjustments. When looking for feedback, try and let it come naturally—people may make remarks or signal their reactions with things like laughing or nodding.³ And above all, remember we're human! We all make mistakes, have awkward moments, and misread situations from time to time. 

High Self-Monitors: People who are very attuned to social cues and readily adjust their behavior and self-presentation to fit different social situations. 

Low Self-Monitors: People who tend to act the same way across different social situations, as their behavior is guided more by their inner values than the social context. 

Impression Management: The conscious or unconscious process of trying to control the information we convey about ourselves to influence other people's perceptions. 

Symbolic Interactionism: A sociological theory that explores how people create and interpret meaning through social interactions, using shared symbols such as language, gestures, and behavior. It emphasizes how individuals develop their sense of self through everyday communication. 

Digital Doppelganger: A virtual replication of someone that is based on the data they provide including their social media, photos, and writing style. 

As social beings, self-awareness has been important for our survival and social success since the beginning of humanity. The emphasis on understanding oneself can be traced back to Ancient Greek philosophy, where thinkers like Socrates suggested that true wisdom comes from an understanding of oneself and turning inward to the mind and the soul.⁵ While philosophers laid the basic groundwork, self-monitoring as a concept began to be developed in the 20th century.

The precursor for self-monitoring came from the work of Canadian-American social psychologist Erving Goffman on impression management. In 1959, Goffman published his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, where he discussed how people consciously and subconsciously attempt to control how people perceive them. Goffman used a theatrical metaphor, which he called dramaturgical analysis, to explain how people take on different roles to shape how others see them on the “stage of social life.” Though Goffman wasn't referring to self-monitoring directly, he is credited as one of the most influential psychologists in the field of symbolic interactionism, a field that examines how social roles are constructed through interaction.⁶

The term self-monitoring was coined in 1974 by social psychologist Mark Snyder, who described it as the extent to which people observe and control how they present themselves in social situations. To measure this tendency, Snyder developed the self-monitoring scale, consisting of twenty-five true or false questions that generate an individual's self-monitoring score. Snyder's work also introduced the idea that there are high self-monitors, who are more likely to adapt and tailor their behavior, and low self-monitors, who tend to act consistently in any situation.³

With the rise of social media and the permanence of the digital footprint, the relevance of self-monitoring has increased and taken on a new meaning. Outside of physical social interactions, people can now curate online identities, with the latest research in the field investigating how people manage the shift between their real and digital personas—sometimes referred to as digital doppelgangers.⁸ Increasing awareness of the inaccuracy of online self-presentations has started conversations around the performative nature of social media. The phrase “Social Media is Fake” has gained traction, with platforms increasingly being seen as highlight reels that showcase carefully selected moments, leading to false perceptions and excessive self-monitoring.⁷ 

Erving Goffman 

A Canadian-American social psychologist who is best known for his work on impression management and social interaction. Goffman draws parallels between social interaction and theatrical performances, where individuals present versions of themselves that they have intentionally crafted to influence how other people perceive them.⁶

Mark Snyder 

The psychologist who coined the term “self-monitoring” and created the self-monitoring scale to assess whether people are high, average, or low self-monitors. Snyder's research is particularly geared towards investigating people's “action agendas” and what motivates them to behave in certain ways in social situations.⁹

Successful self-monitoring can be beneficial in a variety of social settings. Whether you're with your friends on a Friday night or leading a sales pitch in a high-stakes meeting, the ability to self-monitor becomes a powerful tool for building stronger relationships, communicating effectively, and achieving your goals. 

Social and business success

As mentioned previously, people who are high self-monitors can adjust their behavior to fit into different social situations by picking up on subtle signals from others, like body language and tone. Then based on those signals, they engage in behavior that best complements the interaction.³ 

This can come in handy in contexts where impression management matters, such as during networking events or job interviews, where high self-monitors are often seen as charismatic and socially intelligent, allowing them to excel when they need to pitch themselves. Additionally, if a message or communication isn't going as planned, high-self monitors can usually evaluate the situation and figure out if they need to shift their tone, reframe information, or adjust their delivery to better engage their audience—adapting smarter, not pressing harder.³

Barack Obama is often attributed with being a high self-monitor, as he is known for his ability to change how he presents himself based on the audience and context. When he's addressing serious national or global issues, he speaks purposefully and with a composed, authoritative presence; however, when on talk shows or during one-on-one conversations, he adopts a more relaxed and approachable image. Obama's ability to read the room, pick up on social cues, and communicate according to a given scenario, is frequently deemed as a key reason for his political success and public appeal.¹⁰

Over- or under-self-monitoring can create challenges, which is why finding the best balance to strike is important to ensure that self-monitoring is helping, not hindering, your ability to maintain healthy social wellbeing. When self-monitoring becomes excessive, it can lead to social anxiety, inauthenticity, or emotional exhaustion from constantly trying to manage your impressions. 

Authenticity vs. adaptability

To be a good self-monitor, the key is finding the sweet spot between adaptability and authenticity. Perceiving someone as authentic can lead people to assume that their actions are closely aligned with what their true attitudes are, building trust and reliability. However, on the flip side, when someone is too rigidly focused on maintaining authenticity, they can come across as close-minded, tone-deaf, or socially disconnected, because society expects us to adhere to social norms to a certain degree, even if that might mean compromising complete authenticity.³ 

Adaptability is almost always a positive thing. Ever noticed how you naturally act differently around different friends? Or if a friend is going through a particularly tough time, you adjust your behavior to be more sensitive and supportive? That's adaptability at work, and it helps us maintain strong social bonds. A problem can arise when adaptability is overused or overcalculated; if someone is constantly performing or excessively tailoring their behavior, it can feel superficial or even manipulative to others. It can also lead to people-pleasing, where the drive to keep everyone happy overshadows one’s own needs and genuine self-expression. The goal of self-monitoring is to blend authenticity and adaptability—make changes when necessary, but stay grounded in your core values and true self.¹¹ 

Social anxiety

There’s also a key difference between high self-monitoring and hypervigilant self-monitoring. In its healthy form, self-monitoring can be characterized by a split between self-awareness and an awareness of others. For example, a healthy self-monitor may notice subtle social cues and respond with small, often subconscious behavioral shifts that help smooth interactions without overthinking. Hypervigilant self-monitoring, however, involves scanning the environment for social threats, searching for potential embarrassment, rejection, or any sort of negative judgment.¹² This hyper-focus can lead to becoming overly self-conscious, with overattention to how you're being perceived—which can backfire and lead to freezing, avoidance, or post-interaction rumination. The key is to remember that adaptive self-monitoring is not defensive or about achieving perfect self-presentation, but rather about making small adjustments that will eventually become habitual. 

Self-presentation in the digital age

Online platforms have fundamentally changed how we approach self-monitoring as a concept. Nowadays, we are able to curate our identities in ways that we can't in face-to-face interactions—our digital selves can be paused, edited, filtered, and staged. We can also carefully curate the surrounding environment of our digital self by hiding certain tagged posts, likes, and deleting comments, further fabricating our digital reality.

This flexibility comes with a downside—management of our media presentation can be exhausting. Our digital footprints are often permanent and also visible to multiple audiences at once, creating constant low-level self-monitoring. We have to constantly ask ourselves, will I regret this post later? How will this be perceived by coworkers if they see it? We also tend to have multiple selves across different platforms—LinkedIn is a professional persona, and Instagram is more for our social and personal life. Having multiple identities to manage, alongside the awareness that everything is being seen and judged, can lead to identity fatigue and excessive self-monitoring. We might slip into a performance trap, posting for validation or approval rather than expressing our authentic selves, making healthy self-monitoring challenging.¹³ 

Taylor Swift: The master of the rebrand

What is Taylor Swift's brand? Besides international pop culture icon, it might be hard to pinpoint what exactly her brand is because of her many eras. Taylor Swift has been able to adapt to different circumstances throughout her career and use them to capitalize on her image over time. She began her career in 2006, introducing herself as a down-to-earth girl-next-door country artist. Her appeal came from her relatable and genuine storytelling, writing about universal themes like heartbreak and love, sparking deep connections with young fans. In 2012, with her album Red, she began experimenting with new sounds, moving away from her country roots and towards pop, with her 2014 album 1989 marking a full transition into the new genre. This era produced some of Swift's most massive hits, like “Shake It Off” and “Bad Blood,” establishing her as one of the world's most famous pop stars.¹⁴

Overwhelming success often comes with pushback and controversy, which Swift faced in the late 2010s when fans criticized her for abandoning her country origins, and certain aspects of her personal life became a media frenzy. Swift responded to her situation with her 2017 album Reputation, a darker, more defiant album that allowed her to regain control over her narrative and confront the media and public. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor Swift began a more introspective phase of her career, with softer and more storytelling-centered albums, Folklore and Evermore, which mirrored some of her early work and resonated deeply with fans due to the uncertain and rough times.¹⁵

The Eras Tour, which started in 2023, marked the culmination and celebration of Swift's rebrands and resilience. The tour became the largest music tour of all time, generating $2 billion USD, a testament to Swift's ability to strategically evolve throughout almost two decades in the music industry while maintaining emotional authenticity, allowing her to become one of the most enduring artists of the early 21st century.¹⁶

Chris Voss’s FBI hostage negotiations

Christopher Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator and is well-known for teaching “The Art of Masterful Negotiation”  through expert communication tips. Voss highlights the importance of subtle mirroring— adjusting speaking pace, tone, and phrasing to match the emotional state of your counterpart. Voss emphasizes the power of being socially attuned, monitoring not just your words but also how the other person is receiving them.¹⁸ 

In high-pressure situations, like a hostage negotiation (or for most of us, a simple negotiation with a coworker or partner), Voss says: “If you're reacting, you're not in control,” stressing the importance of monitoring your emotional state to guarantee a successful outcome.¹⁹ This is an extreme example of needing to be a high self-monitor, where careful adaptation can make or break a volatile situation, but it also serves as proof that self-monitoring is a trainable skill that you can improve at. 

Does the Quantified-Self Lead to Behavior Change?

Beyond social and psychological self-monitoring, there is also data-driven self-monitoring, which has been popularized by apps and wearable technology that provide us with constant feedback on our health. We've discussed how social self-monitoring can help impact our behavior, but so can the other type of self-monitoring, which typically focuses on metrics like steps taken, sleep patterns, heart rate, and screen time. 

Objective self-awareness

How does our awareness measure up against our personal standards? Objective self-awareness allows us to take a step back and discern the difference between our internal standards, values, and goals and our actions, to determine whether there is a gap between how we are behaving and how we should behave. This article explains how we detect this discrepancy. 

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