The Cost of Impression Management to Life Satisfaction: Sense of Control and Loneliness as Mediators

PURPOSE: Impression management, or self-presentation, prevails in our daily lives. However, whether it enhances or reduces individuals’ well-being remains underexplored. To fill this gap, the research proposed and tested the following hypotheses. Impression management is negatively related to life satisfaction. Impression management is negatively related to sense of control. Impression management is positively related to loneliness. Sense of control and loneliness mediate the relationship between impression management and life satisfaction. METHODS: Data were collected from an online survey of 243 Chinese adults drawn from a national sampling frame. We used LISREL8.8 to perform a series of CFAs to verify the distinctiveness of variables and conducted SEM modeling to test hypotheses. To further test the mediation hypotheses, we used bootstrapping procedures that generated a sample size of 5000. RESULTS: We found a negative association between impression management and life satisfaction. In addition, the association was fully mediated by sense of control and loneliness. CONCLUSION: These results reveal that impression management is a negative indicator of life satisfaction because impression management impedes personal sense of control and elevates loneliness.