Are You Good at Self-Monitoring?

What is self-monitoring? How to utilize this soft skill? How to improve self-monitoring? Before we go deep to the content, let’s think about those questions and ask yourself again.

Step by Step

The Wikipedia introduces the concept of self-monitoring was first proposed by Mark Snyder in 1970s; it shows an ability that people regulate their behaviors and expressions during various the social situations based on the personality traits. Depending on different environments, people response with appropriate or public desired behaviors.

Following statements are a way to test if you are good at self-monitoring (From Are you a high self-monitor? Oct 6th,2009 douban.com). Read though each statement below, score yourself from 0–5.

0 = Not at all; 1 = Most do not meet; 2 = Some do not meet; 3 = Some do meet; 4 = Most do meet; 5 = All meet

1. Under the certain situations, I can change my behaviors because I should.
2. I can read his/her true feeling from the eyes.
3. I have ability to control the way of communication, depending on what impression I want to give to others.
4. During the conversation, I am very sensitive to the tiny changes in other’s facial expression.
5. My intuition is very strong in understanding the emotions and motivations of others.
6. When people think a joke is very boring, even if they laughed, I can tell it.
7. When I find myself playing an image that does not work well, I can change and adjust it immediately.
8. I am sure I can tell something inconsistent by reading the audience’s eyes.
9. I find difficult to change my behavior to suit different people and circumstances.
10. I found myself is able to adjust my behavior to suit any environment.
11. If someone cheats me, I can immediately notice from his facial expression.
12. Although things may beneficial to me, it’s still hard for me to disguise myself.
13. As long as I know what the environment requires, I could easily adjust my words.

Statement 9 and 12 reverse scoring, which means the “all meet = 0; not at all = 5”. The rest of the statements score normally. Adding up all your scores, if you are higher than 53, you are good at self-monitoring.

What is Difference Between Low Self-monitors and High Self-monitors?

Low self-monitor — express their behaviors most through the internal traits, such as beliefs, attitudes. The self-presentation of both internal and external are similar.

High self-monitor — behavior in a manner that could suit to the situations easily. Depending on different environments, they can give different reactions and behavior response.

My Personal Experience

As you can see above, the skill I am focusing on is self-monitoring. Before the research, I thought self-monitoring is about self-discipline, which through the monitoring of the self to find out the personal weakness and change them. However, after reading through some articles and statements, self-monitoring is about the how could we use behaviors to respond to the different social situations. In the real world, people is a most important element we are going to face daily. How to interact with people and observe others implied expression has become an essential topic everyone focuses on. Meanwhile, knowing how to properly covey the self-presentation could become a useful knowledge for the future career development.

Those questions would be my direction for the future assignment:

• How to become a high self-monitor?
• How to manage the behaviors properly?
• What practices will help me to improve the self-monitoring skill?

In order to improve my self-monitoring skills, I would like to follow these steps to achieve my goal.

1. Watching self-monitoring related TED Talks weekly to observe the behaviors people use during the talks

2. Learn their skills and take the advices they provide

3. Apply the techniques into reality

4. Find people to assess my behavior from the conversation

5. Reflect and improve

For the future perspective, I hope though my project I could not only improve myself personally but also provide the useful and effective tips via my Blog to help more people who has concern about this area. Therefore, one of the measurement I can use to evaluate my progress will be the click volume of my Blog. When more and more audiences are willing to read my articles, that means my direction is correct and I should continue my research.

Reference

Are you a high self-monitor? Oct 6th,2009 https://www.douban.com/note/46597521/