To Share or Not to Share? Managing Personal Identity in Professional Biographies

Abstract: Professional biographies are ubiquitous and consequential in professional spheres, often forming one’s first impressions on fellow professionals and potential employers. This research examines how disclosing different kinds of information about oneself in a professional biography affects impressions and outcomes. Specifically, we differentiate between details relevant to one’s professional identity (e.g., work experience, skills, professional accomplishments) and those related to one’s personal (nonwork) identity (e.g., social identity, hobbies, personal values), and look at their impressional consequences in professional bios. Across a series of naturalistic and experimental studies, we find that incorporating aspects of one’s personal identity with their professional one in professional biographies, a practice seldom utilized by professionals, can lead to more favorable impressions on others, particularly by enhancing warmth perceptions without damaging competence evaluations.

Keywords: impression management, disclosures, identity, experiments