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The persona is the medium through which we present ourselves to
the public. It includes our personality, social roles such as parent or
businessperson, our image, our mannerisms, and our style of speech and clothing.
It is the bridge from our inner self to the outer world. It translates our
individual expression into a format that is compatible with the social milieu
considering such matters as etiquette, cultural rituals, tradition, and general
protocol.
We have more than one mask. The term persona refers to the collection of
masks that we wear. We have a different mask and play a different role for each
situation of our life. We do not portray ourselves in the same manner at work as
we do with our spouse, or with our children, or at a baseball game or a club
meeting or a church.
The benefits of a well developed persona.
 | We can control the expression of ourselves to the public. We can present
the particular features that are most likely to be effective. .At a cocktail
party, we can display the behaviors that are expected and rewarded. We have
social grace. |
| It facilitates people's interaction with us. Our persona has explicit
features, and people can respond to our distinct viewpoints and our general
unique character. Compare that type of individual to those who have no
personality and are therefore dull and vague. The word, persona, is the Latin
term for mask. Persona refers to the literal masks that were worn in Roman and
Greek drama not only to obscure the actors' true identities but also to define
and intensify the role that they were playing. |
| It protects us. The persona is our assortment of masks, behind which we
can hide and guard our secret thoughts and feelings, our psychological
potential, and the parts of our psyche that do not conform to our subculture's
expectations. Our persona is essential in society and in the workplace.
Sometimes we need to put on a happy face regardless of how we feel, and we must
behave in a particular manner despite our preferences to the contrary. The
persona is a compromise between who we really are and who we want the world to
think we are. Sometimes this is a big compromise, as when we must be polite to a
rude person because of position or circumstance. Sometimes it is a smaller
compromise as when we are with friends who generally know us well and accept us
as we are. |
| It affirms our identity in a group. When we decide to present
particular features in our persona, we assure the other members that we are
one of the group. A businessperson affirms his or her identity among other
business people through the selection of attire such as a business suit or
vocabulary in the jargon of that business. |
| It does not impose on our real identity. We can use the persona as a
means of expression while knowing that it is only a role. If we mistakenly
believe that the persona is our real self, we can experience the following
conditions: |
| We live vicariously through this role, as if it were another person,
taking in whatever rewards society gives us for our performance, but
depriving ourselves of the nourishment and satisfaction that would come from
within, from genuine self expression. We are likely to feel bored, stifled,
uncreative, and unfulfilled. A dishonest persona taints our selection of
friends, vocation, forms of recreation, and other dimensions of our life.
Our social position may require us to attend an auction at the country club,
but deep down inside, we'd rather go bowling. |
| People may judge us to be shallow, cold, robot like, stereotyped, and
phony. We are merely acting out a role, and therefore rarely
communicating our true thoughts and feelings. We therefore cannot provide
the warmth and intimacy that are necessary for friendships and
relationships. Our careers, too, are crippled because we seem insincere and
untrustworthy. Even a mask that is finely attuned to both our feelings and
society has a degree of artificiality because it is still only a mask. |
| We may lose contact with the other parts of ourselves because we are
focusing only on the superficial level of the persona. We ignore input from
our intuition, our feelings, and the other elements that would contribute to
our well-being and vitality. |
| We stifle our potential. We create our persona and ego by putting the
unwanted traits into the background. As we assemble the parts of the
persona, we select certain features and therefore reject others. We cannot
be all things. We generally present ourselves as either hard working or
lazy, shy or outgoing, kind or cruel. We can act shy in certain situations
and outgoing in others, as we adopt a different persona to use in each
circumstance, but we do tend to favor one position or the other in our
overall self concept and behavioral habits. If we act shy, then our
capacity for being outgoing is stifled. An overbearing persona represses the
potential material more deeply. |
| We may not be successful in developing an adequate repertoire of masks.
If
we think of ourselves as a salesperson, rather than knowing that is only one
of our roles, we tend to be a salesperson in inappropriate situations,
perhaps aggressively selling our ideas during casual conversation. |
| Our psychological stability becomes vulnerable. When we overly
identify with the persona, we suffer the harsh ups and downs of that
persona's successes and failures. The student persona may fail a test, or
the socialite persona may accidentally commit a social error. We can,
instead, identify ourselves with our true self, which observes life's events
with a certain detachment, as though it is watching a Broadway actor
depicting his or her character's actions on stage. |
Next Topic: Midlife
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