what does this word mean? Functions of a person’s image, the use of algorithms for reputation management

Each of us at least once faced with such a con­cept as image. Some­one gives this phe­nom­e­non due impor­tance, but for anoth­er per­son it may not mat­ter at all. Peo­ple begin to think about the image at the moment when, for one rea­son or anoth­er, they become indif­fer­ent to the opin­ions of oth­ers.

In Eng­lish and French, the word “image” is lit­er­al­ly trans­lat­ed as “image” and means arti­fi­cial­ly formed impres­sion of a sub­ject or object so that the sur­round­ing peo­ple have a cer­tain psy­cho­log­i­cal per­cep­tion of it. An image, as a whole image, can be not only for a per­son, this con­cept is applic­a­ble to an orga­ni­za­tion, brand, coun­try, nation, event, and so on. Today, the con­cepts of image, author­i­ty and rep­u­ta­tion have become syn­ony­mous. An impor­tant point is that the exter­nal image and rep­u­ta­tion are always the work of the per­son him­self or a group of peo­ple inter­est­ed in this process.

The exter­nal image, from the point of view of psy­chol­o­gy, is always very infor­ma­tive and open­ly tells about a set of cer­tain fea­tures that are inher­ent in the object or con­struct­ed by the con­scious work of the cre­ators. The image is depen­dent on many exter­nal and inter­nal fac­tors that are not sta­t­ic and can change their val­ues.

The main com­po­nents that make up the image of a per­son are 6 com­po­nents.

Most peo­ple eval­u­ate a per­son and any oth­er objects on the first impres­sion.

Sur­round­ing peo­ple pay atten­tion to such ele­ments:

• hygiene and clean­li­ness;
• appear­ance of cloth­ing;
• pos­ture and man­ner of move­ment;
• tim­bre and vol­ume of the voice;
• eye con­tact;
• hand­shake ener­gy.

This implies the gen­er­al eru­di­tion of a per­son in mat­ters that are of inter­est to peo­ple dur­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion. In each social envi­ron­ment, these inter­ests are dif­fer­ent. By demon­strat­ing the breadth of knowl­edge, a per­son cre­ates a pleas­ant impres­sion of him­self and forms a sense of com­mu­ni­ty with the inter­locu­tor. In such an envi­ron­ment, peo­ple tend to sym­pa­thize with each oth­er and trust. An edu­cat­ed per­son has author­i­ty among peo­ple, and he has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to influ­ence their opin­ion.

It implies that a per­son has in-depth knowl­edge and skills in a par­tic­u­lar area. A high lev­el of knowl­edge always has a pos­i­tive effect on the image Peo­ple tend to trust a spe­cial­ist, they respect him. True aware­ness comes with expe­ri­ence, and such peo­ple always arouse gen­uine inter­est, as they are seen as a source of use­ful and reli­able infor­ma­tion.

To cre­ate and main­tain con­tacts with peo­ple, the human psy­che must have a cer­tain flex­i­bil­i­ty. The abil­i­ty to find the right pace of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the man­i­fes­ta­tion of inter­est in a person’s per­son­al­i­ty, the abil­i­ty to con­duct a con­ver­sa­tion at an acces­si­ble lev­el for the inter­locu­tor — all this deter­mines our flex­i­bil­i­ty. The same approach to all peo­ple will not bring the prop­er result, since each per­son has his own ideas about the man­ner of com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

The man­i­fes­ta­tion of inter­est and enthu­si­asm nev­er goes unno­ticed, whether it is for work or inter­per­son­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion. To inter­est oth­er peo­ple in your per­sona, a per­son must have a spir­it of pro­nounced involve­ment in any process. Any audi­ence con­sist­ing of one per­son or group of peo­ple, when you show a high lev­el of enthu­si­asm, very quick­ly becomes infect­ed with it, expe­ri­enc­ing gen­uine excite­ment.

A per­son who forms his image must real­ly pos­sess those prop­er­ties that he trans­mits to the out­side world. “To be, not to seem” is the mot­to of sin­cer­i­tythat peo­ple val­ue and respect.

The first impres­sion of appear­ance, the lev­el of knowl­edge and eru­di­tion, flex­i­bil­i­ty and enthu­si­asm — all this must be main­tained on an ongo­ing basis and at a high lev­el. The cre­at­ed image is a tool for posi­tion­ing one­self in soci­ety and con­tributes to the estab­lish­ment of strong social rela­tion­ships.

There are quite a few gra­da­tions of image types, but all of them can be divid­ed into two main areas — ver­bal and visu­al.

• Ver­bal image — this is the impres­sion of a per­son, formed on the basis of his oral or writ­ten speech. Any words that a per­son pro­nounces or writes reflect his men­tal lev­el of devel­op­ment. The bet­ter a per­son knows the art of clear­ly and clear­ly express­ing his thoughts, the high­er his image in the eyes of the peo­ple around him.
• visu­al image is a set of cer­tain ges­tures, facial expres­sions, pos­ture, gait, head tilt and oth­er kines­thet­ic signs that char­ac­ter­ize a per­son. Even the small­est detail mat­ters, for exam­ple, with what facial expres­sion a per­son com­mu­ni­cates, at what dis­tance he is to the inter­locu­tor, how he estab­lish­es eye con­tact. In soci­ety, there are norms and rules of behav­ior, the knowl­edge and obser­vance of which has an impact on the per­cep­tion of the indi­vid­ual by oth­er peo­ple.

Con­sid­er­ing the vari­a­tions of the image, they can also be divid­ed into objec­tive and sub­jec­tive types.

Each per­son can con­scious­ly or spon­ta­neous­ly form one or anoth­er impres­sion of the peo­ple around him. A per­son will be judged by the total­i­ty of his per­son­al qual­i­ties that he shows in every­day life.

But if the same per­son per­forms the func­tions of a man­ag­er, librar­i­an or leader of a par­ty orga­ni­za­tion, the image of his per­son­al­i­ty in con­nec­tion with this social role may look com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent, adjust­ing to the gen­er­al­ly accept­ed canons of social behav­ior and norms. Such a trans­for­ma­tion allows a per­son to achieve cer­tain pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess and form his image in this direc­tion.

Any orga­ni­za­tion, whether it is a com­mer­cial or polit­i­cal rea­son for bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er, tries to find its own indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and com­pare favor­ably with its own kind. A pos­i­tive per­cep­tion of the orga­ni­za­tion in the eyes of soci­ety favor­ably affects its devel­op­ment, income and pro­mo­tion of ideas.

Usu­al­ly, the formed image is broad­cast through the media, adver­tis­ing, char­i­ty. Spe­cial­ly trained peo­ple work on cre­at­ing the image of an orga­ni­za­tion or politi­cian and focus peo­ple’s atten­tion on one or anoth­er strong qual­i­ty, mak­ing it a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage in the eyes of the pub­lic.

Many devel­oped coun­tries are cur­rent­ly active­ly and pur­pose­ful­ly work­ing to cre­ate and strength­en a pos­i­tive image of their his­tor­i­cal her­itage, cul­tur­al tra­di­tions, the inter­nal struc­ture of the state, and eth­nic self-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. The ter­ri­to­r­i­al image includes many aspects that depend on dif­fer­ent peo­ple unit­ed by one goal — cre­at­ing a favor­able impres­sion of a nation, coun­try or a sin­gle spe­cif­ic ter­ri­to­ry.

Many items today have brand or trade­mark affil­i­a­tion, whose own­ers invest time, effort and mon­ey in main­tain­ing a pos­i­tive impres­sion and recog­ni­tion of their prod­ucts. This is done to dif­fer­en­ti­ate from com­peti­tors, as well as to win cus­tomer loy­al­ty. Rec­og­niz­able brands and brands inspire con­fi­dence in peo­ple, which means they bring prof­it to their own­ers.

Every per­son, whether he likes it or not, has a cer­tain image in the eyes of oth­er peo­ple.

There are cri­te­ria by which we per­ceive anoth­er per­son.

• Appear­ance rat­ing — this is the clean­li­ness and tidi­ness of clothes, the accu­ra­cy of hair and make­up, the abil­i­ty to choose and wear things that are appro­pri­ate for age, sta­tus and fig­ure.
• Health sta­tus — they note whether a per­son is alert or depressed, whether he is phys­i­cal­ly full or his capa­bil­i­ties are lim­it­ed.
• Com­mon Stan­dards — Com­pli­ance with the norms of behav­ior, edu­ca­tion, cul­tur­al devel­op­ment is assessed. Does a per­son have the right facial fea­tures, the struc­ture of the fig­ure, how does he stand out against the gen­er­al back­ground of the same peo­ple.
• Behav­ior - ver­bal and non-ver­bal ways of com­mu­ni­ca­tion of a per­son with oth­er peo­ple, posi­tion­ing in soci­ety, the abil­i­ty to com­ply with gen­er­al­ly accept­ed norms are tak­en into account.
• social back­ground — nation­al­i­ty, race, where a per­son was born and raised, who his par­ents were, in what social envi­ron­ment he lives.
• Edu­ca­tion — is deter­mined by what kind of edu­ca­tion a per­son received, in what pro­fes­sion­al field he took place, what lev­el of income he has, what kind of peo­ple sur­round him.
• per­son­al rep­u­ta­tion — how much a per­son is respect­ed in soci­ety, what opin­ion peo­ple have about him and why.
• Psy­cho­log­i­cal fea­tures — what moral posi­tion a per­son takes, what he is guid­ed by in life, what moral and eth­i­cal qual­i­ties he pos­sess­es and how this is jus­ti­fied.

Each per­son may have his own goal of cre­at­ing an image — some­one wants to achieve uni­ver­sal love, some­one is inter­est­ed in con­quer­ing the heights of busi­ness, and some­one may have decid­ed to become a world famous per­son. Work­ing on the cre­ation of an exter­nal image, peo­ple strive to con­vey their unique­ness to the con­scious­ness of oth­ers.

The exter­nal image func­tion­al­i­ty is grouped as fol­lows.

• recog­ni­tion - the image allows peo­ple around you to iden­ti­fy you in a short time. Its main goal is hid­den in the depths of the sub­con­scious — it is impor­tant for a per­son to quick­ly under­stand whether the per­son in front of him is dan­ger­ous or not. Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion assigns a per­son to a cer­tain social group, belong­ing to which a per­son broad­casts with the help of an image.
• Ide­al­iza­tion - it shows the desire of a per­son to become what he would like. Whether he man­ages to solve this prob­lem or not — the image will show.
• Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty - is based on the fact that each per­son­al­i­ty has its own char­ac­ter­is­tics, allow­ing it to oppose itself to the bulk of oth­er peo­ple.

To cre­ate a pos­i­tive image, not only mod­ern and suc­cess­ful media peo­ple resort to the ser­vices of image mak­ers, but also ordi­nary peo­ple. Cre­at­ing an image togeth­er with a spe­cial­ist allows you to choose a pos­i­tive exter­nal image based on the char­ac­ter­is­tics of a person’s char­ac­ter and the goals that he sets for him­self.

Image for­ma­tion algo­rithm.

1. We for­mu­late the goal. Any image is a mes­sage to the out­side world, and it is formed accord­ing to the pri­or­i­ties that a per­son sets in life. Among the many goals, it is impor­tant to choose the most impor­tant one and for­mu­late it clear­ly. For exam­ple, “I am a suc­cess­ful man”, “I am a beau­ti­ful woman”, “We are a reli­able com­pa­ny” and the like.
2. Tar­get Audi­ence Selec­tion. This step deter­mines who your exter­nal mes­sage is aimed at, who needs to see that you are a suc­cess­ful man, a beau­ti­ful woman, or a reli­able com­pa­ny. For exam­ple, the image of a suc­cess­ful man may be direct­ed to col­leagues in the bank­ing busi­ness, the image of a beau­ti­ful woman should attract the atten­tion of men in their 30s and 40s, and the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the com­pa­ny should be of inter­est to buy­ers of motor boats. By choos­ing an audi­ence, you can pre­dict its expec­ta­tions and needs.
3. Para­me­ter List. Accord­ing to the expec­ta­tions of the tar­get audi­ence, a list of qual­i­ties and prop­er­ties that should be inher­ent in a per­son with a cho­sen image is formed. For exam­ple, a “con­fi­dent man” con­veys reli­a­bil­i­ty, will, deter­mi­na­tion, and the image of a “beau­ti­ful woman” is empha­sized by appear­ance, charis­ma, and good man­ners.
4. Com­par­ing desired and actu­al. At this stage, a list of per­son­al­i­ty traits that pos­i­tive­ly affect the image is com­piled. Among them, choose those that should be strength­ened and empha­sized. Next, they find those prop­er­ties of a per­son that will be destruc­tive to his image — they will need to get rid of. And the final stage will be the def­i­n­i­tion of qual­i­ties that a per­son does not have, but they should be devel­oped, since they will be nec­es­sary in his new appear­ance.
5. Pre­sen­ta­tion meth­ods. Appear­ance, cloth­ing style, actions, vol­ume and tim­bre of speech, ges­tures, pos­tures, facial expres­sions, top­ics for con­ver­sa­tions and the man­ner of pre­sent­ing infor­ma­tion — all this is com­bined with the cho­sen image and they think over how to broad­cast this whole set to oth­ers.
6. Liv­ing in a new image. When the out­lines of a new image have been cre­at­ed, one must get used to it and trans­late it into real­i­ty. To accept a new self, you will have to work hard — only dai­ly prac­tice and self-con­trol will help you achieve the desired results.

Work on the for­ma­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of a new image is a dif­fi­cult task. But thanks to a pos­i­tive per­cep­tion, peo­ple will see a per­son with whom com­mu­ni­ca­tion is a plea­sure, which means that it opens many doors for you that were pre­vi­ous­ly closed.

The cre­at­ed image is a vari­able val­ue and in order to ensure its main­te­nance at the prop­er lev­el, it is nec­es­sary to make cer­tain efforts.

Image man­age­ment meth­ods involve the fol­low­ing actions:

• infor­ma­tion stuff­ing is the dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion of a per­son­al or pro­fes­sion­al nature, aimed at improv­ing a pos­i­tive exter­nal image;
• cul­ti­vat­ing pos­i­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics — car­ried out by cre­at­ing sit­u­a­tions where you can show pos­i­tive qual­i­ties in a favor­able light;
• detach­ment from neg­a­tive sit­u­a­tions — in order to main­tain the image, com­pro­mis­ing events, peo­ple, infor­mal groups, and the like should be avoid­ed;
• cre­at­ing a favor­able impres­sion — is to show atten­tion and respect for peo­ple, express grat­i­tude, con­grat­u­la­tions on hol­i­days;
• adher­ence to gen­er­al­ly accept­ed val­ues ​​— implies pub­lic approval and sup­port of those aspects and phe­nom­e­na of pub­lic life that are valu­able and sig­nif­i­cant for most peo­ple.

The final stage of image build­ing is an unbi­ased assess­ment of the results that have been achieved.

The cri­te­ria for eval­u­at­ing the cre­at­ed exter­nal image will be the fol­low­ing points.

• Feel­ing a per­son in his new image. A suc­cess­ful­ly cre­at­ed image is that set of acquired qual­i­ties in the light of which a per­son can feel com­plete­ly sat­is­fied from his own aware­ness of his mas­culin­i­ty, beau­ty or reli­a­bil­i­ty — depend­ing on the goal for which the image was formed.
• Eval­u­a­tion of peo­ple around. If the work on the for­ma­tion of a new exter­nal image was car­ried out suc­cess­ful­ly, this will not go unno­ticed. The result will be esti­mates of the near and far social cir­cle of a per­son. Esti­mates can be any­thing — from admi­ra­tion to envy and depre­ci­a­tion. Most often, it is envy that indi­cates that the work on the image was a suc­cess.
• Appear­ance of prac­ti­cal results. Cre­at­ing an image is con­sid­ered suc­cess­ful if, as a result of this work, it was pos­si­ble to achieve the intend­ed goals. For exam­ple, a man became the head of a large bank, a woman suc­cess­ful­ly mar­ried, the com­pa­ny won the recog­ni­tion of cus­tomers and increased sales.

The pur­pose of cre­at­ing any image is its activ­i­ty, which affects the emo­tions, con­scious­ness and actions of one per­son or group of peo­ple. The formed impres­sion about the sub­ject or object is the basis for trust or dis­trust to him, which, in turn, makes it eas­i­er or more dif­fi­cult for the image car­ri­er to influ­ence oth­er peo­ple.