Quiz: Do you play to an inner or outer audience?

And which way is "better"? The answers might surprise you.

Photography by Issei Suda

Here’s a funny thing about our culture:

We love phrases like “To thine own self be true.” We glorify “authenticity.” We celebrate “the road not taken.”

Yet the people we celebrate in public settings, like actors and student body presidents, are often those who easily tailor their behavior to meet the expectations of audiences. They are what the psychologist Mark Snyder, author of Public Appearances, Private Realities, calls “high self-monitors.” When in Rome, they do as the Romans do.

“Low self-monitors”, in contrast, base their behavior on their own internal compass. They have a smaller repertoire of social behaviors and masks at their disposal. They’re less sensitive to situational cues, and less interested in role-playing, even when they know what the cues are. It’s as if low self-monitors (LSMs) and high self-monitors (HSMs) play to different audiences, Snyder has said: one inner, the other outer.

By now, you’re probably having morally valenced reactions to what you just read. Some part of you instinctively thinks it’s “better” to be one way or the other.

But is it, really?

And are you sure you know which way of being you tend to?