The impressions we make on others have far-reaching effects on how we fare in life, and concerns with conveying a positive image of ourselves hence exert a powerful influence on our social behaviour. Researchers in social psychology has since long noted the presence of two fundamental dimensions, warmth and competence, in how we perceive and judge others. Recent models of social perception suggest that these dimensions often manifest a negative relationship, the so called "compensation effect". Thus, a social target described as high in competence is assumed to be lower in warmth, and a target described as high in warmth is often seen as low in competence. While extant research has focussed on compensation between warmth and competence when we form judgements of others, little is known about people's use of compensation in impression management, that is, in strategies to get others to view them positively. The aim of the current project is to examine the use of the Big Two, warmth and competence, when people cultivate images of themselves. The project focuses specifically on the compensatory relation between warmth and competence in impression management, how individual and situational factors may moderate this relation, and the effectiveness of people s impression management strategies. Finally, we explore whether compensation mechanisms in self-presentation can be used to estimate the accuracy of a memory report.