Narcissism and Social Networking Web Sites

Narcissism and Social Networking Web Sites

- The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Abstract

•The present research examined how narcissism is manifested on a social networking Web site

•Coded for both objective and subjective content features,and let strangers viewed and rated their

impression of the web page owner on agentic traits, communal traits, and narcissism.

•Narcissism predicted

(a) higher levels of social activity in the online community

(b) revealed several Web page content features that were influential in raters’ narcissistic

impressions of the owners, including quantity of social interaction, main photo self-promotion,and

main photo attractiveness.

Social website

•Social website offer the following functions：

(a)create an individual Web page

(b) Post self-relevant information (ex:self-descriptions, photos)

(c) link to other members (ex: “friends lists”)

(d) interact with other members

→ Offer a gateway for self-promotion via self-descriptions, vanity via photos,and large numbers of

shallow relationships

→linked to trait narcissism.

Narcissism and Social Behavior

•Narcissism is associated with positive and inflated self-views of agentic traits like intelligence,

power, and physical attractiveness

 (Brown & Zeigler-Hill, 2004; Campbell,Rudich, & Sedikides, 2002; Gabriel, Critelli, & Ee,1994; John & Robins, 1994)

•narcissism is associated with a high degree of extraversion/agency and a low level of

agreeablenessor communion (e.g., Miller & Campbell, 2008;Paulhus & Williams, 2002)

•Narcissistic在人際關係中如何運作

1. Narcissism is associated with being

(a)liked in initial interactions (Oltmanns, Friedman, Fiedler, & Turkheimer,2004; Paulhus, 1998)

(b) perceived as a leader (Brunell,Gentry, Campbell, & Kuhnert, 2006)

(c) perceived as exciting (Foster, Shrira, & Campbell, 2003)

(d) socially confident (Brunell, Campbell, Smith, & Krusemark,2004)

(e) entertaining (Paulhus, 1998)

(f) able to obtain sexual partners

2. narcissism is associated negatively with seeking out or creating long-term relationships

→ 在臨床研究上narcissism會造成身邊人的痛苦

3. narcissism is associated with using relationships as an opportunity or forum for self-

enhancement. For example, narcissists brag and show off (Buss & Chiodo, 1991)

•Narcissism在social website中如何運作：

online communities is a fertile ground for narcissists to self-regulate via social connections for two

reasons：

First → narcissists function well in the context of shallow relationships. Social networking Web sites

are built on the base of superficial “friendships”  and the ability of social website often is to

maintain large numbers of relationships (e.g. many users have hundreds or even thousands of

“friends”).

Second→ social networking Web pages are highly controlled environments (Vazire & Gosling, 2004).

Owners have complete power over self-presentation on Web pages. In particular, one can use

personal Web pages to select attractive photographs or write self-descriptions that are self-

promoting.

They are prevalent on reality television (Young & Pinsky, 2006), and enjoy looking at themselves on

videotape and in the mirror (Robins & John, 1997).

→ Personal Web pages should present a similar opportunity for self-promotion.

Personality Manifestation on Web Pages

•網頁的瀏覽者會因為網站owner的個人特質而投射此特質至此網站的定位

•網站owner的個人特質可經由網頁中的特定內容被偵測到

→ 網站的viewer可利用網頁內容去form onwer的人格特質

The Present Research

•檢驗 the role of narcissism in personal Web pages on social networking sites

本研究會將焦點著重在社群網站是因為：

1. 社群網站不只是訊息傳播更能夠self-presentation and interaction

2. 社群網站深受使用者歡迎並持續成長中

The Present Research

•研究對象：facebook

•Why：

1.Facebook is the most commonly used site by individuals in our sample—college students

2. Facebook is the most structured social network Website

The four steps of investigation

1. Examined the link between narcissism and social activity in a Web community.

2. Inspected the associations between narcissism and the content of social networking Web pages.

→ narcissism should be associated with：

(a)a greater amount of social activity (Hypothesis 1)

(b) self-promotion in text and pictures (Hypothesis 2).

•Tested whether individuals viewing a social networking page could detect the owner’s

expression of agentic/ communal traits and level of narcissism

→ narcissism would be perceived by Web page observers, as would the general agentic qualities

associated with narcissism (Hypothesis 3).

→ narcissistic Web page content would relate positively to observers’ narcissistic impressions

(Hypothesis 4).

4. examined which social networking page content was the most influential in forming

impressions of narcissism (i.e.mediational analyses, Hypothesis 5).

METHOD

•Personality data and Facebook page collection.

•Personality data and Facebook page collection.

•Objective Facebook page coding

•Subjective Facebook page coding by research assistant (RA) raters.

•Facebook page impression ratings.

Conclusion

•在現在的社群網站中，interaction and self-promotion 是一個常態現象，維護在網路上

的存在和與其他大量使用者間的聯繫已變成許多使用者每天生活的一部分。本研究的目標

為研究narcissism 如何在網站中展現並從實驗結果得知 narcissists act, portray themselves,

and are perceived on social networking sites 和現實中的offline生活行為相像。本研究希望

經由這些初步的調查結果推動未來社群網路上以及其他網際項目的narcissism評估