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
