How Different Narcissistic Traits Influence Facebook Use

How different narcissistic traits influence Facebook use

Crina B. Ciupac

The University of Western Australia

Abstract

The advancement of the Internet over the years has opened many new platforms for communication and socialization. Rapidly increasing popularity of social network platforms, social networking sites (SNS) platforms have captured the interest of many researchers. 446 participants participated in the volunteer study and were required to complete a five-part questionnaire. The results exposed that high grandiose traits have greater positive correlation with posting more than time on Facebook. High vulnerable traits have greater positive correlation with time on Facebook than posts. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, including the expansion of the narcissistic field and improving societies understanding.

How different narcissistic traits influence Facebook use

Within the 21st century social networking sites (SNS) have increased in popularity dramatically. The advancement of Internet over the years has opened many new platforms for communication and socialization. According to eBiz (2016) Facebook is currently ranked the most popular SNS in the world. With the rapid increasing popularity of social network platforms, SNS platforms have captured the interest of many researchers.

A section of the Buffardi and Campbell (2010) study, examines the correlation between Narcissism Personality Inventory-16 (NPI-16) and self-promoting information provided on Facebook. The results present significant positive correlation through the analysis of Facebook profiles, photos and posts (Buffardi & Campbell, 2010).

Within the Mebdizadeh (2010) study, similar results were collected. Using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale to measure self-esteem and NPI for narcissism, undergraduate Facebook usage was analysed. Similarly, it was concluded that high NPI-16 scores was “positively correlated with the number of times Facebook was checked per day, and the time spent on Facebook per session (Mebdizadeh, 2010).”

However, these studies analysed narcissism as a whole and did not look at both vulnerable and grandiose narcissism individually. Hence the main foundation of this study was to examine if posting and time spent on Facebook associated with both grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism.

In the study performed it was aimed to investigate whether individuals who are high in trait narcissism (grandiose and vulnerable) tend to post more on Facebook in general and spend more time on Facebook than individuals low in trait narcissism.

It was hypothesis that grandiose narcissism will be positively related to the number of general posts and time spent on Facebook, also that vulnerable narcissism will be positively related to the number of general posts and time spent on Facebook.

Method