Article Analysis Essay on Social Media Behaviors and Dimensions of Narcissism

Introduction

In the article Grandiosity on display: Social media behaviors and dimensions of Narcissism presents a study carried out by Santokh Singh, Sally D. Farley and John J. Donahue on the relationship between narcissism and social media (Singh, Farley & Donahue, 2019). It examines the behavior exhibited by social media users such as taking selfies and posting them, tagging, commenting and liking them. it also examines specific variables regarding individual social media platforms.

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The authors introduce the article by discussing the origin of the "selfie", which they describe as a self-portrait that an individual take on a smartphone, of oneself. According to their research, the popularity of selfies in the United States is immense, such that over half of the American population of millennials are estimated to have shared these selfies. However, some societies have condemned the taking of selfies, which is stated as a narcissistic act. The authors then go on to define narcissism and suggest that it is heterogeneous, with a multidimensional nature. The research also showed that a lot of narcissists are drawn by Social networking sites for self-promotion. The authors then discuss the manifestation of narcissism in social networking sites in various form. The authors then outline the aims of the study and its hypotheses. The study aimed to provide evidence that selfie posting and social networking sites behavior are related to narcissism (Davenport, Bergman, Bergman & Fearrington, 2014). The authors hypothesized how selfie posting positively correlate with the aspect of global narcissism. It also hypothesized that narcissism was highly associated with different motivation to use SNS so as others can show admiration and interest and this association would have a strong influence in keeping others up to date. To examine the hypothesis the article tested whether there was any significance indirect effect to the narcissism on the frequency of selfie posting based on the self-interest motivations.

To test the hypothesis the study employed different method as an aim to attain its conclusion. The study included participants how were recruited via the psychology research tool at an urban university. The method used to select participants was the snowball sampling method on social media. The study also employed the use of online surveys using Qualtrics. The study consisted of 127 participants aged between 18-73 but 3 of the respondents were eliminated because they omitted over 20% of the research items. The sampling included a total of 93 men and 31 women. after the method, different measurements were used in the study as all the participants completed the narcissism. The study used a 13-item measure of trait and each item comprised of various statements which the respondents had to choose the various statement that best describes them. All the narcissism responses scored one and the non-narcissism scored zero (Andreassen, Pallesen & Griffiths, 2015). There was questioner employment as the participants were asked numerous questions from the prior research to assess various ways in which the participant assess the social media. To measure the platform-specific behaviors the study assessed various activities on Facebook and most participants frequently of Facebook status update per day. According to the measure, all the participants who had over 500 Facebook followers updated their status more frequently (Singh, Farley & Donahue, 2019). In assessing twitter narcissism activity, the participants reported a numerous frequency of twitting on a scale of 6-point scale range from rare. For the Instagram, the study assessed using two questions and on the frequency of posting the hashtags and it was found that there was a strong inter-correlation between the Instagram questions and the acceptable internal consistency (Alloway, Runac, Qureshi & Kemp, 2015). In the measure of the motivation of the SNS use the participants responded if they agree or disagree to the two items which were designed to make an assessment on whether or not all the participants used the SNS in self-aggrandizing ways. The measure items captured self-interest motivation and the participants also used the same response scale for the third question.

The result of the study was presented in various tables. From the study, the result showed that 98.4% of all the participants interacted with at least one of the SNS. With the majority of over 58.1% being involved in more than one SNS. The result also showed that all the participants average time was 14.78 hour in a week on SNS. Result also showed that Facebook users were reported to use a private profile rather than the public. The result of narcissism and SNS behavior and the total correlated significantly with selfie posting and the sending frequency with the relationship being strongest for the NPI-GE. The result also showed that the NPI-total had a positive correlation with self-attractiveness (Choi, Panek, Nardis & Toma, 2015). The result for the narcissism and the motivation for the SNS use from the study shown that the NPI-total was just moderately correlated with the self-interest motivation. The study also found on the indirect effects of the traits of narcissism on the selfie posting via self -interest motivation (Singh, Farley & Donahue, 2019). The result supported the hypothesis that the NPI-EE and NPI-GE are associated relatively of the selfie frequency based on the self-interest motive.

From the study, it was found that there is a strong correlation between selfie posting and narcissism. The study provides support to the aspect of association between selfies posting and the sending frequency to narcissism and other SNS behaviors (McCain & Campbell, 2018). From the result of the study, it sheds further insights into the mechanisms which relate selfie posting and narcissism. The study proves that narcissism is associated with other people motive to show admiration and interest. The study also reveals that global narcissism is mainly associated with the aspect of selfie posting and the sending frequency.

References

Alloway, T., Runac, R., Qureshi, M., & Kemp, G. (2014). Is Facebook linked to selfishness? Investigating the relationships among social media use, empathy, and narcissism. Social Networking, 3(03), 150. https://file.scirp.org/pdf/SN_2014042316520277.pdf

Andreassen, C. S., Pallesen, S., & Griffiths, M. D. (2017). The relationship between addictive use of social media, narcissism, and self-esteem: Findings from a large national survey. Addictive behaviors, 64, 287-293. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030646031630109

Choi, M., Panek, E. T., Nardis, Y., & Toma, C. L. (2015). When social media isn't social: Friends' responsiveness to narcissists on Facebook. Personality and Individual Differences, 77, 209-214. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886914007843

Davenport, S. W., Bergman, S. M., Bergman, J. Z., & Fearrington, M. E. (2014). Twitter versus Facebook: Exploring the role of narcissism in the motives and usage of different social media platforms. Computers in Human Behavior, 32, 212-220. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563213004536

McCain, J. L., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Narcissism and social media use A meta-analytic review. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7(3), 308. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-54178-001

Singh, S., Farley, S., & Donahue, J. (2019). Grandiosity on display: Social media behaviors and dimensions of narcissism. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326129019_Grandiosity_on_display_Social_media_behaviors_and_dimensions_of_narcissism