Sung, Lee, Kim, Choi
“Why we post selfies: Understanding the motivations for posting pictures of oneself”
Narcissism Motives
- inflated self-views of physical appearance, popularity and status
- self-regulatory strategies like: bragging, displaying material goods, interacting with high-status individuals
- focused on acquiring self-esteem, less interested in communal qualities (warmth, caring…)
- seek attention and approval to maintain self-esteem
- stronger among men than women
= IDEAL PLACE: social networks
Sung, Lee, Kim, Choi
“Why we post selfies: Understanding the motivations for posting pictures of oneself”
Aim of the Study
1) identify social & psychological motives of selfie-posting behavior
2) examine relationship between selfie posting motives and level of narcissism
Sung, Lee, Kim, Choi
“Why we post selfies: Understanding the motivations for posting pictures of oneself”
Method
- online survey by major research firm in Korea
- 94 male, 221 female
1) Motivations
- interview: provide all your motivations
2) Narcissism
- assessed by personality measurement
3) Selfie-posting frequency
4) Selfie-posting intention
Sung, Lee, Kim, Choi
“Why we post selfies: Understanding the motivations for posting pictures of oneself”
Results
1) Motivations
- attention seeking, communication, archiving, entertainment
2) Relationship: Narcissism, Selfie-posting frequency & Selfie-posting intention
- only narcissism was found to be significant predictor for posting frequency
- all motivations predictors of intention, except “entertainment”
- strongest intention (overall): communication motivation
- none motivation predicted frequency
Sung, Lee, Kim, Choi
“Why we post selfies: Understanding the motivations for posting pictures of oneself”
Discussion
- attention motivations
- SNs serve as self-concept validation & affirmation through approval
- -> displaying desirable self-image in anonymous setting - communication motivation
- easy to build & maintain relationships within SNs
(directly: comments, indirectly: reactions) - archiving motivation
- record one’s personal life & reflections - entertainment motivation
- for fun & to escape boredom
- -> motivations more predict intention versus actual behavior - self-presentation behavior through SNs indicate high level of narcissism = managing impressions
Mussweiler, Rüter, Epstude
“The man who wasn’t there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation”
Study 1: Aim of Research
Do people compare themselves with a standard who was not consciously perceived because he was presented outside of awareness?
Mussweiler, Rüter, Epstude
“The man who wasn’t there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation”
Study 1: Method
32 students
- consider for 1 minute how aggressive they are
- -> unconsciously primed with either high or low standard of aggressiveness
- evaluate own aggressiveness
- awareness check questions (whether they knew about priming)
Mussweiler, Rüter, Epstude
“The man who wasn’t there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation”
Study 1: Results
- self-evaluations are assimilated towards subliminally presented comparison standards
- even outside of awareness
= social comparison through similarity or dissimilarity testing
Mussweiler, Rüter, Epstude
“The man who wasn’t there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation”
Study 2: Aim of Research, Method & Results
Aim: direction of comparisons
- same method as in 1st study, but about athletic abilities
- outcome: self-evaluations are assimilated towards moderate standards or contrasted away from extreme standards
Mussweiler, Rüter, Epstude
“The man who wasn’t there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation”
Study 3: Aim of Research
Examine whether a subliminally presented social comparison standard only influences self-evaluation if participants are self-reflecting during standard exposure.
- in 1.&2. study: participants were in process of reflecting upon own qualities during the standard exposure
Mussweiler, Rüter, Epstude
“The man who wasn’t there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation”
Study 3: Method
- 47 students
- questions about general concept of aggressiveness
- 1st half: reflect 1 min about own aggress.
- 2nd half: reflect 1 min about general aggress.
- both unconsciously primed with high or low standard of aggress.
- evaluating own aggessiveness
- check questions fro prime awareness
Mussweiler, Rüter, Epstude
“The man who wasn’t there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation”
Study 3: Results
self-evaluations remain uninfluenced if participants are reflected on dimension of aggressiveness during standard exposure
= self-reflection DURING standard exposure is necessary pre-condition for self-evaluation effect of subliminal standard
Mussweiler, Rüter, Epstude
“The man who wasn’t there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation”
General Discussion
- link to lecture (:
- comparing to moderate standard: indicate similarity
- comparing to extreme standard: indicate difference
- even very brief, unaware exposure to standard is used for comparison
= relatively automatic - influencing self-evaluation only if standard can be immediately be related to self
!self-evaluation appears to be one of most frequent mental activities!
