Self-perception, Personality, and Observed Activity on Snapchat
Keywords:
Snapchat, narcissism, FOMOAbstract
This study investigated the frequency of Snapchat activity (i.e., posting stories, change in user score) and the content of Snapchat stories in relation to self-perception (i.e., narcissism, self-esteem, fear of missing out (FoMO), loneliness). Participants were 138 undergraduates (19 males, 119 females) with active Snapchat accounts. FoMO and some aspects of narcissism were related to certain indices of Snapchat activity (i.e., posting stories, using captions, including videos in stories), but these relations were relatively weak in magnitude. This study indicates that for more immediate, short-term social media formats, relatively stable personality or self-perception constructs may be of limited relevance. To the extent that narcissism and FoMO are relevant for Snapchat use, they may reflect self-enhancement or connectedness motives, respectively.References
Alhabash, S., & Ma, M. (2017). A tale of four platforms: Motivations and uses of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat among college students? Social Media + Society.
Barry, C. T., Doucette, H., Loflin, D. C., Rivera-Hudson, N. J., & Herrington, L. L. (2017). ‘Let me take a selfie:’ Associations between self-photography, narcissism, and self-esteem. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 6, 48-60.
Barry, C. T. Reiter, S. R., Anderson, A. C., Schoessler, M. L., &
Sidoti, C. L. (in press). ‘Let me take another selfie’: Further examination of the relation between narcissism, self-perception, and Instagram posts. Psychology of Popular Media Culture.
Barry, C. T., Sidoti, C. L., Briggs, S. M., Reiter, S. R., & Lindsey, R. A. (2017). Adolescent social media use and mental health from adolescent and parent perspectives. Journal of Adolescence, 61, 1-11.
Blackwell, D., Leaman, C., Tramposch, R., Osborne, C., & Liss, M. (2017). Extraversion, neuroticism, attachment style, and fear of missing out as predictors of social media use and addiction. Personality and Individual Differences, 116, 69-72.
Bradley S. W., Roberts, J. A., & Bradley, P. W. (2017). Experimental evidence of observed social media status cues on perceived likability. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 1-16.
Buffardi, L. E., & Campbell, W. K. (2008). Narcissism and social networking web sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1303-1314.
Bushman, B. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 219-229.
Forest, A. L., & Wood, J. V. (2012). When social networking is not working: Individuals with low self-esteem recognize but do not reap the benefits of self-disclosure on Facebook. Psychological Science, 23, 295-302.
Halpern, D., Valenzuela, S., & Katz, J. E. (2016). “Selfie-ists” or “Narci-selfiers”?: A cross-lagged panel analysis of selfie-taking and narcissism. Personality and Individual Differences, 97, 98-101.
Hoyle, R. H., Stephenson, M. T., Palmgreen, P., Lorch, E. P., & Donohew, R. L. (2002). Reliability and validity of a brief measure of sensation seeking. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 401-414.
Hughes, D. J., Rowe, M., Batey, M., & Lee, A. (2012). A tale of two sites: Twitter vs. Facebook and the personality predictors of social media usage. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 561-569.
Kapidzic, S. (2013). Narcissism as a predictor of motivations behind Facebook profile picture selection. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 16, 14-19.
Kauten, R. L., Lui, J. L., Stary, A. K., & Barry, C. T. (2015). ‘Purging my friends list. Good luck making the cut: Perceptions of narcissism on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 244-254.
Koutamanis, M., Vossen, H. G. M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2015). Adolescents’ comments in social media: Why do adolescents receive negative feedback and who is most at risk? Computers in Human Behavior, 53, 486-494.
Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., & Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PLoS ONE, 8, e69841. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069841.
Langstedt, E., & Hunt, D. S. (2017). An exploration into the brand personality traits of social media sites. The Journal of Social Media in Society, 6, 315-342.
McAndrew, F. T., & Jeong, H. S. (2012). Who does what on Facebook? Age, sex, and relationship status as predictors of Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 2359–2365.
McCain, J. L., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Narcissism and social media use: A meta-analytic review. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7, 308-327.
Miller, J. D., Lynam, D. R., Hyatt, C. S., & Campbell, W. K. (2017). Controversies in narcissism. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 13, 291-315.
Nadkarni, A., & Hofmann, S. G. (2012). Why do people use Facebook? Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 243-249.
Oberst, U., Wegmann, E., Stodt, B., Brand, & Chamarro, A. (2017). Negative consequences from heaving social networking in adolescents: The mediating role of fear of missing out. Journal of Adolescence, 55, 51-60.
Ozimek, P., Bierhoff, H. W., & Hanke, S. (2018). Do vulnerable narcissists profit more from Facebook use than grandiose narcissists? An examination of narcissistic Facebook use in the light of self-regulation and social comparison theory. Personality and Individual Differences, 124, 168-177.
Panek, E. T., Nardis, Y., & Konrath, S. (2013). Mirror or Megaphone?: How relationships between narcissim and social networking site use differ on Facebook and Twitter. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 2004–2012.
Patton, J. H., Stanford, M. S., & Barratt, E. S. (1995). Factor structure of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 51, 768-774.
Pincus, A. L., Ansell, E. B., Pimentel, C. A., Cain, N. M., Wright, A. G. C., & Levy, K. N. (2009). Initial construction and validation of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory. Psychological Assessment, 21, 365-379.
Pittman, M., & Reich, B. (2016). Social media and loneliness: Why an Instagram picture may be worth more than a thousand Twitter words. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 155-167.
Piwek, L., & Joinson, A. (2016). ‘What do they snapchat about?’ Patterns of use in time-limited instant messaging service. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 358-367.
Punyanunt-Carter, N. M., De La Cruz, J. J., & Wrench, J. S. (2017). Investigating the relationships among college students’ satisfaction, addiction, needs, communication apprehension, motives, and uses & gratifications with Snapchat. Computers in Human Behavior, 75, 870-875.
Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K. DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 1841-1848.
Raskin, R., & Terry, H. (1988). A principal-components analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and further evidence of its construct validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 890-902.
Roche, M. J., Pincus, A. L., Lukowitsky, M. R., Menard, K. S., & Conroy, D. E. (2013). An integrative aproach to the assessment of narcissism. Journal of Personality Assessment, 95, 237-248.
Roesner, F., Gill, B., & Kohno, T. (2014). Sex, lies, or kittens? Investigating the use of snapchats self-destructing messages. In N. Christin, & R. Safavi-Naini (Eds.), Financial Cryptography and Data Security (pp. 64-76). Berlin: Springer.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Russell, D. (1996). UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3): Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66, 20-40.
Scott, H., & Woods, H. C. (2018). Fear of missing out and sleep: Cognitive behavioural factors in adolescents’ nighttime social media use. Journal of Adolescence, 68, 61-65.
Sorokowska, A., Oleszkiewicz, A., Frackowiak, T., Pisanski, K., Chmiel, A., & Sorokowski, P. (2016). Selfies and personality: Who posts self-portrait photographs? Personality and Individual Differences, 90, 119-123.
Strano, M. M., & Queen, J. (2012). Covering your face on Facebook: Suppression as identity management. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 24, 166–180.
Sung, Y., Lee, J., Kim, E., & Choi, S. M. (2016). Why we post selfies: Understanding motivations for posting pictures of
oneself. Personality and Individual Differences, 97, 260-265.
Thompson, J. K., Heinberg, L., & Tantleff-Dunn, S. (1991). The Physical Appearance Comparison Scale. Behavior Therapist, 14, 174.
Thompson, J. K., van den Berg, P., Roehrig, M., Guarda, A. S., & Heinberg, L. J. (2004). The Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Scale-3 (SATAQ-3): Development and validation. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 35, 293-304.
Utz, S., Muscanell, N., & Khalid C. (2015). Snapchat elicits more jealousy than Facebook: A comparison of Snapchat and Facebook use. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18, 141-146.
Vaterlausa, J. M., Barnetta, K., Rocheb, C., & Young, J. A. (2016). ‘Snapchat is more personal:’ An exploratory study on Snapchat behaviors and young adult interpersonal relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 594-601.
Wang, S. S., & Stefanone, M. A. (2013). Showing off? Human mobility and the interplay of traits, self-disclosure, and Facebook check-ins. Social Science Computer Review, 31, 437-457.
Yang, C. (2016). Instagram use, loneliness, and social comparison orientation: Interact and browse on social media, but don’t compare. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 19, 703-708.
Barry, C. T., Doucette, H., Loflin, D. C., Rivera-Hudson, N. J., & Herrington, L. L. (2017). ‘Let me take a selfie:’ Associations between self-photography, narcissism, and self-esteem. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 6, 48-60.
Barry, C. T. Reiter, S. R., Anderson, A. C., Schoessler, M. L., &
Sidoti, C. L. (in press). ‘Let me take another selfie’: Further examination of the relation between narcissism, self-perception, and Instagram posts. Psychology of Popular Media Culture.
Barry, C. T., Sidoti, C. L., Briggs, S. M., Reiter, S. R., & Lindsey, R. A. (2017). Adolescent social media use and mental health from adolescent and parent perspectives. Journal of Adolescence, 61, 1-11.
Blackwell, D., Leaman, C., Tramposch, R., Osborne, C., & Liss, M. (2017). Extraversion, neuroticism, attachment style, and fear of missing out as predictors of social media use and addiction. Personality and Individual Differences, 116, 69-72.
Bradley S. W., Roberts, J. A., & Bradley, P. W. (2017). Experimental evidence of observed social media status cues on perceived likability. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 1-16.
Buffardi, L. E., & Campbell, W. K. (2008). Narcissism and social networking web sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1303-1314.
Bushman, B. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 219-229.
Forest, A. L., & Wood, J. V. (2012). When social networking is not working: Individuals with low self-esteem recognize but do not reap the benefits of self-disclosure on Facebook. Psychological Science, 23, 295-302.
Halpern, D., Valenzuela, S., & Katz, J. E. (2016). “Selfie-ists” or “Narci-selfiers”?: A cross-lagged panel analysis of selfie-taking and narcissism. Personality and Individual Differences, 97, 98-101.
Hoyle, R. H., Stephenson, M. T., Palmgreen, P., Lorch, E. P., & Donohew, R. L. (2002). Reliability and validity of a brief measure of sensation seeking. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 401-414.
Hughes, D. J., Rowe, M., Batey, M., & Lee, A. (2012). A tale of two sites: Twitter vs. Facebook and the personality predictors of social media usage. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 561-569.
Kapidzic, S. (2013). Narcissism as a predictor of motivations behind Facebook profile picture selection. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 16, 14-19.
Kauten, R. L., Lui, J. L., Stary, A. K., & Barry, C. T. (2015). ‘Purging my friends list. Good luck making the cut: Perceptions of narcissism on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 244-254.
Koutamanis, M., Vossen, H. G. M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2015). Adolescents’ comments in social media: Why do adolescents receive negative feedback and who is most at risk? Computers in Human Behavior, 53, 486-494.
Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., & Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PLoS ONE, 8, e69841. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069841.
Langstedt, E., & Hunt, D. S. (2017). An exploration into the brand personality traits of social media sites. The Journal of Social Media in Society, 6, 315-342.
McAndrew, F. T., & Jeong, H. S. (2012). Who does what on Facebook? Age, sex, and relationship status as predictors of Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 2359–2365.
McCain, J. L., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Narcissism and social media use: A meta-analytic review. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7, 308-327.
Miller, J. D., Lynam, D. R., Hyatt, C. S., & Campbell, W. K. (2017). Controversies in narcissism. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 13, 291-315.
Nadkarni, A., & Hofmann, S. G. (2012). Why do people use Facebook? Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 243-249.
Oberst, U., Wegmann, E., Stodt, B., Brand, & Chamarro, A. (2017). Negative consequences from heaving social networking in adolescents: The mediating role of fear of missing out. Journal of Adolescence, 55, 51-60.
Ozimek, P., Bierhoff, H. W., & Hanke, S. (2018). Do vulnerable narcissists profit more from Facebook use than grandiose narcissists? An examination of narcissistic Facebook use in the light of self-regulation and social comparison theory. Personality and Individual Differences, 124, 168-177.
Panek, E. T., Nardis, Y., & Konrath, S. (2013). Mirror or Megaphone?: How relationships between narcissim and social networking site use differ on Facebook and Twitter. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 2004–2012.
Patton, J. H., Stanford, M. S., & Barratt, E. S. (1995). Factor structure of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 51, 768-774.
Pincus, A. L., Ansell, E. B., Pimentel, C. A., Cain, N. M., Wright, A. G. C., & Levy, K. N. (2009). Initial construction and validation of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory. Psychological Assessment, 21, 365-379.
Pittman, M., & Reich, B. (2016). Social media and loneliness: Why an Instagram picture may be worth more than a thousand Twitter words. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 155-167.
Piwek, L., & Joinson, A. (2016). ‘What do they snapchat about?’ Patterns of use in time-limited instant messaging service. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 358-367.
Punyanunt-Carter, N. M., De La Cruz, J. J., & Wrench, J. S. (2017). Investigating the relationships among college students’ satisfaction, addiction, needs, communication apprehension, motives, and uses & gratifications with Snapchat. Computers in Human Behavior, 75, 870-875.
Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K. DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 1841-1848.
Raskin, R., & Terry, H. (1988). A principal-components analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and further evidence of its construct validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 890-902.
Roche, M. J., Pincus, A. L., Lukowitsky, M. R., Menard, K. S., & Conroy, D. E. (2013). An integrative aproach to the assessment of narcissism. Journal of Personality Assessment, 95, 237-248.
Roesner, F., Gill, B., & Kohno, T. (2014). Sex, lies, or kittens? Investigating the use of snapchats self-destructing messages. In N. Christin, & R. Safavi-Naini (Eds.), Financial Cryptography and Data Security (pp. 64-76). Berlin: Springer.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Russell, D. (1996). UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3): Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66, 20-40.
Scott, H., & Woods, H. C. (2018). Fear of missing out and sleep: Cognitive behavioural factors in adolescents’ nighttime social media use. Journal of Adolescence, 68, 61-65.
Sorokowska, A., Oleszkiewicz, A., Frackowiak, T., Pisanski, K., Chmiel, A., & Sorokowski, P. (2016). Selfies and personality: Who posts self-portrait photographs? Personality and Individual Differences, 90, 119-123.
Strano, M. M., & Queen, J. (2012). Covering your face on Facebook: Suppression as identity management. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 24, 166–180.
Sung, Y., Lee, J., Kim, E., & Choi, S. M. (2016). Why we post selfies: Understanding motivations for posting pictures of
oneself. Personality and Individual Differences, 97, 260-265.
Thompson, J. K., Heinberg, L., & Tantleff-Dunn, S. (1991). The Physical Appearance Comparison Scale. Behavior Therapist, 14, 174.
Thompson, J. K., van den Berg, P., Roehrig, M., Guarda, A. S., & Heinberg, L. J. (2004). The Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Scale-3 (SATAQ-3): Development and validation. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 35, 293-304.
Utz, S., Muscanell, N., & Khalid C. (2015). Snapchat elicits more jealousy than Facebook: A comparison of Snapchat and Facebook use. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18, 141-146.
Vaterlausa, J. M., Barnetta, K., Rocheb, C., & Young, J. A. (2016). ‘Snapchat is more personal:’ An exploratory study on Snapchat behaviors and young adult interpersonal relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 594-601.
Wang, S. S., & Stefanone, M. A. (2013). Showing off? Human mobility and the interplay of traits, self-disclosure, and Facebook check-ins. Social Science Computer Review, 31, 437-457.
Yang, C. (2016). Instagram use, loneliness, and social comparison orientation: Interact and browse on social media, but don’t compare. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 19, 703-708.
Downloads
Published
2020-12-18
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
