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Article history:
Received 27 April 2015
Received in revised form 29 June 2015
Accepted 3 July 2015
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Narcissism
Photo sharing
Seles
Social media
Social networking sites
a b s t r a c t
Seles are amateur photographs people take of themselves, usually with a smartphone. Sharing seles on social
media has become a popular activity, prompting questions about its psychological meaning and dispositionallyrelevant motives. This study was performed to examine the association between narcissism, a personality trait
characterized by inated self-views and attempts to seek attention and admiration from others, and frequency
of posting seles on social networking sites. In addition, the association between posting seles and three facets
of narcissism (i.e., Leadership/Authority, Grandiose Exhibitionism, Entitlement/Exploitativeness) was explored.
These questions were addressed in a nationally representative sample of 1204 men and women who completed
an online survey. Results showed that narcissism, as well as the Leadership/Authority and Grandiose Exhibitionism facets, but not Entitlement/Exploitativeness, exhibited positive and signicant associations with seleposting frequency. Age did not moderate the predictive effects of narcissism or any of its three dimensions, indicating that the relationship between narcissism, its facets, and posting seles is not age dependent. However, the
more adaptive Leadership/Authority facet emerged as a stronger predictor of sele posting among women than
men, whereas the maladaptive Entitlement/Exploitativeness facet predicted sele posting among men, but not
women. Interpretations and implications of these ndings are discussed.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Photo sharing has become an important part of the online social experience. Over half of U.S. internet users post photos online (Pew
Research Center, 2013), perhaps owing to the increasing use of
smartphones; in the U.S., nearly two-thirds of adults own a smartphone,
compared to 35% in 2011 (Pew Research Center, 2015). These devices
simplify photo sharing through social media by enabling users to take
and post digital photographs on social networking sites (SNSs) instantaneously. This function is facilitated through photo-sharing sites such as
Instagram, a mobile photo platform allowing users to share photographs and videos over SNSs such as Facebook and Twitter. Instagram
hosts over 30 billion photographs, and, on average, 70 million photographs are posted to the site each day from its 300 million users
(Instagram, 2014).
The rise in photo sharing has helped spark a precipitous new social
phenomenon: the snapping and sending of amateur self-portrait photographs known as seles to SNSs. Sele is now part of today's vernacular and is formally dened as a photograph that one has taken of
oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and
uploaded to a social media website ("Infographic: A Closer Look at
'Sele,'" 2013, para. 4). In 2013, Oxford Dictionaries added sele to its
lexicon and later named it their international Word of the Year
(Brumeld, 2013). Seles permeate the social media landscape; for
Department of Psychology, Curry College, Milton, MA 02186, United States.
E-mail address: eweiser@curry.edu.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.07.007
0191-8869/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
478
479
Table 1
Correlations between variables, means, and standard deviations.
Measure
SD
1. Sele-posting frequency
2. Time using SNSs
3. Posting frequency
4. Age
5. Narcissism
6. Leadership/Authority
7. Grandiose Exhibitionism
8. Entitlement/Exploitativeness
.22
.41
.28
.32
.07
.32
.12
.18
.22
.26
.09
.16
.13
.87
.27
.08
.12
.18
.77
.50
.16
.06
.10
.20
.55
.36
.36
3.49
100.96
5.32
32.81
12.79
4.41
2.32
0.90
2.38
156.36
2.05
11.56
7.61
3.08
2.42
1.05
.05
2.2.4. Narcissism
Participants completed the 40-item Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI-40, Raskin & Terry, 1988), which assesses individual differences
in trait narcissism. The NPI-40 uses a forced-choice format, in that each
item asks respondents to choose one of two statements that is most selfdescriptive; one of the statements reects narcissistic sentiments and
the other does not (e.g., I am more capable than other people. vs.
There is a lot that I can learn from other people.). For each item, the
narcissistic statement is scored a 1 and the non-narcissistic statement
is scored a 0.
A conrmatory factor analysis was performed on the NPI to determine if the Ackerman et al. (2011) model t the data adequately.
Mplus 7.31 was used to estimate the three-factor model consisting of
the items for LA, GE, and EE. Because NPI indicators are dichotomous,
the model was estimated using the robust weighted least squares
(WLSMV) estimation method (Brown, 2006). In replication of
Ackerman et al. (2011), covariances between residuals for selected indicators were specied. Results showed that the three-factor model provided acceptable t to the data (CFI = .941, TLI = .933, RMSEA = .048).
Table 2
Summary of hierarchical multiple regression analysis predicting sele-posting frequency
from narcissism.
Predictor
Step 1
Time using SNSs
Posting frequency
Age
Gender
Step 2
Narcissism
Step 3
Age narcissism
Gender narcissism
Total R2
N
.15
.32
.29
.08
5.11
11.49
11.63
3.12
.21
8.15
.04
.03
1.94
1.25
R2
Fchg
.28
116.62
.04
66.39
b.01
2.58
.32
1204
Note. Gender was coded: 0 = female, 1 = male. is the standardized regression coefcient. For Step 2, F(5, 1199) = 111.66, p b .001; for Step 3, F(7, 1197) = 80.71, p b .001.
p b .01.
p b .001.
480
4. Discussion
The results of this study are in accordance with research examining
narcissism and its relationship to attention-seeking and self-promoting
behaviors in social media environments (e.g., Buffardi & Campbell,
2008; Carpenter, 2012; DeWall, Buffardi, Bonser & Campbell, 2011),
and they replicate and extend previous ndings supporting a positive
association between narcissism and seles (Fox & Rooney, 2015;
Sorokowski et al., 2015). Overall, ndings from this investigation suggest that posting seles, as with other self-promoting SNS behaviors,
represents an avenue through which narcissistic needs are expressed
through social media. For example, narcissistic individuals consider
themselves to be physically attractive (Bleske-Rechek, Remiker &
Baker, 2008) and, in fact, meta-analytic evidence suggests they are
(Holtzman & Strube, 2010). Hence, these individuals may consider
sele-posting as a conduit through which they can use their looks to
garner both attention and admiration.
However, the association between total NPI narcissism and posting
seles obscures which narcissism facets are driving this behavior. Specically, LA and GE predicted sele-posting frequency, whereas EE did
not. It seems, then, that for individuals high in narcissism, posting seles
constitutes a means to not only seek attention and admiration from
others (GE), but also to convey heightened perceptions of leadership,
authority, and dominance (LA). Combined, these dimensions capture
agentic, approach-oriented elements of narcissism (Ackerman et al.,
2011), suggesting that sele posting may be a manifestation of more
adaptive self-enhancement tendencies, rather than the more socially
noxious tendencies captured by EE. For their part, individuals high in
EE may regard other SNS behaviors (e.g., retaliating against others' negative comments) as viable means to satisfy narcissistic objectives
(Carpenter, 2012).
Unexpectedly, age did not moderate the predictive inuence of either total narcissism and or its dimensions on posting seles, suggesting
that self-promoting displays on SNSs may not be age dependent. Given
the increasing engagement with SNSs among adults of all ages (Pew
Research Center, 2014b), sele posting might serve to fulll narcissistic
goals throughout much of adulthood. As previous investigations examining narcissistic behaviors on SNSs have often used college-age samples (e.g., Bergman, Fearrington, Davenport & Bergman, 2011;
Kapidzic, 2013; Mehdizadeh, 2010), future work might benet from
sampling participants whose ages are sufciently representative of the
adult population.
Of importance, gender moderated the predictive effect of LA, in that
sele-posting frequency was linked to higher levels of LA among women
than among men. LA appears to represent a dimension of personality related to psychological resilience and social potency (Ackerman et al.,
2011). It embodies agentic qualities (e.g., assertiveness, dominance)
elements incongruous with female gender stereotypes (Eagly & Karau,
2002) and, in fact, men exhibit stronger LA than do women (Grijalva
et al., 2015). Agentic women who violate communal gender role stereotypes are often perceived negatively (Rudman & Glick, 2001), perhaps
discouraging women in leadership roles from presenting themselves
in ways that are distinctly masculine or feminine (Koenig, Eagly,
Mitchell & Ristikari, 2011). Because posting seles is neither inherently
masculine nor feminine, narcissistic women who harbor selfperceptions of power, authority, and dominance over others may view
sele-posting as a viable way to satisfy their agentic needs without incurring social penalties. Equally important, sele-posting frequency
was signicantly associated with EE among men, but not women. Although men score substantially higher than do women on EE, and gender differences in narcissism are driven principally by this facet (Grijalva
et al., 2015), EE is not associated with the desire to self-promote on SNSs
(Carpenter, 2012). However, EE correlates with elements of pathological
narcissism, a trait viewed as distinct from the more normal narcissism
assessed by the NPI (Pincus et al., 2009). These elements seem to capture
a fundamentally insecure and vulnerable aspect of personality and are
.12
.13
.01
3.98
4.55
0.03
.04
.09
1.50
2.31
1.37
0.52
1.60
2.17
.04
.02
.04
.08
R2
Fchg
.28
116.62
.05
24.03
.01
2.54
.34
1204
Note. Gender was coded: 0 = female, 1 = male. is the standardized regression coefcient. LA = Leadership/Authority; GE = Grandiose Exhibitionism; EE = Entitlement/
Exploitativeness. For Step 2, F(7, 1197) = 80.77, p b .001; for Step 3, F(13, 1191) =
45.06, p b .001.
a
Estimated values were the same as in the previous analysis.
p b .05.
p b .001.
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