Are narcissists more likely to post selfies and care about the feedback they receive?

Posted on April 7, 2016

Photo: flickr

Korean researchers studied how narcissism relates to a person's selfie-posting behavior on Social Networking Sites such as Facebook and interest in the comments they receive back. The authors describe the link between degree of narcissism and self-promotion through selfies in the article "Hide-and-Seek: Narcissism and 'Selfie'-Related Behavior published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website until May 5, 2016.

Jung-Ah Lee and Yongjun Sung, PhD, Korea University (Seoul, South Korea), found that individuals with a higher degree of narcissism have a more favorable attitude toward the act of posting selfies. Their involvement in the comments received to their own selfies and their interest in other people's selfies did not, however mean that they were more likely to provide feedback.

"Across all social media technologies, narcissists (as compared to non-narcissists) tend to engage in more self-enhancement strategies in hopes of gaining admiration," says Editor-in-Chief Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCB, BCN, Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, California and Virtual Reality Medical Institute, Brussels, Belgium. "However, since narcissism does not completely explain selfie posting, future studies are needed to uncover additional psychological or social factors that influence selfie posting behavior."


Source material from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., Publishers