Like me! A systematic review on the relationship between narcissistic traits and social media use Charlotte de Valk, 10005374
Assessor: mw. dr. A.L. van den Akker 25-01-2016
Word count: 5141 Bachelor thesis
Table of contents Abstract ... 3 Introduction ... 4 Method ... 6 Selection of studies ... 6 Results ... 7
Times checking in on and time spent on social media ... 7
Number of friends on social media ... 9
Posting behaviour on social media ... 11
Discussion ... 13
Abstract
Since adolescents with narcissistic traits are looking to elicit attention from others, social
media offers an attractive platform because of the possibility to reach a large audience. However, this could lead to an increased grandiose self-view, which could have negative consequences as aggression and antisocial behaviour. This systematic review was performed to determine whether there is a relationship and, if so, what kind of relationship exists between narcissistic traits and the use of social media. A multiple field search was conducted in the databases Web of Science, Pubmed, and PsycInfo. The most important results were the significant effects for checking-in on Facebook and online self-disclosure on social media. Further research could focus on the reasons why young adults with narcissistic traits access Facebook more often and use more online self-disclosure on social media. Furthermore, the consequences for real life in terms of feelings and behaviour should be analysed.
Like me! A systematic review on the relationship between narcissistic traits and social media use Since the rise of social media, individuals can present themselves online in a way they would prefer to come across to others (Alloway, Runac, Qureshi, & Kemp, 2014; Zhao, Grasmuck, & Martin, 2008). Social media offers a platform for self-promotion and can be a boost for the confidence of adolescents while they can create their own online identities (Gentile, Twenge, Freeman, & Campbell, 2012). In addition, social media can be used for the purpose of attracting attention from the audience (Forest & Wood, 2012). Social media can be described as “a set of mobile and web-based platforms to collaborate and to build networks and communities, with the possibility of reaching and involving large audiences’’ (El Ouirdi, El Ouirdi, Segers, & Henderickx, 2014, p.119). Considering that adolescents with narcissistic traits are looking to elicit attention from others, social media offers an attractive platform because of the possibility to reach a large
audience (Bergman, Fearrington, Davenport, & Bergman, 2011; Ryan & Xenos, 2011). Twenge & Campbell (2009) argue that social networking sites work as a so called feedback loop for
narcissistic traits.
According to the DSM-5 narcissistic traits are traits related to grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Furthermore, adolescents with narcissistic traits depend on others for confirmation and admiration to maintain their feelings of grandiosity. According to Morf and Rhodewalt (2001), the need for validation is due to the grandiose self-view. Therefore, individuals with narcissistic traits will look for ways to maximize their perceptions of the self as special and important. The self is no longer their actual identity but is shifted toward an ideal identity (Bleiberg, 1994). To maintain and validate this ideal identity, adolescents with narcissistic traits will look for admiration and confirmation by others. Critical feedback has less value for adolescents with narcissistic traits because feedback from others is only used to confirm their grandiose self-views (Andersen, Miranda, & Edwards, 2001).
therefore, mostly focused on confirming the ideal identity. Morf and Rhodewalt (2001) argue that such a grandiose identity cannot stand on its own and is a vulnerable identity as well. In the objective reality, this ideal self-view cannot be reached and, therefore, needs constant validation from others. Thus, social media can offer a platform to present an ideal identity for adolescents with narcissistic traits to gain constant confirmation on the basis of superficial relationships (Ong et al., 2011). If there is indeed a relationship between narcissistic traits and social media use to gain constant confirmation for an ideal identity, this relationship could lead to an increased grandiose self-view
However, adolescents with narcissistic traits will also be exposed to critical feedback, which would be a discrepancy in the world of social media where they gain mostly positive feedback Twenge & Campbell (2009). If adolescents with narcissistic traits receive unflattering feedback that disagrees with their self-views, they react badly (Twenge & Campbell, 2003). Their strategy to deal with this unflattering feedback is to blame others for it and become angry (Rhodewalt & Morf, 1998). In this way, their inflated self-views can be maintained. In this way their inflated self-views can be maintained. The preservation of their grandiose self-views is so important to adolescents with narcissistic traits, that it can lead to aggression and even antisocial behaviour toward others when this self-image is affected (Barry, Frick, Adler, & Grafeman, 2007; Barry, Frick, & Killian, 2003; Bushman & Baumeister, 1998; Twenge & Campbell, 2003).
Because of these possible negative consequences of an increased grandiose self-view from social media in real life, it is important to perform a systematic review to determine whether there is a relationship and, if so, what kind of relationship exists between narcissistic traits and the use of social media. The symptoms of narcissism as grandiosity and need for admiration mostly manifest themselves in adolescence (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Therefore, this review will focus on adolescents between 12 and 24 years. This systematic review will explore the relationship for three variables: Time checking-in on social media, time spent on social media, number of friends on social media and posting behaviour on social media.
Firstly, adolescents with narcissistic traits will be attracted toward social media because they can present ideal identities (Mehdizadeh, 2010). This leads to the first hypothesis: Narcissistic traits will be positively related to spending time on social media. This also leads to the second hypothesis: Narcissistic traits will be positively related to times checking-in on social media. Secondly,
adolescents need a large audience to gain positive feedback (Ryan & Xenos, 2011). This leads to the third hypothesis: Adolescents with high narcissistic traits will have more friends on social media than adolescents with low narcissistic traits. Lastly, adolescents with narcissistic traits will post more on social media to gain likes and responses as a social reward (Twenge & Campbell, 2009). This leads to the third hypothesis: Narcissistic traits will be positively related to posting behaviour. Overall, this systematic review will show the time checking-in on social media, the spent on social media, the number of friends on social media, and the posting behaviour on social media.
Method Selection of studies
A multiple field search was conducted to search for relevant studies in the databases of PubMed, Psycinfo, and Web of Science. The keywords used for this systematic review related to narcissistic traits (narcissis* OR NPI OR NARQ). It was chosen to use narcissis* as a keyword because the terms narcissism and narcissistic traits are often used interchangeably in articles. The other keywords used for this systematic review related to social media (social media OR social networking site* OR Facebook OR Twitter OR selfie OR status update* OR posting OR wall post*). The keywords related to narcissistic traits and the keywords for social media were combined with AND in the databases’ search histories.
Studies were selected on different eligibility criteria. Firstly, only studies were selected which measured narcissistic traits with items of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) or the Narcissistic Rivalry and Admiration questionnaire (NARQ). The NPI has a Cronbach’s alpha from 0.85 and showed a strong construct validity (Bergman et al., 2011). The NARQ proved to have very good internal consistencies and showed unique relations with the NPI (Back, Küfner, Dufner,
Gerlach, Rauthmann & Denissen, 2013). Both questionnaires are used for non-clinical populations which fit the target group of this systematic review. Secondly, the articles had to have one of the following outcome variables: Times checking-in or time spent on social media, number of friends on social media or posting behaviour on social media. Thirdly, the studies had to include a
correlational relationship. Fourthly, the research respondents had to be between 12 and 24 years. Studies were only included if the mean age of the respondents was lower or equal to 24 years. Lastly, only published and peer-reviewed studies were included.
Results
The search resulted in total of 730 articles including the pre-set keywords for searching. Based on the selection criteria, ultimately 21 articles were included. Studies which were eligible based on the set criteria are shown in table 1. The studies were coded on number of participants, sex of participants, research design, age range, mean age, measurement instrument for narcissistic traits, outcome variables, and significant or non-significant effects.
Times checking-in on and time spent on social media
In total, six articles were found that focused on the relationship between narcissistic traits and time spent on social media. All studies focused on an age group above 18. Only one study found a significant relationship between narcissistic traits and the time spent on social media (Mehdizadeh, 2010). Mehdizadeh (2010) found that narcissistic traits were related to the time spent on Facebook. Contrary to these results, three studies did not find a significant relationship
(Bergman et al., 2011, Skues, Williams, & Wise, 2012; Walters & Horton, 2015). Skues et al. (2012) investigated the time spent on Facebook but did not find a significant effect. This result in accordance with Walters and Horton’s (2015) study, which did not find a significant effect either. Another study focused on all social networking sites (Bergman et al., 2014) but did not find a significant effect, which implies that the type of social media makes no difference for time spent on social media.
Facebook. This was an experimental study that analysed the relationship between narcissistic traits and the time spent on editing a personal social networking site page. Students were randomly assigned Myspace condition or the control condition. Participants in the Myspace condition had to edit their page for 15 minutes before filling in the NPI whereas participants in the control condition had to look at a Google Map of their university campus before filling in the NPI. The students who were placed in the experiment condition showed higher levels of narcissistic personality traits in comparison with the control group. This experiment was repeated with Facebook as the experiment condition. Although it was a similar experiment, students who spent time editing their Facebook for 15 minutes did not show higher scores on the NPI than the control group.
An explanation that spending time on Myspace leads to significantly higher scores on the NPI could be due to a specific characteristic of Myspace. Spending time on Myspace could make one famous; different people became famous because of their followers or talent (Gentile et al., 2012). This could lead to more grandiose self-views and need for admiration, which fits narcissistic traits. Moreover, this study shows that spending more time on social media could lead to higher narcissistic traits and could imply a different direction in the relationship. Nonetheless, this result of a different direction was only visible for Myspace in this experiment but not for Facebook.
The results for Facebook from Gentile et al. (2012) were in accordance with another experimental study from Horton, Reid, Barber, Miracle, & Green (2014). In the first experiment, students were randomly assigned to an agentic Facebook condition, communal Facebook condition or a control condition. In the agentic Facebook condition, participants had to review features on Facebook on their own page as the number of status updates and pictures of themselves. In the communal Facebook condition, participants had to review features on Facebook which were focused on their friends as the number of friends and their birthdays. In the control condition, participants had to review a sports website. Results showed that spending time in the agentic Facebook condition was related to narcissistic traits. However, the second experiment which had a broader and more diverse sample did not replicate these results for Facebook. An explanation for
the significant effect in the first experiment can be the sex of the sample; only men were included. In general, men score higher on narcissistic traits than women (Grijalva et al., 2014). Therefore it could be that in the first experiment a significant effect was found whether this was not the case for the second experiment.
Interestingly enough, more evidence was found for the relationship between narcissistic traits and the times checking-in on social media (Mehdizadeh, 2010; Walter & Horton, 2015; Panek, Nardis, & Konrath, 2013). Mehdizadeh (2010) found a significant effect for the times checking-in on Facebook. This is confirmed by the results of two other studies which also found that
adolescents with narcissistic traits access Facebook more (Walter & Horton, 2015; Panek, Nardis, & Konrath, 2013). However, Panek et al. (2013) found no results for Twitter. An explanation could be the difference in the feature to show confirmation for messages of Twitter and Facebook. Whereas Facebook has the feature Like to show this confirmation, Twitter has the feature Favorite. Users might more easily give Likes away, while Favorites are more exclusive. In other words, it is easier to gain attention on Facebook than Twitter, and therefore, it might be more interesting to check Facebook than Twitter.
In sum, the majority of the studies indicate no relationship between narcissistic traits and time spent on social media. Only one study found a significant effect; four studies did not find a significant effect or found contrary results for different types of social media. However, every study that included times of checking-in on Facebook found narcissistic traits and time accessing
Facebook to be related. This significant effect was not found for Twitter. This result could be because it is easier to gain Likes on Facebook than the more exclusive Favorites on Twitter. These features can be seen as attention by the adolescents with narcissistic traits, and therefore, Facebook is probably more attractive to them.
Number of friends on social media
In total, seven studies were found regarding the relationship between narcissistic traits and the number of friends on social media. On one hand, four studies found a significant positive
relationship between narcissistic traits and number of friends on social media (Buffardi &
Campbell, 2008; Davenport et al., 2014; Gentile et al., 2012). In the discussed study of Gentile et al., (2012), all participants were also asked how many friends they had on Myspace and Facebook. Higher NPI scores were significantly related to the number of reported friends on both Facebook and Myspace. The significant effect for Facebook was also found by Davenport et al. (2014) and Mckinney, Kelly, & Duran (2012).
However, no results were found for the number of followers on Twitter (McKinney et al., 2012; Davenport et al, 2014). Whereas a significant relationship was found for narcissistic traits and number of friends on Facebook, this was not the case for followers on Twitter. An explanation could be that adolescents with narcissistic traits have more control over how many friends they have on Facebook by sending out many friend requests (McKinney et al., 2012). On Twitter, however, it is not possible to send out requests for followers.
On the other hand, four studies did not find a significant relationship between narcissistic traits and number of friends on social media (Utz, Tanis & Vermeulen, 2012; Skues et al., 2012; Chang & Chen, 2014; Wang, Jackson, Zhang & Zhi-Qiang, 2012; Ong et al., 2011). Interestingly, two studies that performed multiple regressions to measure the effect from different personality traits found another personality traits as a predictor. Chang and Chen (2014) initially found a positive association between narcissistic traits and number of friends on Facebook. However, when different variables, such as narcissistic traits, extraversion, openness, and agreeableness, were tested together in one regression model, only extraversion kept a significant relationship with friending people on social media. This result is in accordance with Wang et al.’s (2012) study; they found that not narcissistic traits but extraversion significantly predicted the number of friends on social media.
Similar results were found for a younger age group, from 12 to 18 years, in comparison to the studies of Chang and Chen (2014) and Wang et al. (2012), which had samples above 18 years. Ong et al. (2011) found that narcissistic traits did not predict the number of Facebook friends over and above extraversion. An explanation for these results could be that narcissistic traits are not the
main factor for the number of friends but that extraversion is more important, which could be present among adolescents who score high on the NPI, since extraversion was significantly related to narcissistic traits in Ong et al’s study (2011). In addition, the results for extraversion as more important than narcissistic traits as a predictor for more friends on social media seem to be true for different types of social media based on different types that were investigated (Chang & Chen, 2014; Ong et al., 2011; Wang et al, 2012;).
In sum, four studies found a significant effect, but five studies did not find a significant effect. Thus, the evidence for the relationship between narcissistic traits and number of friends on social media seems to be inconclusive. Interestingly, one study found different results for Facebook and Twitter. It could be that, whereas on Facebook one could send out many friend requests, no requests can be sent out for followers on Twitter. Furthermore, different studies seem to imply that narcissistic traits are not the main predictor for number of friends but rather extraversion is. Posting behaviour on social media
In total, 11 studies were found analysing the relationship between narcissistic traits and online posting behaviour. The majority (seven studies) found a significant effect for posting behaviour (Buffardi, & Campbell, 2008; Lee, Ahn, & Kim, 2014; Panek et al., 2013; Utz et al., 2012; Ong et al., 2011; Liu, Ang, & Lwin, 2013; Hawk, Bogt, Eijnden & Nelemans, 2015). Two studies found narcissistic traits to be related to status updates on Facebook (Buffardi, & Campbell, 2008; Lee et al., 2014). The study of Lee, Ahn, and Kim (2014) was the only one including a different measurement instrument for narcissism than the NPI. However, the similar results for status updates to the study of Buffardi & Campbell (2008) seem to imply that the type of
measurement does not make a difference. Panek et al. (2013) found similar results for Facebook and, additionally, found a significant effect for tweets on Twitter. These results seem to imply that the type of social media does not make a difference.
Furthermore, evidence was also found for online self-disclosure on social media (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008; Utz et al., 2012). Online self-self-disclosure
refers to ‘the sharing of thoughts, feelings, and experiences with others online’ (Valkenburg, Sumter, & Peter, 2011). Utz et al. (2012) found that adolescents who score higher on narcissistic traits show more online disclosure of feelings on social media. The results for Facebook were also found by Buffardi and Campbell (2008), who also showed that narcissistic traits were related to online self-disclosure on Facebook, and more specifically, the content was self-promoting.
In addition to these studies, which all had samples above 18, evidence was found for a younger age group as well. Three studies found a significant relationship between narcissistic traits and posting behaviour for the age group 12 to 18. Ong et al. (2011) found that narcissistic traits were related to the number of status updates on Facebook over and above extraversion.
Furthermore, two studies also found that narcissistic traits were related to online-self disclosure on social media in the younger age groups (Liu, et al., 2013; Hawk et al., 2015). Interestingly in Liu et al’s (2013) study, the significant relationship of narcissistic traits and online self-disclosure on Facebook was not mediated by privacy concern, which implies that adolescents with narcissistic traits probably do not care about their privacy as long as they can share information about themselves.
Moreover, Hawk et al. (2015) found that adolescents with narcissistic traits have more problematic online disclosure on Facebook, Twitter and Hyves, which means that they share more photos and movies from themselves involved in risky behaviour related to sex, alcohol, and drugs. However, this result was only found for the ones who had little power in real life while the ones who had much power did show more online self-disclosure but not more photos or films regarding risky behaviour. An explanation for this phenomenon is the desire for attention (Hawk, et al., 2015). Probably, these adolescents do not receive the attention and admiration they want in real life and go far to gain the attention on social media
On the contrary, fourstudies found no significant relationship between narcissistic traits and posting behaviour on social media (Deters, Mehl, & Eid, 2014; Mckinney, Kelly, & Duran, 2012; Kcrmar, van der Meer & Cingel, 2015; Wang & Stefanone, 2013). Deters et al. (2014) found no
evidence for more status updating activity on Facebook. According to Deters et al. (2014), their contradicting results to most studies that did find a significant effect lays in the fact that they used an objective measurement to count status updates in the six week prior entries. However, Buffardi & Campbell (2008) used objective measurements as well to count the status updates and did find a significant effect. Two studies found no significant effect for online self-disclosure on Facebook (Mckinney, Kelly, & Duran, 2012; Kcrmar et al., 2015; Wang & Stefanone, 2013).
In sum, the majority of the studies found a significant effect for posting behaviour. Most evidence was found for the relationship between narcissistic traits and online self-disclosure on social media. Furthermore, it was found that the relationship between narcissistic traits and online self-disclosure was not mediated by privacy concern. In other words, adolescents with narcissism do not seem to care about their privacy in their online self-disclosure. Moreover, adolescents with narcissistic traits also show problematic online self-disclosure, in terms of photos and movies about themselves involved in risky behaviour if they had little power in life. It could be that adolescents with narcissistic traits do everything to gain attention to feel powerful.
Discussion
The aim of this systematic review to determine whether there is a relationship and, if so, what kind of relationship exists between narcissistic traits and social media use. Studies were reviewed for the relationship between narcissistic traits and four outcome variables: Time spent on social media, times checking-in on social media, number of friends on social media, and posting behaviour on social media.
For the first variable: time spent on social media, most studies did not show a significant relationship between narcissistic traits and the time spent on social media. For the second variable, three studies did find a significant effect for times checking-in but only for Facebook (Mehdizadeh, 2010; Walter & Horton, 2015; Panek et al., 2013). These results do not support the hypothesis that narcissistic traits are related to time spent on social media. However, these results do partially support the second hypothesis; narcissistic traits are related to the times checking-in on Facebook
but not on Twitter.
This implies that for those who score high on narcissistic traits, it is important to access Facebook often over and above spending time on Facebook. It was theorized by Twenge and Campbell (2009) that adolescents with narcissistic traits will use social media to obtain confirmation and admiration through their messages. This theory is supported by the study of Davenport et al. (2014) who found that narcissistic traits were significantly related to the need for admiration on social media. Thus, an explanation could be that adolescents with narcissistic traits just want to check whether they have gained attention and admiration from their friends or
followers on their own messages. It probably takes less time to check whether they gained attention for their messages than to read messages of their friends. Therefore, it could be that time spent on Facebook is not found to be important in most studies, whereas time accessing social media is of importance.
For the second outcome variable: number of friends on social media, the results were inconclusive. Interestingly, three studies found that extraversion were more important than narcissistic traits in predicting number of friends. Therefore, extraversion seems to be a better predictor than narcissistic traits of the number of friends on social media. These results seem not to present enough evidence to support the hypothesis that narcissistic traits are related to the number of friends. This is not in line with the theorized need of adolescents with narcissistic traits for a big audience to gain attention (Ryan & Xenos, 2011; Bergman et al, 2011).
An explanation could be that these adolescents desire many friends on social media but do not obtain this desire. Davenport et al. (2014) found that indeed narcissistic traits are related to the desire of wanting friends on social media. found that indeed narcissistic traits are related to the desire of wanting friends on social media. However, it could be that they are not always accepted as friends online or are deleted based on their behaviour on social media. This is supported by research in which the friends of adolescents with narcissistic traits perceive their statuses as less likeable and friend-worthy (Choi, Panek, Nardis, & Toma, 2015; Kauten, Lui, Stary, & Barry, 2015). Thus, it
could be that adolescents with narcissistic traits are not always accepted when potential friends first view their statuses or that existing friends delete them because they do not see them as likable and friend-worthy.
For the third outcome variable posting behaviour, the majority of the studies showed a significant effect. Most evidence was found for the relationship between narcissistic traits and posting behaviour regarding online self-disclosure. These results seem to give enough evidence for the hypothesis that narcissistic traits are positively related to posting behaviour, which is in line with the theorized attraction for adolescents with narcissistic traits toward social media for self-promotion (Ong et al., 2011). This is confirmed by Marshall, Lefringhausen, & Ferenczi (2015) who found that narcissistic traits were associated with self-promoting topics in status updates as achievements regarding diet and exercise.
In short, narcissistic traits are related to times checking-in on Facebook, number of status updates, and online self-disclosure on social media but not to the number of friends on social media. Combing these results, it seems that self-promotion through online self-disclosure is most important for adolescents with narcissistic traits, which might be the reason why they check in and send messages to promote themselves for their grandiose self-view. In addition, it could be that
adolescents with narcissistic traits do use online self-disclosure to gain admiration from others. The time to check in would then be used to see whether they gained validation. The quantity of friends might not be important, but rather quantity of the attention they gain. It could also be that they desire friends for admiration but fail because of their self-promotional statuses, which can be perceived negatively.
However, this systematic review has some limitations. Firstly, most studies included only students from universities. This influences the generalizability to the population of all adolescents. Secondly, the measurement of the outcome variables was often by self-report instead of objective forms of measurements. For the different outcome variables, time, number of friends, and posting behaviour on social media, it could be that respondents under- or overestimated their time spent
accessing social media. Moreover, the outcome variable friends could have been overestimated if adolescents with narcissistic traits indeed had the desire to have a high number of friends. Thirdly, social media is a rather new phenomenon, so there is no longitudinal research yet. Therefore, this systematic review can only give information about the correlation instead of causation. Of course, it could be that narcissistic traits do not influence the use of social media, but rather the use of social media leads to an increase in narcissistic traits. Fourthly, ethnicity could have influenced the results as well; some cultures focus more on status than other cultures. Lastly, studies focused only on Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, so it is not clear what the relationship is between narcissistic traits and other social media as Instagram or Linked-in for example.
In further research, it is important to use more diverse samples than only university students for the generalizability to the population of all adolescents. Different ethnicities could also be included in the sample to analyse the differences. In addition, is recommended to use objective measurement instruments instead of self-reports to gain reliable results Furthermore, a longitudinal study could be started to analyse the direction of the relationship between narcissistic traits and social media use. Moreover, and most important, research could focus on the reasons behind the relationship between narcissistic traits and social media. It is important to know why adolescents with narcissistic traits access Facebook more often and use more online self-disclosure on social media. If the reasons for using social media are related to maintaining a grandiose view by self-promotion or gaining attention, it could have consequences for real life. A next step could be to analyse the consequences for real life in terms of feelings and behaviour. In sum, the reasons for accessing Facebook and online self-disclosure have to become clear in order to understand adolescents with narcissistic traits and perhaps prevent negative consequences.
References
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Table 1
Summary of studies
Authors Research design N Sex Age range Mean age Measurement instrument Outcome variables Significant effects 1 Mehdizadeh (2010) Correlational 100 50% male 18-25 22.21 NPI Time Times checking-in Time on Facebook* Times checking-in on Facebook*
2 Skues et al. (2012) Correlational 393 76% male
--a 20.59 NPI Time spent
Friends
No significant effects
3 Walters & Horton (2015)
Correlational 83 100% male
18-22 --a NPI Time spent
Times checking-in Times checking-in on Facebook* 4 Bergman et al (2014) Correlational 361 54% male
18-33 20.77 NPI Time spent No significant
5 Gentile et al. (2012) Experimental EX1: 79 EX2: 72 25% male 34% male 18-22 18-22 ----a NPI NPI Time spent Friends Time on Myspace* Friends on Myspace and Facebook*
6 Horton et al. (2014) Experimental EX1: 88 EX2: 218 100% male 65% male EX1: 18-22 EX2: 18-22 EX1: 19.76 EX2: 19.63 NPI NPI
Time spent EX1: Time on Facebook*
7 Davenport et al. (2014)
Correlational 521 40% male
18-29 20.75 NPI Friends Friends on
Facebook*
8 Buffardi & Campbell (2008) Correlational 156 36% male 18-23 18.97 NPI Friends Posting behaviour Friends on Facebook* Status updates on Facebook* Online self-disclosure on Facebook*
9 Mckinney, Kelly & Duran (2012) Correlational 233 38% male -- 19.77 NPI Friends Posting behaviour Friends on Facebook*
10 Wang & Stefanone Correlational 523 44% male
19-25 --a NPI Posting
behaviour
No significant effects
11 Utz, Tanis & Vermeulen (2012)
Correlational 198 27% male
--a 21.4 NPI Friends Online
self-disclosure on social media*
12 Chang & Chen (2014) Correlational 209 --a --a 19.93 NPI Friends No significant
effect
13 Wang et al. (2012) Correlational 265 --a 18-24 20.15 NPI Friends No significant
14 Ong et al. (2011) Correlationa 275 40% male 12-18 14.18 NPI Friends Posting behaviour Status updates on Facebook*
15 Lee et al. (2014) Correlational 235 46% male
--a 20.6 NARQ Posting
behaviour
Status updates on Facebook*
16 Panek et al. (2013) Correlational 486 26% male --a 18.8 NPI Times checking-in Posting behaviour Times checking-in on Facebook* Status updates on Facebook and Twitter* 17 Liu et al. (2013) Correlational 780 49%
male 13-18 13.94 NPI Posting behaviour Online self-disclosure on Facebook*
18 Hawk et al. (2015) Correlational S1: 471
S2: 56 45% male 41% male 12-18 13-16 14.75 14.55 NPI NPI Posting behaviour Online self-disclosure on Facebook, Hyves and Twitter*
19 Deters et al. (2014) Correlational 191 21% male 18-25 23.49 NPI Posting behaviour No significant effect 20 Krcmar et al (2015) Correlational 374 50% male 12-22 15.64 NPI Posting behaviour No significant effect Note: * p<0.05 EX1= Experiment 1 EX2 = Experiment 2 S1= Study 1 S2= Study 2 a
