Understanding behavior on social networks : the moderating role of personality in social network : use on self-esteem and self-control

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Master Thesis

Understanding Behavior on Social Networks:

The Moderating role of Personality in Social Network

Use on Self-‐Esteem & Self-‐Control

Jiz Kurian

10684050

MSc Business Studies

29

th

_{June
2015}

Supervised by Hsin-‐Hsuan Lee

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Statement of originality

This document is written by Jiz Kurian who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Abstract

Social networks have become an integrated part of our daily routine life. In this research, social network use (Facebook) is tested for self-‐esteem and self-‐control with personality as a moderating influence on these factors. Understanding how Facebook use affects consumer behaviors through personality is an area that has not yet been researched. Discovering the personality features of its users, who engage in social media, may help marketers to reach their audience. To test this proposition, an online survey was distributed among 150 participants, using convenience sampling. Based on the implicit theory of personality, the study examined entity (fixed features) and incremental personality (malleable features) were tested to have a moderating effect on social media use, self-‐esteem and self-‐control. It was illustrated that entity theoriest are not sensitive to social network use. This research also demonstrated how social network use has a direct detrimental effect on self-‐control. Additionally, evidence is presented for self-‐control being affected in the health domain; participants tend to choose unhealthier food option after browsing on Facebook. This research primarily extends existing research by demonstrating this direct relationship between social network use and self-‐control. Finally, it appears that Facebook use enhanced choosing unhealthy food options (chocolate chip cookie over a granola bar). Thus, this research has important implications for policy makers because self-‐control is often a tool used to maintain social well-‐being.

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Introduction

Using social networks has become an integrated part of our daily lives. Social networks sites such as Facebook have not only developed to be an effective communication tool, but also support fulfillment of social needs such as increasing ones self-‐esteem (Back et al., 2010). Self-‐esteem is a concept that has been researched for decades now. Development of the self-‐esteem concept is considered to be a complex process (Brisset, 1972). In the early stages of research, self-‐esteem was determined by comparing evaluations of individuals’ with others (Swallow & Kuiper, 1988). This research will add to existing research on self-‐esteem, by testing whether it is affected by social network use. This research defines high self-‐esteem as a favorable global evaluation of self (Rosenberg et al., 1995).

Using social networks increased self-‐esteem through positive comments placed by friends of Facebook users. This effect was further increased by users having the opportunity to remove embarrassing photos and delete status updates they had second thoughts about. Therefore, because people present a positive self-‐view to others on social networks, social network use enhances self-‐esteem. According to the study by Wilcox and Stephen (2013), the use of social networks creates a temporarily increase in self-‐esteem that results in losing control over oneself. This increase in self-‐esteem was found after browsing, compared to those who were not browsing on the social network.

In their study, participants were asked to logged into Facebook or browse the CNN website. In the Facebook browsing conditions participants were asked to log into their Facebook accounts and browse the social network without posting content or interacting with other users in any way. While this is less realistic than actual Facebook use, it also only facilitates browsing and reading content. Therefore, the study by Wilcox and Stephan (2013) is not without limitations. This study is going to improve this by

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they are given the task to take note of upcoming birthdays of their friends, which allows interaction. This also allows introducing a significant difference for the manipulation, as the control group (CNN browsers) is simply reading content.

Other research examining the connections between self-‐esteem, measures of well-‐being, emphasize the intimate relationships and close friends (Bishop & Inderbitzen, 1995; Keefe & Berndt, 1996). The study by Wilcox and Stephen (2013) had found an effect between social network use and self-‐esteem, for those focused on close friends. Will this effect also occur without focusing on tie strength? There is a need for additional research exploring the potential linkages between psychological well-‐being and any other situational/personality factors.

Understanding how Facebook use affects consumer behaviors through personality is an area that has not yet been researched. Studies have shown a connection between the personality of the user and the way he or she behaves online (Amichai-‐Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010). The literature on social network use has paid significant attention to browser’s demographics and psychological characteristics such as motivation and life satisfaction. These psychological characteristics are however subject to change over time (Comea et al., 2010). People can be less motivated or more satisfied with life, causing people to feel differently. It is therefore suggested to research more stable psychological traits such as personality. Therefore, the potential effect of stable features on the way people engage in social media use will be researched. Literature suggests factors such as openness to experience to be an important personality predictor of social media use, because it can help us understand how people might react to using social networks (Comea et al., 2010).

Personality is considered to be a contributing factor as it may be a crucial factor leading people to engage in this type of media. It has been recognized that individual difference variables such as personality might moderate the relationship between the

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social network use and self-‐esteem. (Amichai-‐Hamburger et al., 2002). According to Amichai-‐Hamburger et al. (2002), individuals who are more anxious and unstable, tend to rely on social network sites. Although this proves that there is specific evidence of a moderating influence of personality on social network use, the links of personality to self-‐esteem seems to be not yet researched. Among the various personality traits, the implicit theory of personality appears to be the most relevant personality. This is because this theory has components that are consistent across individuals. Consistency is important to enable the research of stable features such as personality, which will prevent changing over time as found for previous effects like motivation and life satisfaction. Implicit theories address this issue by exploring people’s beliefs about the malleability and fixedness of personality traits.

A recent study by Park and John (2010) showed how this implicit theory of personality affects relationships. It divides personality into two groups: i.e. incremental (who have an amendable character) and entity theorists (who believe that his/her personality is fixed). While personality has different effects, the purpose of this study is to test whether personality has a moderating influence, to find out for what personality the use of social network sites affects self-‐esteem and self-‐control. A moderator effect is chosen as it is expected that the relation (between social media use and self-‐esteem) will substantially be strengthened through personality. This research addresses this need by testing the relationship between the use of social network and self-‐control. This research extends previous findings on social network use by demonstrating that social networks primarily enhance self-‐control. Self-‐control is defined as the exertion of control over the self by the self (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). Therefore, self-‐control occurs when an individual tries to change the way he/she would otherwise think or behave. In general, researchers tend to agree that self-‐control involves the efforts people exert to achieve desirable responses and avoid undesirable responses (de Ridder

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et al., 2011). This research will use the definition of self-‐control by de Ridder et al. (2011): ‘the capacity of the self to alter dominant responses and to regulate behavior, thoughts, and emotions’. In other words, self-‐control occurs when an individual tries to change the way he/she would otherwise think or behave. This research further implements research by Wilcox and Stephen (2013), which proved that the use of Facebook caused an increase in self-‐esteem, but resulted in reduced self-‐control. Every day, people fight impulsive responses such as going back to sleep or eating fattening food. It is proposed that while social network use will make people feel better about themselves, these increased feelings can have a detrimental effect on behavior. Taking into account the previously discussed factors, the following research question will be the key question of the research:

“How would personality affect use of social networks on self-‐esteem and self-‐

control?”

Thus, the main theoretical contribution of this research is illustrating how different types of people react to browsing on social networks. Although the important implications of social network use through malleable psychological features have been researched, research of more stable psychological traits such as personality could have significant implications. The structure of this thesis will be as followed. In the literature review the main topics ‘use of social networks’, ‘personality traits’ and ‘self-‐esteem’ will be explained. The literature review will be summarized in a conceptual model. With the use of an experiment, primary data will be collected in order to answer the research question. Participants will be asked to answer an online survey measuring their personality, self-‐esteem and self-‐control, prior and post to browsing on the social network. The research question can be answered by designing a research in a form of an experiment, combined with a survey. Finally, the main findings are discussed and summarized under the final section ‘conclusion’.

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Literature Review

Use of Social Networks

To answer the research question of this research, self-‐esteem, self-‐control and personality will now be further described. Social network use was defined by Boyd and Elison (2007) as ‘web-‐based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-‐public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system'.

For this research, the use of social networks will be measured by asking the participants to indicate how often they use Facebook and how many hours they spend on it on a daily or weekly basis.

To discover the influence of social network use, the consequences of its usage must be understood. Consequences of social network use seem to differ, because the prior studies on impact of the use of social network provide different research results. Boyd and Elison (2007) argue that social network use impacts its users by enabling them to display their social network to others, by making their list of connections visible. Most of the social networks also enable leaving messages on friends’ profiles.

Various studies have also proven that there are relationships between use of social networks (SNNs) and psychological development (Steinfield et al., 2008) and/or well-‐being and expressing yourself. To some extent, it even provides a feeling of ‘belongingness’ (Seidman, 2013). Results from a survey of undergraduate students suggested a strong association between use of Facebook and building social relationships. It was proven that Facebook intensively contributes to significantly ‘bridging’ new relationships, i.e. loose connections provided with useful information (Elison et al., 2007). This allows ‘accumulation’ of friends who can post on each other’s

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post and pictures. In addition, Facebook usage was found to interact with measures of psychological well-‐being, suggesting that it might provide greater benefits for users experiencing low self-‐esteem.

A similar effect is seen for the social network site Facebook. Facebook is used for social needs, such as self-‐presentation or social well-‐being, allowing people to carefully select what they want other to see about themselves. Thus Facebook has not only developed to be an effective communication tool, but also support social benefits, such as increasing ones self-‐esteem. Even simply browsing a social network, has proven to provide a momentarily increase in self-‐esteem (Wilcox & Stephen, 2013).

Self-‐Esteem

Self-‐esteem is a concept that has been researched for decades now. Development of the self-‐esteem concept is considered to be a complex process (Brisset, 1972). This research will implement the definition by Rosenberg et al. (1995), who define self-‐esteem as a global evaluation of self.

Where is the research of self-‐esteem heading? Rosenberg et al. (1995) found that global self-‐esteem is more related to psychological well being, whereas specific self-‐ esteem involves behavioral predications in academic settings. This is considered to be valid when self-‐esteem is considered to be a cause or an outcome. They re-‐defined their definition of global self-‐esteem as a positive or negative attitude towards the self as a totality (in general).

The main issue raised here is that global self-‐esteem and its components are integrated into an individual’s phenomenon as identifiable parts. Therefore, the different components of self-‐esteem should not overlap each other. Therefore, this research will implement the eight statements of self-‐esteem by Rosenberg et al (1995).

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Why will social network use affect self-‐esteem? Several research have found a positive influence of social network use on self-‐esteem, caused by different mechanisms. Chou and Edge (2011) found an effect of social network use on self-‐esteem by dividing communication mechanisms into computer-‐mediated communication and face-‐to-‐face communication. Computer-‐mediated communication prevents the formation of cues that are required for people to form impressions about others. According to Chou and Edge (2011), Facebook’s feature to have an online profile with pictures for selected friends, optimizes self-‐presentation. In their research, self-‐esteem was mainly increased by positive comments placed by friends of Facebook users. These effects have only been found through social network sites and not for offline settings. The study by Ellison et al. (2007) found that people act differently in social network settings in comparison to those acting in anonymous settings, which could be an explanation for this result.

Bargh et al. (2007) supported this finding; they found that people are more likely to form close relationships with people they have met on the Internet, when they are able to better express their ‘true self’ on the Internet than face-‐to-‐face. The effect is mainly caused because people are able to express their characteristics without being scared of disapproval by the person interacting with them. This ‘reduced risk of social sanction’ will better facilitate self-‐expression. Bargh et al. (2007) also showed that people are more comfortable while in a social network setting, because of the relative anonymity. This enables one to express oneself to behave in ways not available in the usual social sphere, forming close relationships with people met over the net. People will be motivated to make such expression a ‘social reality’, to have these acknowledged by others. Better facilitation of self-‐expression thereby reduces risk of social sanction and can increase one’s self-‐esteem.

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A longitudinal study by Steinfield et al. (2008) found a similar relation through analyzing social relationships with psychological well-‐being. Psychological well-‐being was measured through self-‐esteem, comparing two different groups (low -‐ and high self-‐esteem students). They found that Facebook use predicts the ability to ‘bridge’ new social relationships; the ability to stay connected. Students with low self-‐esteem, used Facebook in significant larger amounts than students with high self-‐esteem, to bridge social capital. Participants who viewed their profiles and updated their status had a larger increase in their self-‐esteem, in relation to those who did not browse on Facebook. Facebook therefore allows the increase of self-‐esteem through enabling a larger network of relationships.

Another explanation was given by Gonzales and Hancock (2010), who found that use of Facebook increased self-‐awareness, which had a direct effect on self-‐esteem. Feedback from friends provided publicly on a profile tends to be overwhelmingly positive, which can further boost self-‐esteem. This phenomenon was captured under the theory of Objective Self-‐Awareness (OBA), which measures how people focus attention on the self (Duval & Wicklund, 1972). In the state of objective self-‐awareness, people are vulnerable to self-‐evaluations based on social norms. As a result, photos and autobiographical information may cause downgrading of one self. To deal with this, selective self-‐presentation is used; where people can selectively choose what characteristics they want to emphasize. Therefore, Facebook profiles may provide a counter effect on the effect caused by traditional objective self-‐awareness and elicit a positive change in self-‐esteem instead. Being able to maintain a more positive self-‐view causes the increase of self-‐esteem. People manage their self-‐esteem by having the opportunity to remove embarrassing photos and delete status updates they have second thoughts about. This is in relation to those who did not browse on the Facebook.

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This brings us to the first hypothesis:

H1: Use of social networks will cause an increase in self-‐esteem.

The momentarily increased self-‐esteem may provide interesting implications. It was proven to affect financial spending and choice for unhealthy snacks. The investigation of self-‐esteem may allow us to gain insights into more effective strategies that are relevant to reducing social problems related to personal and economic costs.

Self-‐control

Wilcox and Stephen (2013) proved that the use of Facebook caused an increase in self-‐ esteem, but this resulted in reduced self-‐control. This was seen in the financial spending and choice for unhealthy snacks. Fedorikhin and Patrick (2010) showed similar results in their research, which looked at the influence of ‘elevated arousal’. They tested the relation between positive mood (motivation to maintain a goal) and resistance to temptation, of people under a baseline condition and under the condition of elevated arousal. It was found that elevated arousal (from e.g. listening to favorable music) interfered with the resistance to temptation, resulting in the consumer choosing an unhealthy food item. A similar result was later found by Wilcox and Stephen (2013), where the elevated arousal was the temporarily increase in self-‐esteem. In both cases it led to a reduced amount of self-‐control.

Self-‐control is defined as the exertion of control over the self by the self (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). An example of this perspective is given by Trope & Fishbach (2000) in their research about how anticipated temptations triggered a form of counteractive self-‐control. In order to measure this, self-‐control was measured among short-‐term (immediate but not lasting) and long-‐term outcomes (remote and longer lasting).

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Central to the self-‐control concept is also the idea of overriding by an act of willpower (Baumeister et al., 1994). They claim that people with high self-‐control are better able to control their thoughts and emotions. This often results in higher academic success and greater psychological well-‐being. On the contrary, people with low self-‐ esteem are often linked to obesity, criminality and procrastination. This means that immediate temptations may prevent people from acting according to their preferences. I predict that social network use causes being sensitive to immediate temptations, since the willpower is being interrupted:

H2a: Use of social networks will lead to having lower self-‐control in relation to those who do not use social networks.

Overall, research agrees that self-‐control involves the efforts people exert to achieve desirable responses and avoid undesirable responses (de Ridder et al., 2011). Therefore, the definition by de Ridder et al. (2011): ‘the capacity of the self to alter dominant responses and to regulate behavior, thoughts and emotions’.

In the context of social networks in relation to self-‐control, little research has been done. Engaging in forms of social networks has shown to benefit communication and social connection (Ito et al., 2008). Khan and Dhar (2006) find that a prior virtuous act can momentarily boost the self-‐concept, which leads to more self-‐indulgence in unrelated decisions. The authors demonstrate that a prior choice that activates a positive self-‐concept, acts as a license to choose a more self-‐indulgent option. The licensing effect operates by providing a temporary boost in the relevant self-‐concept. This licensing effect whereby a prior intent to be virtuous boosts respondents’ self-‐ concept, but reduces the negative self-‐attributions associated with the indulgent options (purchase of relative luxuries). In other words, the licensing effect was explained in terms of an increase in positive self-‐concept, which decreased the negative self-‐

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attributions associated with buying a luxury item (guilt) and hence increases its choice likelihood.

Similarly, Wilcox, Kramer, and Sen (2011) also analyzed the self-‐control concept through a pride mechanism. They showed that increased feelings of pride, when linked to increased self-‐esteem, resulted in more indulgent choices in subsequent tasks. It demonstrated that incidental pride influences long-‐term goals through dual processes that result in conflicting outcomes for consumer decisions: indulgent choices when promoting a sense of achievement and virtuous choices when promoting self-‐ awareness.

According to Wilcox & Stephen (2013) social online-‐networks can influence self-‐ control. Their research illustrated that the presentation of a positive self to others momentarily increases self-‐esteem. This leads them to display less self-‐control after browsing a social network compared to those not browsing a social network. Therefore, the enhanced self-‐esteem using a social network had a detrimental effect. Besides the study of Wilcox & Stephen (2013), no other studies examined a direct relationship between self-‐control and social network use. The current studies are related to what effects self-‐control has and what its mechanisms could be. The study by Wilcox and Stephen (2013) is the first to analyze social media use in relation to self-‐control. Wilcox and Stephen (2013) analyzed Facebook use by associating it with poor self-‐control in a number of domains: health, mental persistence, and spending/finances. The effects of social network use on self-‐control in the health were tested through the mechanisms unhealthy food choice, alcohol use and binge eating. Browsing on Facebook led to a more unhealthy choice of food, as a result of elevated self-‐esteem.

To illustrate this argument, Wilcox and Stephen (2013) compare the effect of social networks to the effect of alcohol. After consuming drinks, people tend to rate

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linked to poor self-‐control, due to an elevated feeling of self-‐worth that led to spontaneous behavior. Based on this, I predict that use of social networking will increase one’s self-‐esteem, lowering one’s self-‐control, and lead people to more indulgent activities. This prediction is based on research documenting a relationship between an increased self-‐esteem, increased by situational factors (due to social network use), and self-‐control. For example, while consumption of alcohol leads to people rating themselves higher, it has also been linked to lower self-‐control. Elevated feelings of self-‐esteem can therefore lead to indulgent behavior. Thus, it is proposed that the enhanced self-‐esteem from browsing a social network will momentarily lower self-‐ control, leading people to display less self-‐control after browsing a social network. Taking into account the above definitions and findings, the second hypotheses can be formulated as:

H2b: Use of social networks will lead to having lower self-‐control in relation to those who do not use social networks, because of the momentarily increased self-‐esteem.

In the study by Wilcox and Stephen (2013) it is not clear whether the effects are caused by the use of social networks or if any other situational or personality factors caused it. It was proposed that the extent to which social network use increases self-‐ esteem, depends on whom users are focused on while browsing. Studies have shown a connection between the personality of the user and the way he or she behaves online. Analyzing browsing behavior through personality provides interesting research results. Personality has been a dominating factor in understanding the browsing behavior of people. (Amichai-‐Hamburger et al., 2002). Therefore, this study tests this effect through measuring the use of Facebook for a more stable psychological feature; the implicit theory of personality.

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Personality Traits

Studies have shown a connection between the personality of the user and the way he or she behaves online. Personality traits and its relation to social network use have been researched already. Seidman (2013) examined the relationship between the Big Five personalities (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and Facebook use to fulfill belonging and self-‐ presentational needs. The Big Five model of personality has been used by various researchers (Amichai-‐Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Seidman, 2013; Ross et al., 2009). However, support for all of the five dimensions of personality was not found.

An explanation of why it didn’t work in the big five scenario was given by Baumeister et al. (2006). They recognized that self-‐control is a personality process to altering dominant responses. This is due to the fact that self-‐regulation failure is central to personality and social problems caused in modern communities. How does this evolve? Previous research implied that self-‐control is a limited resource of energy/strength. When these resources have been used, the individual enters a state of

ego depletion. In this state, further efforts of self-‐control are less successful. For

example, dieters are more likely to eat unhealthy when depleted. Thus, ego depletion occurs when people engage in self-‐control activities. Two implications of the strength model of self-‐control for personality were found; increasing self-‐control strength will reduce sensitivity to ego depletion and individual characteristics may interact with this phenomenon. For example, individuals may suppress tendencies to conform with social standards. Ego depletion reduced their efforts to alter behavior in order to confirm with the social standards set. The extent to which ego depletion occurs, depends on the strength of the desire. Therefore, personality and its individual differences play a role. In fact, desires from within tend to play a stronger role when people are in the stage of ego depletion. Thus, having the capacity of self-‐control is one of the most important

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personality traits. Since trait effects occur more strongly when in state of ego depletion, personality trait is a powerful trait in guiding consumer behavior.

More recent personality studies found support found support to the notion that personality does create an impact. From the various personality traits, this research will be using the implicit theory of personality. This is the most relevant personality study, because it addresses personality as a consistent and stable factor. Previous personality studies mostly focused on factors such as motivation and life satisfaction. However, these factors are subject to change as one can be less motivated or satisfied with life over time. The implicit theory addresses this issue by exploring people’s beliefs about the malleability and fixedness of personality traits.

Previous research on implicit theories (Dweck, 2000; Dweck & Leggett, 1998) has found implicit self-‐theories to be beliefs about the malleability of personalities. A recent study by Park and John (2010) found support for the argument that personality can cause an impact. Personality was divided into an entity versus incremental theory of personality. An incremental theorist perceives oneself as having an amendable character, but the self-‐view can be made better by ones efforts. This means that an incremental theorist is open to learning and development. On the other hand, entity theorists believe that his/her personality is fixed and cannot be improved through their own efforts. Therefore, in order to perceive the self in a positive way, the only opportunity is to signal ones positive qualities to others.

This relationship proved to be true in the domain of social interaction as well (Park & John, 2010). Their research found that believing in fixed self-‐attributes (entity theorist) was associated with a greater tendency to process information in terms of fixed traits. On the contrast, believing in malleable self-‐attributes (incremental theorist) a greater tendency to process information through variables that mediate performance.

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Therefore, these contrasting views influence the way individuals approach self-‐ enhancement.

As mentioned before, use of social networks will lead to a decrease in self-‐ control. This has been proved, but how personality can moderate this relation has not yet been proven. Seeing how personality can be manipulated by e.g. exposure to information, this research will focus on how personality will affect use of social networks on self-‐esteem and self-‐control. The implicit theory of personality is a suitable factor for this study, because it has been found to be applicable across overall personality domains, including social interaction.

Because incremental theorists believe that their personal qualities can be improved, through their own self-‐effort, they seek out to become better persons. This amendable character was also seen in social interaction; their information processing is oriented towards performance enhancement. Moreover, they are keen on self-‐ enhancement; they seek out opportunities to signal their positive qualities. Similarly, this preferred way is seen in their information processing. Therefore, their social network use could be to illustrate a better self-‐presentation, an opportunity to signal their positive qualities to the self (Park & John, 2010).

From a motivation perspective, it was proven that people use social networks to fulfill social needs, such as self-‐presentation. People who are usually low in life satisfaction enjoyed positive social benefits from browsing on social networks. Mostly emotionally unstable people relied on social networks for social support. Linking this phenomenon to the implicit theory of personality, it is logical to assume that such an effect is only possible for incremental personality. Since an incremental theorist has an amenable character and attempt to signal their positive qualities, social network use may be suitable for this. Therefore, I predict that they may be more sensitive to the effects caused by social network use and experience elevated self-‐esteem:

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H3a: Incremental theorists will positively moderate the effect of social network use on self-‐esteem.

When personality is viewed as a fixed amount of traits, researching personality may involve assessing its fixed underlying traits (Chui et al., 1997). Since these traits are seen as fixed, an analysis made during the performance of one task, should be predictive of behavior later on. Opposing incremental theorists, it is expected that entity theorists have greater cross-‐situational consistency. Moreover, since entity theorist ascribed importance to these traits, they should also be more confident in predicting judgments.

Ziegler and Stoeger (2010) analyzed the implicit personality theory in relation to self-‐esteem. They found that an entity theory of one’s own abilities does not generally lead to negative consequences, because it only produces negative consequences if a person shows ability deficits. It should produce positive consequences, however, if a person shows high abilities. Even in times of rejection, entity theorists were found to attribute stable negative. The entity theorists believe that his/her personality is fixed and this cannot be improved through their own efforts. They view personal qualities as something that cannot be changed through learning; it is a fixed internal characteristic. Therefore, one believing in an entity theory may lead to the conclusion that one’s own social labels and difficulties cannot be improved (Park & John, 2010). Thus, it seems logical to assume that they would not behave spontaneously different to the potential impact of the use of social networks:

H3b: Entity theorists will not moderate the effect of social network use on self-‐ esteem.

In this case, the personality factor is measured by distinct beliefs in entity/incremental theory. Similarly, personality can be linked to self-‐control. Regardless of the amount of literature available on self-‐control, limited research has connected personality traits with self-‐control.

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Recall from the previous discussion that self-‐control could be seen a personality process to altering dominant responses (Baumeister et al., 2006). The main implications found were that increasing self-‐control strength will reduce sensitivity to ego depletion (reached when limited resource of energy/strength is accessed) and individual characteristics may interact with this phenomenon. Self-‐control involves the efforts people exert to achieve desirable responses and avoid undesirable responses (de Ridder et al., 2011). Therefore, self-‐control represents the capacity to resist temptation, especially those relevant to impulsive responses. From this perspective, self-‐control is the effort that is required to change behavior and can be enhanced by the willpower of strength. Therefore, it seems likely that personality will affect the relationship between use of social networks and self-‐control. However, not all personalities will cause the same effect.

A study by Burnette et al., (2012) focused on the implicit personality theory and self-‐ control. Their implicit theory perspective suggests that beliefs about the malleable versus fixed nature of human attributes influence self-‐control processes and outcomes They conceptualized self-‐control through goal setting in terms of performance and learning. Incremental theorists were likely to set learning goals, whereas entity theorists set performance goals. The present findings suggest that incremental theories correlate negatively with helpless-‐oriented strategies. Incremental theories, relative to entity theories, predict weaker tendencies toward negative emotion. In other words, incremental and entity theorists seek different means for reaching their goals.

Given the fact that incremental theorists seek opportunities for self-‐ improvement through learning and growth, they will be more likely to be affected through the use of social network. This effect is likely to be find to those who have an amendable character, that could increase sensitivity through social network use:

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H4a: Incremental theorists will positively moderate the effect of social network use on self-‐control.

Consequently, when it comes to self-‐control, it was suggested that entity theorists are especially likely to set goals oriented towards avoiding failure in performance domains (Burnette et al., 2012). It is hypothesized that entity theorist set goals on performance and report more confidence to complete a task, because they exhibited a response to master failure. Since, entity theorists have a fixed and more confident personality, one of the most immediate consequences of believing that ability is fixed (entity beliefs) is that people will try to demonstrate that they possess the ability in question. This should make them immune to the possible effects caused by social network use. Therefore, it can be assumed that they are not sensitive to the effect of social network use on their self-‐control:

H4b: Entity theorists will not moderate the effect of social network use on self-‐ control.

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Conceptual Model

The research can be illustrated by using the following conceptual model:

Figure 1: Conceptual Model – Master Thesis

Use of Social Networks

Self – Esteem (H1) Personality (H4) § Incremental (H4a) § Entity (H4b) Personality (H3) § Incremental (H3a) § Entity (H3b)

Self -‐ Control (H2a)

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Methodology

An experiment through an online survey was conducted to explore the hypotheses. This addressed how the personality factor affected the impact caused by social network use on individuals’ self-‐esteem and self-‐control.

Participants, Design and Procedure

Facebook is most used among young adults, however the respondents (N=150) consisted of people between 18 and 56 years (fellow students and acquaintances). The research question was answered by designing a research using an online survey on Qualtrics (appendix 1).

All participants were instructed that they would be asked questions about the task later in the session, to ensure that they were sufficiently engaged. Convenience sampling was used and thus the data was gathered through social media and close to hand employees. From the 150 responses received, some of the data were missing, in particular, the last section of the survey that measured self-‐control through tasks and the self-‐esteem after use of social networks (remaining n=98).

Before participants started the online survey, they were first presented with a welcoming and a short introduction. The general objective of the study was introduced here and it was explained that the online experiment consists of three parts. Participants were asked to answer an online survey measuring their self-‐esteem and personality, prior to browsing on the social network. This survey also measured their use of social networks, by asking them how often they log into their Facebook profile and how many hours they spend on the network (estimation). The study was tested through an online survey, which consisted of six parts.

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First, participants gave a general indication on their age, gender, nationality and social network use (frequency and time spent online). In the second part, participants indicated their personality by responding to eight statements from the study of Levy et al. (1998). Part three of the online survey measured the self-‐esteem of the participants using the Rosenberg scale (1989), addressed as ‘feelings’.

Next, (part four) participants were administered a Facebook task using the method by Wilcox and Stephen (2013). This involved browsing on Facebook or the CNN website (no Facebook condition). The main limitation by this study is that there was no interaction with friends, only browsing content. To overcome this limitation, Facebook users were given the task to take note of upcoming birthdays of their friends. This task was given to ensure participants actually search on their Facebook profile and were sufficiently engaged. It created the significant cofound into the manipulation since the CNN website readers were given the task to read the latest news for five minutes. The variable use of Social networks was manipulated, by limiting access to Facebook for the group of users in the CNN condition. Before continuing to the next question, both groups were asked to indicate the amount of time they spent online (in minutes).

Part five measured self-‐control through three questions involving consumer choices. After browsing, self-‐control was measured based on the study of Wilcox and Stephen (2013). Participants’ self-‐control was measured through food choice and in a scenario. Question 5a measured self-‐control in the healthy food domain by presenting a the snack option of a granola bar or a chocolate chip cookie. They were shown a picture of a granola bar and a chocolate chip cookie. For this measure, preference for the unhealthy (granola bar) cookie indicates a lower self-‐control. It was also measured which option participants viewed as healthier; this tested whether the eating the unhealthy cookie opposed a long-‐term of being healthy. Greater preference for the cookie was recorded as low self-‐esteem.

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Self-‐control was hence tested as when a short-‐term outcome, opposes a long-‐ term outcome (i.e. eating unhealthy cookies provides satisfaction but opposes being healthy in life). From this perspective, self-‐control is seen as the ability to resist temptation; those with low self-‐control are more likely to give into temptation since the long-‐term costs of their behavior are difficult to access (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). Self-‐control in this tradition thus concerns sacrificing short-‐term interests for long-‐term needs (Question 5b-‐5c, appendix 1).

Finally, in part six participants answered questions regarding self-‐esteem once more, to ensure the manipulations held. None of the participants were informed about the true nature of the research question.

Measures

For the item Use of Social Networks, frequency and hours spent on Facebook were indicated by participants (appendix 1). The online survey measured the personality traits (i.e. incremental or entity) through four statements that represented the entity theory and four statements that represented the incremental theory. These statements were measured across the Likert scale from “Strongly Disagree” (1) to “Strong Agree” (7) (Levy et al., 1998). This ‘domain-‐general measure’ measures people’s underlying theories of their social world directly. This measure was used because it summarized a variety of attributes to measure personality in a general way (Appendix 1). These responses are used to identify whether participants comply with the entity/implicit theory.

Part three of the online survey measured the self-‐esteem of the participants using the Rosenberg scale (1989). Robson (1988) suggested that self-‐esteem involves global evaluations; we tend to have a global opinion about our ‘worth’ in general. However, there is a lack of global measures of self-‐esteem. The only proven global scale

Understanding behavior on social networks : the moderating role of personality in social network : use on self-esteem and self-control

Master Thesis