Self-presentation vs. Narcissism
Very interesting and extended report by Buffardi and Campbell (2008), published by the
Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc. examines the issue of narcissism and how it is demonstrated on social network Web sites. Researchers gathered data from 156 undergraduate students' Facebook profiles, subsequently let strangers visit the Web pages and evaluated their impressions. Interestingly, these “strangers judged more narcissistic Web page owners to be more narcissistic” (p. 1303). In addition, different parts of the Web content had different effects on the viewers. Features like posted photos, social activities and overall self-presentation were the most influential. Furthermore the article examines the effects of web created narcissism on the social networking site’s members. Based on collected data and different correlations, the authors concluded that the way individuals portray and represent themselves on social networking Web sites and is not much different from the way “they behave in real, offline life” (p. 1312).
References:
Buffardi, L. E., & Campbell, W. K. (2008). Narcissism and Social Networking Web Sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Thousand Oaks. Vol. 34, Iss. 10. Retrieved January 4, 2009 from ProQuest database.
1 comment:
This is a terribly intersting phenomenon for me, in a saddest possible sense. As I understood the article suggests that the facebook pages reflect if their members have a narcisistic personality, but I would even suggest that it gives way for that personality to develope. What is indeed sad for me, is that facebook, or myspace, or any other social networking page, make it very easy for an individual to present themselves differently from who they are. To some extent it works a little bit like advertising, but we all know that advertising does not always reflect the real product accurately. What am I trying to get to is that I think it is very dangerous to let people get attached to their more improved virtual personality, because it then makes it very difficult for them to go back to reality. In the end I think this sort of behavior is what sometimes make such pages very addictive.
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