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Purchase PDF Access through another institution Personality and Individual Differences Volume 149, 15 October 2019, Pages 21-30 Narcissism and romantic relationship presentation on social media: The role of motivations and partner attractiveness Gwendolyn Seidman, Allison Roberts a, Virgil Zeigler-Hillb Show more + Add to Mendeley Share "Cite https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.05.039 Get rights and content > Abstract Two studies assessed the associations that narcissistic admiration (an agentic form of narcissism characterized by assertive self-enhancement and self-promotion) and narcissistic rivalry (an antagonistic form of narcissism characterized by self-protection and self-defense) have with self-enhancing and communal motivations for sharing romantic relationship information on social media, and how the partner's physical attractiveness relates to the likelihood of sharing this information. In Study 1, 248 participants reported on their actual relationships. In Study 2, 423 participants evaluated hypothetical partners whose physical attractiveness was experimentally manipulated. In both studies, narcissistic rivalry was associated with greater self-enhancing motivations. In Study 1, narcissistic admiration was associated with greater self-enhancing and communal motivations for sharing the relationship. In both studies, narcissistic individuals were not more likely to share their relationships if their partners were physically attractive. Study 2 provided some evidence that both narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry were associated with a preference for sharing sexy photographs of one's partner, depending upon the operationalization of the preference. Introduction During the past 10 years, social networking sites (SNS) - including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram - have become a common part of people's lives. Approximately 69% of American adults have a profile on a SNS, amounting to a greater than three-fold increase in 10 years (Pew Research Center, 2018). About 60% of Instagram and Snapchat users and 74% of Facebook users visit these sites daily, with about half visiting them multiple times each day (Smith & Anderson, 2018). The tremendous popularity of SNS, along with the opportunities they provide for self-presentation and self-enhancement, have led both popular media and psychologists to take an interest in how narcissism relates to SNS use (Campbell & McCain, 2018). Narcissism is characterized by a grandiose view of oneself, self-centeredness, and a sense of entitlement (e.g., Dowgwillo, Dawood, & Pincus, 2016; Miller, Lynam, Hyatt, & Campbell, 2017; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). A large body of research concerning narcissism has focused on its connections with various aspects of romantic relationships. Narcissism is associated with numerous difficulties in long-term relationships (e.g., Brunell & Campbell, 2011; Wurst et al., 2017), such as taking a game-playing approach to relationships (Campbell, Foster, & Finkel, 2002), devaluing romantic partners (Campbell, Rudich, & Sedikides, 2002), and pursuing self-enhancement at the cost of personal relationships (Sedikides, Campbell, Reeder, Elliot, & Gregg, 2002). Despite great interest in how narcissism relates to both SNS use and romantic relationships, no research has closely examined how narcissists present their romantic relationships on SNS. The only study to touch on this subject asked participants about the frequency with which they posted about their relationship on Facebook and found no association with narcissism (Marshall, Lefringhausen, & Ferenczi, 2015). This is an important issue because an emerging literature shows that SNS play a significant role in romantic relationship processes (Billedo, Kerkhof, & Finkenauer, 2015; Lefebvre, Blackburn, & Brody, 2015). The question of how narcissistic individuals present their romantic relationships on SNS is still open. On the one hand, they may choose not to present their relationships because it would pull focus away from themselves. On the other hand, they may want to use their successful relationships or desirable partners to seek admiration from others. This suggests that motivations of narcissistic individuals for sharing relationship information may be an important factor in understanding how they present their relationships on SNS. According to the Agency Model of Narcissism (Campbell, 1999; Campbell, Brunell, & Finkel, 2006), narcissistic individuals choose physically attractive partners to enhance their status. Social media provides an excellent testing ground for this hypothesis. Narcissistic individuals prefer more physically attractive partners and are more satisfied when they obtain attractive partners (Seidman, 2016). These findings generally support the notion that attractive partners help narcissistic individuals achieve self-enhancement goals. However, narcissistic individuals may prefer attractive partners simply because they find them more inherently appealing, rather than because they satisfy self- enhancement goals. Because social media allows users to publicly display their relationship, it contains a strong self-presentational element. In addition, narcissistic individuals may be more willing to admit that their motives for sharing relationship information on social media are self-enhancing than they would be to admit that self- enhancement is a reason for being in a relationship with their partner. Given the need to directly assess narcissists' motivations for SNS use (Campbell & McCain, 2018), the present research will examine self-enhancing and communal motives for sharing relationship information on SNS and the extent to which they are associated with narcissism. In a test of the agency model (Campbell et al., 2006), this research will also examine the role of partner physical attractiveness in predicting relationship presentation on SNS. According to the Agency Model, narcissistic individuals employ a self-regulatory system designed to enhance and protect their grandiose sense of self (Brunell & Campbell, 2011; Campbell et al., 2006). Thus, much of their social interaction is in service of impressing others. According to this model, narcissistic individuals have a preference for agency over communion. That is, they prioritize achieving status and dominance and are less concerned with goals involving the development of emotional intimacy or caring for others. They value agentic personal qualities, such as intelligence, success, and dominance more than communal qualities, such as morality, sensitivity, caring, and warmth (Brunell & Campbell, 2011; Campbell et al., 2006). Narcissistic individuals not only believe they possess high levels of these agentic traits (Campbell, Rudich, & Sedikides, 2002), but also desire more agentic traits in their romantic partners (Campbell, 1999; Seidman, 2016). Associating with people of high status - which is an important agentic characteristic - increases the sense of self-esteem and importance experienced by narcissistic individuals (Campbell, 1999). Thus, their ability to attract a desirable "trophy" partner helps them maintain inflated self-views. SNS allow users to selectively present themselves to their social network by maintaining a static profile and posting updates and photographs that can be viewed by other users in their network. Although some research has shown a correlation between narcissism and frequency of SNS use, a recent meta-analysis suggests that narcissistic individuals are not necessarily especially heavy SNS users (Gnambs & Appel, 2018). However, narcissism is associated with using SNS for specific reasons that involve expanding their social network and getting positive attention from others (Bergman, Fearrington, Davenport, & Bergman, 2011). Research has demonstrated that narcissistic individuals engage in self-promotion on social media. Carpenter (2012) found that narcissism was associated with self- presentational behaviors, such as posting photos of oneself and status updates. In a meta- analysis of studies examining social media use and narcissism, Gnambs and Appel (2018) found that self-presentation behaviors, as compared to other SNS activities, had the strongest associations with narcissism. There is also evidence that narcissistic individuals not only share a lot of self-focused information, but also share specific content that is self-promoting. Buffardi and Campbell (2008) found that narcissistic individuals engage in self-enhancing Facebook activity, such as having an attractive photograph and posting self-enhancing information. Mehdizadeh (2010) coded information on Facebook pages for self-promoting features, and found that such content was associated with narcissism. Narcissism is related to taking selfies (photographs of oneself that involve holding the camera at arm's length), especially those that reveal the body and do not include others in the photograph (Barry, Doucette, Loflin, Rivera-Hudson, & Herrington, 2017; McCain et al., 2016). In sum, there is ample evidence that narcissistic individuals use SNS for self- promotion. There are several SNS behaviors that involve romantic partners. Some sites, including Facebook, allow users to indicate their relationship status and link it to their partner's profile, sometimes referred to as making the relationship "Facebook official." When a relationship is "Facebook official", it allows one's social network to know who the user's romantic partner is. Linked profile status is associated with higher relationship satisfaction and commitment (Lane, Piercy, & Carr, 2016; Papp, Danielewicz, & Cayemberg, 2012). SNS users may also choose a dyadic profile photograph, which is associated with greater relationship satisfaction (Papp et al., 2012; Saslow, Muise, Impett, & Dubin, 2013). Users can share photographs or other information about their relationship on a regular basis, and this too is associated with greater satisfaction (Saslow et al., 2013; Seidman, Langlais, & Havens, 2019). There is evidence that these relationship displays are used to achieve relationship goals. Linked profile status is believed by social media users to be a sign of commitment and intensity (Fox & Warber, 2013). Frequent social media relationship displays are also associated with perceptions that social media can increase relationship closeness (Seidman et al., 2019). These findings suggest that improving or validating the relationship is a key motive for these displays. Campbell and McCain (2018) propose that social media serves self-regulatory functions for narcissistic individuals. According to this view, narcissistic individuals use SNS for either self-enhancement or self-protection. In addition, given that narcissistic individuals prioritize themselves over their partners (Sedikides et al., 2002), their relationship- oriented SNS behavior is likely to reflect their own self-promotion more than their desire to enhance relationship quality. Often these self-enhancement motives are assumed by researchers assessing the behavioral manifestations of self-enhancement that occur on SNS (Campbell & McCain, 2018). In fact, in a recent review of the literature, Campbell and McCain (2018) argue that researchers need to target motives more directly. Thus, the present research will assess the extent to which narcissism is associated with self- enhancing or communal motivations for sharing relationship information on social media. In the present research, we assess narcissism with the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire (NARQ; Back et al., 2013), a relatively new instrument designed to capture two separate, but related, dimensions of grandiose narcissism. Back et al. (2013) developed the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept (NARC), which proposes two dimensions of narcissism: narcissistic admiration, which is agentic and characterized by active self-promotion and enhancement, and narcissistic rivalry, which is antagonistic and characterized by defensiveness and self-protection. Both narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry help to maintain grandiose self-views. Narcissistic admiration is generally associated with relatively positive behaviors and outcomes, including stable self-esteem, positive self-perceptions on communal qualities, agentic interpersonal behaviors, and short-term personal appeal, whereas narcissistic rivalry is associated with relatively negative behaviors and outcomes, including unstable self-esteem, negative self-perceptions on communal qualities, malicious envy, hostile behaviors, and long-term relationship difficulties (e.g., Back et al., 2013; Geukes et al., 2017; Wurst et al., 2017). Moreover, narcissistic admiration is associated with greater long-term relationship quality and satisfaction, whereas narcissistic rivalry is associated with relatively poor outcomes for long-term relationships (Wurst et al., 2017). With its focus on narcissists' attitudes toward themselves and others, The NARC framework has been especially useful for understanding narcissists' behavior in and attitudes toward romantic relationships (Wurst et al., 2017), and thus will be the focus of the present investigation. Although both narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry are associated with self- enhancing tendencies, those individuals with higher levels of narcissistic rivalry may be especially prone to presenting their relationships on social media as a way to self- enhance because they may be aware that social media facilitates social comparison (e.g., Steers, Wickham, & Acitelli, 2014). Thus, social media would give individuals with higher levels of narcissistic rivalry an excellent opportunity to make their rivals feel inferior and to feel superior to their rivals. In addition, narcissistic rivalry is associated with more unstable self-esteem (Geukes et al., 2017), which may lead to social comparison reactions to others' SNS content that then prompt them to show off their relationships. The Agency Model (Campbell et al., 2006) proposes that narcissistic individuals use their romantic partners as a way to bolster themselves via association with a desirable partner. Thus, narcissism should be associated with self-enhancing motives for sharing one's relationship on social media. In addition, the self-serving attitudes toward relationships that characterize narcissistic individuals should lead them to be especially unlikely to share their relationship on social media for the sake of enhancing or affirming their relationship. However, because narcissistic admiration is associated with more positive relationship attitudes (Wurst et al., 2017), it may be related to relationship-enhancing, communal motives for SNS activity. Together, this existing research led us to two hypotheses regarding associations between narcissism and motivations for sharing relationship content on SNS: Hypothesis 1 Narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry will be positively associated with self- enhancing motives for sharing relationship information on SNS. Hypothesis 2 Narcissistic admiration will be positively associated with communal motivations, whereas narcissistic rivalry will be negatively associated with communal motivations. According to the Agency Model, narcissistic individuals desire attractive romantic partners because they believe these "trophy" partners will bring them admiration from others (Brunell & Campbell, 2011; Campbell et al., 2006). However, it is also possible that narcissistic individuals prefer these partners simply because they inherently value the trait and enjoy being with physically attractive partners. Social media provides a setting for testing the theory behind the Agency Model. If individuals with higher levels of narcissism are more likely than those with lower levels of narcissism to share relationship information to impress others or are more likely to share photographs of physically attractive partners, this suggests that their romantic partners are serving a self-enhancement purpose. This led us to the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 3 Individuals with higher levels of narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry will be more likely to share romantic relationship content on social media if their partner is physically attractive. Hypothesis 4 Narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry will be associated with a greater willingness to share photographs of one's partner wearing sexy rather than modest attire. Section snippets Participants and procedure Participants were 371 community members recruited from Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Participants were required to be currently involved in a romantic relationship, have a SNS account, and be under age 45. Data from 116 participants were eliminated for problematic response patterns: 16 for not completing the survey, 77 for failing at least one attention check, 26 for indicating they were single, three for stating that they do not use SNS, four for indicating that they were over 45, and 11 for not... Participants Participants were 466 undergraduates recruited from the subject pool at a large public university in the Midwestern United States. Data were eliminated for 41 participants due to problematic response patterns: 15 for not completing the entire survey and 26 for failing at least one attention check. The final sample included 425 participants (79 men, 345 women, 1 transgender) with a mean age of 19.94 years (SD = 3.08). The racial/ethnic composition of the sample was 76.1% White/Caucasian, 9.8%... General discussion Two studies assessed the extent to which narcissism was associated with self-enhancing and communal motivations for sharing one's romantic relationship on social media, and the extent to which the partner's physical attractive relates to the likelihood of sharing that relationship. In Study 1, participants reported on their actual relationships. In Study 2, participants evaluated a hypothetical partner whose physical attractiveness was experimentally manipulated, and for those evaluating a... Conclusion The present studies investigated whether narcissism was associated with how individuals share information about their romantic relationships through SNS. Our results showed that narcissistic rivalry was associated with a greater likelihood of sharing one's relationship for self-enhancing reasons. In contrast, narcissistic admiration was associated with self-enhancing and communal motivations for sharing information about the relationship when considering actual (Study 1) but not hypothetical... References (48) S.M. Bergman et al. Millennials, narcissism, and social networking: What narcissists do on social networking sites and why Personality and Individual Differences (2011) C.J. Carpenter Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and anti-social behavior Personality and Individual Differences (2012) B.L. Lane et al. 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Narcissistic admiration and rivalry: Disentangling the bright and dark sides of narcissism Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2013) C.T. Barry et al. "Let me take a selfie": Associations between self-photography, narcissism, and self-esteem Psychology of Popular Media Culture (2017) View more references Cited by (8) Social media-induced fear of missing out (FoMO) and social media fatigue: The role of narcissism, comparison and disclosure 2023, Journal of Business Research Show abstract v Narcissism and partner-enhancement at different relationship stages 2022, Journal of Research in Personality Citation Excerpt: ...Grandiose narcissists manifest their manipulative orientation, in part, by using close relationships to advance self-interest (Morf & Rhodewaldt, 2001; Sedikides et al., 2002). Specifically, they choose partners who are attractive, high in social status, and prone to returning admiration but not intimacy: The partners often serve as trophies, attesting to the narcissist's desired status (Campbell, 1999; Seidman et al., 2019). Also, narcissists frequently exhibit low relationship intimacy, investment, or commitment, display game playing and infidelity, are unapologetic, and are at high risk of divorce (Campbell, Brunell, & Finkel, 2006; Foster, Shrira, & Campbell, 2006; Lavner, Lamkin, Miller, Campbell, & Karney, 2016; Leunissen, Sedikides, & Wildschut, 2017; Wurst et al., 2017; Zeigler-Hill et al., 2019; Brunell and Campbell, 2011).... Show abstract In Search of Narcissus 2021, Trends in Cognitive Sciences Show abstract Match making in complex social networks 2020, Applied Mathematics and Computation Citation Excerpt: ...Match making is the process for matching people into pairs. It could happen for finding partners for romantic relation, sports games, business collaboration, etc [1-7]. While "match making" may have different meanings in different scenarios, in this work, match making means that each individual shall try to form up a pair with one, and only one, neighbor he/she has.... 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