Narcissistic adolescents' attention-seeking following social rejection: Links with social media disclosure, problematic social media use, and smartphone stress
Keywords
NarcissismAttention-seekingSocial rejectionSocial media disclosureProblematic social media useSmartphone stress
Publication details
| Year: | 2019 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.chb.2018.10.032 |
| Issued: | 2019 |
| Language: | English |
| Volume: | 92 |
| Start Page: | 65 |
| End Page: | 75 |
| Editors: | |
| Authors: | Hawk S.; van den Eijnden R.; van Lissa C.; ter Bogt T. |
| Type: | Journal article |
| Journal: | Computers in Human Behavior |
| Publisher: | Elsevier BV |
| Topics: | Wellbeing; Risks and harms |
| Sample: | "Dutch adolescents in the first and second year of two schools for secondary education (grades 7 and 8( participated in two measurements waves, with a one-year interval between waves. " (Hawk et al., 2019, p. 68) "Of the 495 participants at T1, 307 (62%) were also included at T2. The final sample included 160 girls and 147 boys aged 12–15 at T1 (Mage = 12.87, SD = 0.75). The majority (95.8%) was born in the Netherlands and reported mothers (88.6%) and fathers (87.6%) to also be born in the Netherlands. Participants were following University preparatory education (24.8%), vocational education (40.7%), or a mixed curriculum."(Hawk et al., 2019, p. 68) |
| Implications For Educators About: | Other |
| Implications For Policy Makers About: | Other |
| Other PolicyMaker Implication: | Teach youth appropriate ways to cope with feelings of isolation to reduce narcissistic youth's social media attention-seeking |
Abstract
In line with a Dynamic Self-Regulatory Processing Model of narcissism (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001), the present study adopted a motivated self-construction perspective to examine longitudinal associations from adolescent narcissism to youth's social media disclosures, problematic social media use, and smartphone stress, respectively. Adolescents' attention-seeking motives were examined as a mediator of these over-time associations. In line with this model's account of self-image failure, we also expected that narcissistic youth's attention-seeking should increase following experiences of ego threat, such as social rejection. These hypotheses were tested with two waves of self-report data, spaced one year apart, among 307 adolescents aged 12–15 at T1 (Mage = 12.87, SD = 0.75). In line with predictions, earlier adolescent narcissism predicted later social media disclosure, problematic use, and smartphone stress, via increased attention-seeking. Furthermore, a significant interaction between narcissism and perceived social rejection at T1 predicted adolescents' outcomes at T2, via attention-seeking; Participants with a combination of higher narcissism and higher rejection at T1 reported higher levels of attention-seeking at T2. These longitudinal results suggest that narcissistic adolescents' attention-seeking on social media, particularly as a way to recover from social rejection, might backfire and ultimately contribute to an ongoing pattern of self-defeating behavior.
Outcome
"In line with predictions, adolescents scoring higher in narcissism reported more attention-seeking motives for their social media use at each time point. Earlier narcissism also predicted greater attentionseeking one year later. At T1, youth higher in narcissism also reported more social media disclosure (also observed at T2), problematic social media use, and smartphone stress. Furthermore, even when controlling for earlier levels of attention-seeking, a combination of higher initial narcissism and higher initial social rejection predicted more attentionseeking one year later. Finally, we found the expected indirect associations from earlier narcissism and the narcissism × rejection interaction to all three social media outcomes one year later, via increased attention-seeking" (Hawk et al., 2019 p.71)