Narcissism on Facebook Appearance and evaluation of narcissistic Facebook behavior

Kris Compiet 5740614

Thesis research Master Communication Science Graduate School of Communication University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Sindy Sumter Date: June 11, 2013

Preface This thesis is conducted in order to graduate from the Research Master Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam. Therefore, two studies were conducted and are presented as two individual academic papers. The first study concerns how narcissism is prevalent on Facebook and is in preparation for submission to the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. For this reason, the references and further lay out of the paper is conform the norms of this journal. The APA rules are applied in the second paper, concerning the evaluation of narcissism on Facebook by others. I would like to thank my supervisor Sindy Sumter for her constructive feedback in the past year. In enjoyed the whole process of writing this thesis a lot, partly due to her never ending enthusiasm. Thanks to her, I am now graduating as a research master student instead of a regular master student. I also would like to thank Helen Vossen for her feedback and her great contribution to the paper of the first study, which will hopefully be published someday soon.

Table of Contents

Study 1 Narcissism and Facebook behavior: craving admiration and expecting respect. ....... 7 Abstract ................................................................................................................................... 8 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 9 Method .................................................................................................................................. 13 Results .................................................................................................................................. 14 Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 15 References ............................................................................................................................ 18 Tables.................................................................................................................................... 20 Appendix A........................................................................................................................... 23 10-item Facebook Behavior Scale .................................................................................... 23 Appendix B ........................................................................................................................... 25 Subscales Narcissism Personality Inventory Scale ........................................................... 25 Study 2 Recognition and evaluation of narcissistic behavior on Facebook ........................... 27 Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 28 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 29 Method .................................................................................................................................. 33 Results .................................................................................................................................. 35 Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 40 References ............................................................................................................................ 44 Appendix 1 ........................................................................................................................... 46 Questionnaire .................................................................................................................... 46 Appendix 2 ........................................................................................................................... 48 Stimulus materials ............................................................................................................. 48

Study 1

Narcissism and Facebook behavior: craving admiration and expecting respect.

Journal: Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking Keywords: narcissism, Facebook, emerging adults. Authors: Compiet, K., Sumter, S.R. & Vossen, H.G.M. Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Word count: 2707

Author note Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to S.R. Sumter, Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam, Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam, the Netherlands. E-mail: S.R.Sumter@UvA.nl, Tel: 0031-205257174, Fax: 0031-20-5253681

Abstract The present study examined how two aspects of trait narcissism, Grandiose Exhibitionism (GE) and Entitlement and Exploitativeness (EE), are related to Facebook behaviors in a Dutch sample. GE relates to the desire to be in the center of attention, whereas EE refers to manipulative traits. Two hundred eighty seven emerging adults, aged 17 to 27 years, completed an online survey assessing different Facebook behaviors and personality characteristics, including narcissism, need for popularity, self-esteem and life satisfaction. Results showed that both GE and EE have unique relationships with Facebook behaviors. Emerging adults with higher levels of GE used Facebook more frequently, had a larger online community on Facebook and were more likely to use the social network site for selfpromoting purposes in their status updates, profile information and pictures compared to peers with low levels of GE. Moreover, emerging adults who scored high on EE were more likely to accept strangers as friends and were more likely to retaliate against negative feedback. These results provide evidence for how two aspects of trait narcissism are related to specific Facebook behaviors.

Introduction With over 1 billion active users worldwide1, Facebook has gained a prominent place in the lives of many emerging adults. Emerging adults, youngsters between 17-27 years old, are constructing their own identity, are self-focused and place great importance on their peer group.2 For this reason, Facebook can be considered particularly attractive for this specific age group. Through Facebook, emerging adults can expand or strengthen their social capital, which reflects the resources that become available through your social network.3 Social capital has several beneficial effects, for example better health, academic success and better quality of life.4 Although Facebook use can be considered beneficial, there may also be negative consequences. For instance, the increased usage of social network sites like Facebook, coincides with the observation that todays emerging adults are increasingly narcissistic. 5 6 In this light, some researchers emphasize that Facebook enables self-promoting behavior and maintenance of an excessively large network; characteristics which are associated with narcissistic personality traits.7 These authors argue that Facebook contributes to emerging adults becoming more narcissistic, and thus engaging in more narcissistic behavior both offline and online.7 One reason to worry about increasing narcissism is that offline narcissism has been linked to negative outcomes, e.g. poor relationships, hampered identity development and poor career chances.8 Consequently, we expect that emerging adults who engage in online narcissistic behaviors could be at risk to suffer similar negative consequences. Online narcissistic behaviors might be especially detrimental, as these behaviors are visible to a wide audience and are virtually inerasable. Before the social consequences of narcissism on Facebook can be investigated, it is important to further specify the relationship between

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Facebook and narcissism. For this reason, we investigated which Facebook behaviors are related to narcissism, and can thus be considered online expressions of narcissism. Narcissism In the present study, narcissism is viewed as a personality trait that individuals can possess in varying degrees and which occurs on a continuum.9 Narcissistic personality disorder represents the extreme end of this continuum. Narcissists1 have an inflated self-image and believe that they are special and unique. Furthermore, they are good at understanding the emotions of others (cognitive empathy) but are not affected by them (affective empathy), therefor they can easily manipulate others.10 Whereas narcissists crave attention and admiration, this lack of affective empathy often stands in the way of intimate relationships.9 Males are known to be more narcissistic than females.11 In addition, male narcissists are more likely to display grandiosity, extreme self-centeredness, and excessive need for admiration to establish their uniqueness, whereas female narcissists overinvest in (significant) others.12 Narcissism is sometimes wrongly seen as the equivalent of high self-esteem. While narcissists feel superior and will report high levels of self-esteem, their self-image is unstable and contingent on their environment.8 As a result, they will feel threatened and respond aggressively when their self-image is questioned by others.13 For this reason, studies on narcissism should always control for self-esteem.

In the present study the term narcissists is used to describe emerging adults who score relatively high on measures of narcissism.

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Narcissists and Facebook behavior Previous studies have shown that narcissists spend more time on Facebook, have more Facebook friends, were more likely to accept friendship requests from strangers, had a positive attitude towards having a lot of Facebook friends and looked more for social support on Facebook.7 9 1416 Moreover, narcissists also used Facebook more for self-promotion than non-narcissists, by means of pictures, profile information and status updates.7 9 15 17 They post more attractive pictures of themselves, sometimes edited in Photoshop,15 and believe that others are interested in what they are doing.9 Because narcissists self-esteem is constantly under great pressure, they can act defensively when their self-image is undermined by others. To protect their self-image, narcissists were found to monitor Facebook more often for comments about themselves and were more likely to react aggressively when they encountered negative comments.14 In addition, individuals high in narcissism provided less social support than they sought on Facebook.14 Although the studies described above demonstrate a consistent relation between narcissism and Facebook use, some critical issues can be raised. First, because of the lack of a standardized measure for the use of social network sites, most studies have developed their own measure of Facebook use. Often no reliability or validity statistics are provided for these measures. Carpenter (2012) did provide reliability statistics and results from confirmatory factor analysis for his Facebook use measures, however not for the entire scale. To further the field, it is crucial that measures used to assess Facebook behaviors are validated in different samples. For this reason, the current study will validate the entire scale developed by Carpenter (2012) and investigate its psychometric properties.14 The scale will be expanded to cover a broader range of Facebook behavior.

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Second, the studies described above mostly studied narcissism as a unitary construct in relation to Facebook behaviors. However, Ackerman and colleagues distinguish three dimensions of which two are maladaptive; Grandiose Exhibitionism (GE) and Entitlement and Exploitativeness (EE).18 Individuals who score high on GE, desire to be in the center of attention, cannot stand being ignored and want to promote themselves.18 They are vain, feel superior to others and have exhibitionistic tendencies. Individuals who score high on EE expect respect from others, without feeling the obligation for reciprocity. They manipulate and take advantage of others to achieve their individual goals.18 To the best of our knowledge, only one study has investigated how different dimensions of narcissism are linked to Facebook behavior, namely Carpenter.14 Replication is needed to validate these findings and therefor our second aim is to investigate whether the two dimensions of narcissism have unique relationships with Facebook behaviors. We specifically expect that Facebook behaviors aimed to attain an audience as large as possible and Facebook behavior aimed at self-promotion, is most strongly related to GE. Whereas, Facebook behaviors aimed at protecting narcissists self-image and controlling others is expected to be more strongly related to EE. Furthermore, although most studies corrected for self-esteem to rule out the potential of spurious effects, they ignore other variables that are known to relate to Facebook use or narcissism, such as need for popularity and life satisfaction. variables are included as covariables. Finally, as many studies are conducted among US samples
6 7 9 14 19

In the present study these two

or non-representative

samples (e.g. college or university students)6 7 9 14 15, external validity is limited. Our study uses an European (Dutch) sample with a wider distribution of age, gender and educational level.

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Methods Participants and procedure Three-hundred respondents, aged 17 to 27 years old, completed the entire survey. Ten respondents fell out of the specified age range and were excluded from data analysis as well as 3 respondents with over 1000 Facebook friends were deleted from the sample in order to control for outliers. This resulted in a final sample of 287 emerging adults with a mean age of 20.94 (SD = 2.75); 46.3% was female. The distribution of educational levels within the sample was as follows; 39.0% university, 19.4% higher professional education, 14.6% senior secondary vocational education, 21.0% pre-university education, 4.8% senior general secondary education and 1.3% pre-vocational secondary education. All respondents had a profile on Facebook. On average respondents had 279 friends on Facebook (SD = 139; range 0-793). All participants visited Facebook on a daily basis. Respondents were recruited via Facebook and e-mail and asked to complete an online survey administered through Qualtrics online survey software. At the start of the survey participants were informed that participation was voluntarily and anonymous. After providing consent, the survey was automatically started. Data collection took place in March and April of 2012.

Measures 10-factor Facebook Behavior Measure. The 10-factor Facebook Behavior Measure includes the four subscales that were originally presented by Carpenter14. These are 1) Frequency of Facebook use, 2) Facebook monitoring, 3) Social support seeking 4) Social support provision. To improve the breadth of the scale, we included three additional subscales and three single indicators. The subscales were partly based on existing scales. The subscales are 5) Attitude towards a large number of Facebook friends, 6) Self-promotion on Facebook19, 7) Self-promotion with Facebook pictures. The three single indicators were used to assess 8)

14

Number of friends, 9) Accepting strangers as friends and 10) Retaliation against negative feedback. The reliability, number of items, rating scale and example item for each subscale can be found in Table 1. Furthermore, the full scale is included as an Appendix. To determine the construct validity of the scale, we conducted a Confirmatory Factor Analysis using AMOS21. The original 10-factor model fitted the data adequately (CFI = .79, RMSEA = .07 90% CI [.06, .07]). However, we allowed errors to correlate within four subscales: Facebook use, self-promotion with pictures, self-promotion and social support seeking (see Appendix A for the items in the subscales). Hereafter, the model fit improved, X (737) = 1628.10, p < .001, CFI = .87; RMSEA = .05, 90%CI[.05, .06].

Personality characteristics. We measured narcissism with the shortened Narcissism Personality Inventory scale (NPI-16).20 Participants indicated to which extent they agreed with 16 statements, such as I am a special person. Grandiose Exhibitionism was assessed with 6 items, such as I like being in the center of attention. Entitlement and Exploitativeness was assessed with 8 items, such as I found it easy to manipulate people. Answers varied on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from totally disagree to totally agree. Appendix B shows the items of both subscales. Moreover, participants completed the 7-item Need for Popularity scale (NFP)19, the 16-item Rosenberg self-esteem scale (SE)21 and the 5-item Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS).22 Answers to these scales varied on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree(5). Detailed information on all personality characteristics measures can be found in Table 2, including mean, standard deviation, Cronbachs alpha, and number of items that made up each scale.

Results To test the relationship between the two dimensions of narcissism and Facebook behaviors, we conducted multivariate regression analyses. The analyses included Grandiose

15

Exhibitionism (GE), Entitlement and Exploitativeness (EE), Need for Popularity (NFP), Selfesteem (SE) and Life Satisfaction (LS) as predictors and the Facebook behaviors separately as outcome variables. The standardized results from all multiple regression analyses are presented in Table 3, including the explained variances per regression model. To avoid multiple testing effects, we applied Holm-Bonferroni correction23 when interpreting the results.

Grandiose Exhibitionism on Facebook As hypothesized, scores on GE were positively related to Facebook use (B = .35, SE = .12, p < .01), number of Facebook friends, (B = 65.76, SE = 20.09, p <.01), self-promotion on Facebook (B = .27, SE = .08, p < .01) and self-promotion with pictures on Facebook. (B = .25, SE = .07, p < .01). The effects of GE on accepting friendship requests from strangers, social support seeking and attitude towards a large number of Facebook friends were not significant when controlled for NFP, SE and LS. Entitlement and Exploitativeness on Facebook EE was positively related to retaliation against negative feedback (B = .64, SE = .15, p < .001) and accepting friendship requests from strangers (B = .26, SE = .09, p < .01). We did not find significant effects of EE on Facebook monitoring and on the difference between social support seeking and -provision when controlled for NFP.

Discussion The aim of this study was to investigate how narcissism is related to Facebook behaviors among emerging adults. We were particularly interested in two dimensions of narcissism, Grandiose Exhibitionism (GE) and Entitlement & Exploitativeness (EE). Although this relationship has been investigated in a prior study,14 we need replication in

16

diverse samples to further the field and better understand how personality characteristics effect online behaviors. The current study extended Carpenters14 results by using a varied non-US sample and including additional control variables, namely need for popularity and life-satisfaction. In addition, we expanded the Facebook behavior scale presented by Carpenter14. Since the measurement model yielded valid and reliable results, these constructs can be considered as a useful instrument to measure Facebook behavior in future research. As expected, emerging adults who reported high levels of GE used Facebook on a large scale possibly to get as much attention as possible. They spent more time on Facebook, had more Facebook friends and were more likely to use Facebook and their Facebook pictures for self-promotion. As expected, emerging adults who reported high levels of EE were more likely to retaliate against negative feedback on Facebook. Since narcissists ego is dependent on the admiration of others, online negative feedback might be experienced as especially threatening.13 It is important to note that these findings remained significant, even when controlled for need for popularity, self-esteem and life satisfaction. These results can be understood in light of Uses and Gratification theory which states that media users actively and selectively look for information and entertainment to satisfy a certain need.24 In the case of grandiose exhibitionists, Facebook is used to get attention and admiration. Facebook users scoring high on Entitlement and Exploititaveness, use Facebook in order to retaliate against negative feedback and maintain their inflated self-image. Although the EE aspect of narcissism implies that narcissists expect support from others without feeling the obligation for reciprocity,18 we did not find a negative correlation between narcissism and the difference between social support seeking and social support provision. Moreover, we did not find a significant effect of narcissism on monitoring for

17

comments, nor did we find a relationship between narcissism and the attitude towards having many Facebook friends. These results are in contrast to what could be expected from previous studies.14 It should be noted that when we did not control for need for popularity, GE was related to the attitude towards having many friends on Facebook and EE was related to Facebook monitoring. This indicates that previously found effects of narcissism on the attitude towards having many friends and monitoring for comments might not exclusively be related to narcissism. These findings underline the importance of taking into account additional personality characteristics, when studying the relationship between narcissism and Facebook behavior. Although this study provides further evidence that narcissism is related to Facebook behavior, there are some limitations that should be mentioned. The current study solely used self-report measures. Future research should investigate Facebook behaviors with different methods, for instance obtaining more information through non self-reported measures like analyzing actual profile pages. Using non self-reported measures will control for social desirable answers and will provide more objective information about the behavior of respondents. The current study showed the two dimensions of narcissism to be related to specific behaviors on Facebook. The majority of Facebook behaviors were not related to narcissism. It is important to stress that we need to investigate Facebook behaviors in detail to understand its role in social relationships. Although we worry about the negative consequences of online expressions of narcissism, at the moment it is still unclear whether online expressions of narcissism have the same consequences as narcissism offline. A central question for future research can for example be whether and which expressions of narcissism on Facebook causes admiration narcissists so desperately crave for or only results in aversion from their peers.

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References 1 2 Key Facts - Facebook Newsroom . http://newsroom.fb.com/Key-Facts. Jeffrey J. Arnett. (2006) Emerging Adulthood : The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties. New York: Oxford University Press. Ellison N, Steinfield C, Lampe C. The Benefits of Facebook Friends: Exploring the relationship between college students use of online social networks and social capital. Journal of Computer Mediated Communciation 2007;12:114368. Morrow V. Conceptualising social capital in relation to the well-being of children and young people: a critical review. Sociological Review 1999;47:74465. Tyler I. From the Me Decade to the Me Millennium: The Cultural History of Narcissism. International Journal of Cultural Studies 2007;10:34363. Twenge JM, Konrath S, Foster JD, Campbell WK, Bushman BJ. Egos inflating over time: a cross-temporal meta-analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality 2008;76:875902. Buffardi LE, Campbell WK. Narcissism and social networking Web sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 2008;34:130314. Thomaes S, Stegge H, Bushman BJ, Olthof T, Denissen J. Development and validation of the childhood narcissism scale. Journal of Personality Assessment 2008;90:38291. Bergman SM, Fearrington ME, Davenport SW, Bergman JZ. Millennials, narcissism, and social networking: What narcissists do on social networking sites and why. Personality and Individual Differences 2011;50:70611. Wai M, Tiliopoulos N. The affective and cognitive empathic nature of the dark triad of personality. Personality and Individual Differences 2012;52:7949. Foster JD, Campbell WK, Twenge JM. Individual differences in narcissism: Inflated self-views across the lifespan and around the world. Journal of Research in Personality 2003;37:46986. Morf CC, Rhodewalt F. Unraveling the Paradoxes of Narcissism: A Dynamic SelfRegulatory Processing Model. Psychological Inquiry 2001;12:17796. Baumeister RF, Bushman BJ, Campbell WK. Self-Esteem, Narcissism, and Aggression: Does Violence Result From Low Self-Esteem or From Threatened Egotism? Current Directions in Psychological Science 2000;9:269. Carpenter CJ. Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and anti-social behavior. Personality and Individual Differences 2012;52:4826.

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Mehdizadeh S. Self-presentation 2.0: narcissism and self-esteem on Facebook. Cyberpsychology behavior and social networking 2010;13:35764. Ryan T, Xenos S. Who uses Facebook? An investigation into the relationship between the Big Five, shyness, narcissism, loneliness, and Facebook usage. Computers in Human Behavior 2011;27:165864. Ong EYL, Ang RP, Ho JCM, et al. Narcissism, extraversion and adolescents selfpresentation on Facebook. Personality and Individual Differences 2011;50:1805. Ackerman RA, Witt EA, Donnellan MB, Trzesniewski KH, Robins RW, Kashy DA. What does the narcissistic personality inventory really measure? Assessment 2011;18:6787. Utz S, Tanis M, Vermeulen I. It is all about being popular: the effects of need for popularity on social network site use. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking 2012;15:3742. Ames D, Rose P, Anderson C. The NPI-16 as a short measure of narcissism. Journal of Research in Personality 2006;40:44050. Rosenberg M. (1965) Society & the Adolescent Self-Image. Darby: Diane Publishing Company. Diener E, Emmons RA, Larsen RJ, Griffin S. The Satisfaction With Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment 1985;49:715. Holm S. A simple sequentially rejective multiple test procedure. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics 1979;6:6570. Ruggiero TE. Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century. Mass Communication and Society 2000;3:337.

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Tables Table 1. Means, standard deviation, reliability, number of items, range and examples for the 10 factor Facebook Behavior Scale. Measure Frequency Facebook use M 3.83 SD .83 .75 Number Range Example item of items 7 1-9 How often do you update your Facebook status? I use Facebook to see what people are saying about me. Posting something on Facebook is a good way to express myself. When I see a friend is upset, I use Facebook to post a comforting comment

Facebook monitoring

2.55

.81

.70

1-5

Social support seeking

1.87

.81

.87

1-5

Social support provision

2.61

.92

.84

1-5

Difference between seeking and providing social support Attitude towards a lot of Facebook friends Self-promotion on Facebook Self-promotion with Facebook pictures Number of friends Accept friendship requests from strangers

-.74

.88

3.01

.74

.72

1-5

2.93

.64

.82

1-5

2.99

.63

.69

1-5

279.45 1.32

139.18 .60

1 1 1-4

Retaliate against negative feedback

2.06

1.07

1-5

Having a lot of Facebook friends is important to me How I present myself on Facebook is important to me. Having an attractive profile picture is important to me. How many Facebook friends do you have How often do you accept friendship requests from strangers? How likely is it that you would make a mean comment on someones status if they said something negative about you on Facebook?

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Table 2. Means, standard deviation, reliability and number of items for Personality Characteristics.

Measure Narcissism Grandiose Exhibitionism Entitlement and Exploitativeness Need for popularity Self-esteem Life satisfaction

M 2.92 2.89 2.96 1.95 3.72 3.44

SD .51 .60 .62 .66 .65 .87

.83 .70 .78 .81 .90 .87

Number of items 16 6 8 7 10 5

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Table 3. Regression analyses with GE, EE, NFP, SE and LS as predictors of Facebook behaviors (betas and level of significance reported) Frequency of Facebook use Facebook monitoring Social support seeking Social support provision Attitude towards having many friends Self-promotion on Facebook Self-promotion with pictures Number of friends Accepting requests from strangers Retaliation against negative feedback Difference social support seeking and provision

GE

.27**

.16

.13

.08

.16

.26**

.18**

.31**

-.15

-.13

.04

EE -.09 .19 .09 -.07 -.01 .18 .14 -.01 .23** .36*** .16 NFP .17* .22*** .15 .24*** .21** .22*** .34*** .00 .09 .06 -.10 SE .01 -.11 -.20 -.10 .08 -.04 -.05 -.09 -.08 .11 -.09 LS .00 -.03 -.01 .10 -.09 .06 -.03 -.02 -.02 -.13 -.10 Adjusted .07 .19 .10 .05 .08 .25 .26 .07 .03 .09 .04 R Note. **p <.01, *** p <.001. All predictors were included in one model. GE = Grandiose Exhibitionism, EE = Entitlement & Exploitativeness, NFP = Need for Popularity, SE = Self-Esteem, LS = Life-Satisfaction.

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Appendix A 10-item Facebook Behavior Scale 1) Frequency of use14 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. How often do you use Facebook? How often do you update your status? How often do you update your profile information? How ofen do you post pictures of yourself? How often do you change your profile picture? How often do you tag pictures of yourself? How often do you browse through profiles of others?

2) Facebook monitoring14 1. 2. 3. 4. I use Facebook to see what people are saying about me. I like to read my Facebook newsfeed to see if my friends have mentioned me. It is important to me to know if anyone is saying anything bad about me on Facebook. I usually know what people are saying about me on Facebook.

3) Social support seeking14 1. Whenever I am upset I usually post a status update about what is bothering me. 2. If something made me sad, I usually post a comment about it on Facebook. 3. Posting a status update to Facebook is a good way to vent when something is bugging me. 4. If I post a Facebook status update about something that is bothering me, it makes me feel better. 5. I use Facebook to let people know that I am upset about something. 4) Social support provision14 1. I use Facebook to offer emotional support to people I know when they are feeling upset about something. 2. If I see someone post a Facebook status update that indicates they are upset, I try to post a comforting comment on their status. 3. It is important to me to try to cheer up my friends by commenting on their Facebook status updates when it appears that they feel distressed. 4. I try to make people feel better by commenting on their Facebook status when I can tell they are having a bad day. 5) Attitude towards having many friends 1. Having many friends on Facebook is important to me. 2. Having many friends on Facebook is fun.

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3. Having many friends on Facebook is desirable. 4. Having many friends on Facebook is useful. 6) Self-promotion19 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. The Internet allows me to present myself in a favourable way. I see Facebook as a tool to present myself in a positive way. I think it's good that people can find information about me on Facebook. Everyone finds it interesting what I post on Facebook. Others want to know what I am doing. I find it important that my friends know what I am doing. I like Facebook because more people can notice me. I use Facebook to influence my image.

7) Self-promotion with pictures 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Having an attractive profile picture is important to me. I think its important that I look professional on my Facebook pictures I think its important that I look happy on my Facebook pictures I think its important that I look sexy on Facebook pictures I think its important that I look though on Facebook pictures. I think its important that my Facebook pictures look fun.

8) Number of friends 1. How many Facebook friends do you have? 9) Accepting strangers as friends 1. How often do you accept friendship requests from strangers? 10) Retaliate against negative feedback 1. How likely is it that you would make a mean comment on someones status if they said something negative about you on Facebook?

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Appendix B Subscales Narcissism Personality Inventory Scale

Grandiose Exhibitionism 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. I know that I am good because everybody keeps telling me so I like to be the center of attention I think I am a special person I am apt to show off if I get the chance It makes me uncomfortable to be the center of attention (reversed) Everybody likes to hear my stories

Entitlement and Exploitativeness 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. I find it easy to manipulate people I insist upon getting the respect that is due me I like having authority over people I expect a great deal from other people I am more capable than other people People always seem to recognize my authority I can make anybody believe anything I want them to I think I am a special person

Other (excluded from the subscales) 1. I always know what I am doing 2. People always seem to recognize my authority 3. I am much like everybody else (reversed)

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Study 2

Recognition and evaluation of narcissistic behavior on Facebook

Authors: Compiet, K. & Sumter, S.R. Keywords: narcissism, Facebook, gender, communal traits, agentic traits, happiness. Word count: 4046 Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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Abstract The present study examined how narcissism on Facebook is perceived by others at first sight. In an experiment, 75 participants aged 15 to 50 years rated manipulated Facebook profiles of 4 different profile owners. The profiles differed in narcissism (narcissistic profile versus neutral profile) and gender of the profile owner. The profiles were rated on perceived narcissism, communal traits, agentic traits and happiness. As communal trait, we included agreeableness in the study. Agentic traits were confidence, assertiveness, intelligence and entertainment. Results showed that narcissistic profile owners were rated as more narcissistic, confident, assertive but as less agreeable, intelligent and entertaining than their neutral counterparts. Gender moderated the effect of narcissism on happiness: whereas narcissistic men were perceived as happier than neutral men, narcissistic females were perceived as less happy. Results indicate that narcissists are quite successful in getting respect on Facebook, but fail in getting liked at first sight. Future research should focus on the effects of narcissistic Facebook behavior on other personality traits and the effects of narcissism on Facebook on the long term.

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Introduction The increased usage of social network sites like Facebook coincides with the observation that todays emerging adults are increasingly narcissistic (Twenge, Konrath, Foster, Campbell, & Bushman, 2008; Tyler, 2007). Some researchers emphasize that Facebook enables self-promoting behavior and maintenance of an excessively large network; characteristics which are associated with narcissistic personality traits (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008). Narcissists have an inflated self-image and believe they are special, unique and superior to others (Bergman, Fearrington, Davenport, & Bergman, 2011). Narcissists are constantly looking for confirmation of their inflated self-image as their self-esteem depends on the admiration of others (Thomaes, Stegge, Bushman, Olthof, & Denissen, 2008). As a result, they are known to have exhibitionistic tendencies (e.g., attention seeking and selfpromotion) and manipulate others to achieve their own goals (Ackerman et al., 2011). In line with the uses and gratifications theory (Ruggiero, 2000), narcissists use Facebook to gratify a certain need. Facebook enables narcissists to keep a large social network, share about the happenings in their daily lives and, hopefully, receive the attention and admiration they desire. It is likely that these exhibitionistic and manipulative behaviors backfire and result in rejection rather than acceptation and admiration. Along these lines, offline narcissism has been related to negative outcomes, e.g. poor relationships, hampered identity development and poor career chances (Thomaes et al., 2008). We aim to investigate whether emerging adults who engage in online narcissistic behaviors could be at risk to suffer similar negative consequences. We are specifically interested whether these adults are positively or negatively evaluated by peers. Online narcissistic behaviors might be especially detrimental, as these behaviors are visible to a wide

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audience and virtually inerasable. Thus, in this study, we will investigate how online expressions of narcissism on Facebook are perceived and evaluated by others at first sight. Social consequences of narcissism To understand the role of online narcissism in social relationships, it is important to know how narcissism is related to other personality characteristics and how narcissists are evaluated in general. With reference to the former, narcissism is positively correlated to extraversion and openness, but negatively correlated with agreeableness (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). These characteristics can influence the way narcissists are evaluated by others. Narcissists may come across as enthusiastic and outgoing, but at the same time they might be perceived negatively since they play their self-interest above getting along with others. A second set of studies investigated how narcissists are perceived by others, studying the evaluation of narcissism both in offline and online settings (e.g. Back, Schmukle, & Egloff, 2010; Buffardi & Campbell, 2008; Malkin, Zeigler-Hill, Barry, & Southard, 2013; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001; Paulhus, 1998; Vazire, Naumann, Rentfrow, & Gosling, 2008). These studies show that the way narcissists are perceived can depend on the length of acquaintance. During first acquaintances, narcissists look for the admiration by others rather than for mutual liking (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Their manipulation tendencies might be effective at first acquaintance, but ineffective for the development of longer lasting social relationships (Back et al., 2010). In the present study, we will look at the evaluation of narcissists first acquaintance. Offline, the positive evaluation of narcissists at zero acquaintance came to light in an experiment conducted by Back et al. (2010). During four different experiments, narcissists were introduced and rated on interpersonal attraction. In all situations, the neat clothing,

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charming facial expression, self-assuredness of body movements and humorous verbal expression of actual narcissists led to popularity at first sight (Back et al., 2010). This finding was replicated in a study by Buffardi and Campbell (2008) who showed that real Facebook pages of narcissists were rated high on agentic traits (i.e. assertive, enthusiastic, confident), but low on communal traits (i.e. friendly, warm, likeable). Thus, at first sight, narcissists were seen as self-assured and content persons, but at the same time were not rated as either agreeable or sympathetic. In their study, Buffardi and Campbell (2008) used the real Facebook profiles of narcissists as stimulus material. Several Facebook page content features were influential in raters narcissistic impressions of the owners, including quantity of social interaction, main photo self-promotion, and main photo attractiveness. However, since in the study by Buffardi and Campbell (2008) real Facebook profiles are rated, the risk for confounding variables is present. One main limitation of the studies described above, is that none of the studies looked at the role of gender, whereas gender can be an important moderator in the relationship between narcissism and interpersonal relationships. For instance, narcissism was found to be positively associated with friendship qualities among adolescent boys, but not among adolescent girls (Zhou, Li, Zhang, & Zeng, 2012). Thus, narcissistic behavior might be more socially acceptable in males than in females. Furthermore, boys in same sex groups engage in more agentic behaviors, such as striving for mastery and power, whereas girls in girl groups engage in more communal behavior, such as striving for intimacy and connectedness (Maccoby, 1990). In addition, we know that gender divergent behavior is negatively evaluated by others (Rudman & Glick, 2001). Individuals who violate gender stereotypes are often perceived unfavorably (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). For this reason, it is possible that the effects of narcissism on perceived agency and communion differs between males and females.

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This study In the present study, we want to investigate how narcissistic Facebook profiles are perceived at first sight. As previous research has shown that people can recognize narcissists rather easily using only some basic cues, for example on the basis of a picture, we expect that narcissistic online profiles will be rated as more narcissistic than neutral profiles (Vazire et al., 2008). As previous studies found that narcissists at first sight were rated high on agentic traits, but low on communal traits, we will look at the differences in perceived agentic traits (i.e. confidence, intelligence and assertiveness) and communal traits (i.e. agreeableness) between narcissistic and neutral Facebook profiles. Moreover, since narcissists are very skilled to look popular and successful on social network sites (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008), we will in addition look at the effect of narcissism on perceived happiness. We expect that narcissists on Facebook are rated higher on agentic traits and perceived happiness, but lower on perceived agreeableness. Furthermore, we will investigate the moderating role of gender. We expect that the effect of narcissism will be more pronounced for women than men. In this light, we expect that the negative effect of narcissism on agreeableness to be stronger for women than for men. The positive effect of narcissism on agentic traits and happiness are expected to be stronger for narcissistic men than women. To keep the risk of confounding under control and avoid spurious effects, we will conduct an experiment with manipulated standardized Facebook profiles. Finally, we controlled for perceived attractiveness in our study, as we know that attractiveness plays a crucial role in how we perceive others. Specifically, attractiveness was included because it is known to correlate with our main outcome variables agreeableness, agency and happiness (Dion, Bergscheid, & Walster, 1972; Meier, Robinson, Carter, & Hinsz, 2010).

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Methods Participants In total, 105 respondents participated in the experiment. After excluding people who did not complete the full survey and participants who knew one of the profile owners they had to rate, the final sample included 75 respondents. The average age of the participants in the sample was 22.73 years old (SD = 5.17), and 48.0% was female. The distribution of educational levels in the sample was as follows: 45.3% university, 28.0% higher professional education, 5.3% vocational education, 18.7% pre university, 2.7% higher general secondary education. The majority of participants (96.0%) had a profile on Facebook and used Facebook on a daily basis (M = 7.21, SD = 1.45, range: 1 (never) to 9 (continuously)). Procedure Participants were recruited through e-mail and Facebook by the first author and received a link to the online survey on Qualtrics. Respondents rated four different Facebook profiles on several characteristics. At the end of the questionnaire respondents indicated if and which of the profile owners they knew. If one of the profile owners was an acquaintance of the respondent, the participants were excluded from further analyses. On the last page of the questionnaire, respondents were fully debriefed and informed that the Facebook profiles were fictional and made for purposes of the study only. Stimuli We created eight Facebook profiles of four emerging adults, two men and two women. For each emerging adult we created a Narcissistic and Neutral profile. These profiles were based on actual profiles from respondents who had participated in a previous study (Compiet, Sumter & Vossen, 2013). All profile owners gave their consent to use the

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customized profiles in the present study. Each profile consisted of the Facebook profile page and a selection of pictures. The Narcissistic and Neutral profile differed on three aspects, which were shown to be most strongly related to narcissism in a previous study (Compiet et al., 2013). Profile owners identifying information (i.e., names, names of friends, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers) was removed from their Facebook pages. A Narcissistic profile was characterized by 1) a larger number of Facebook friends (<200 for the neutral profiles versus >500 for the narcissistic profiles), 2) a higher frequency of Facebook use (number of Facebook updates), and 3) a larger number of self-focused pictures (a few versus predominantly portrait pictures). Appendix 1 provides examples of the stimulus material as used in the experiment. Based on these profiles we created a 2 (Profile Narcissism) by 2 (Profile Gender) mixed design. Thus, each respondent rated four profiles, i.e. a narcissistic man, a narcissistic woman, a neutral man and a neutral woman. Each profile was rated on perceived narcissism, attractiveness, agreeableness, agentic traits and happiness. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions. Measures Table 1 provides an overview of the descriptive statistics of all constructs. The complete questionnaire is presented in Appendix 2. Narcissism To check whether the manipulation worked as intended, the participants rated the perceived narcissism of the profile owner. The items used to assess narcissism are based on the NPI-16 (Ames, Rose, & Anderson, 2006). Perceived narcissism was measured with three items, such as To which extent does this person seem cocky/modest to you. The items were measured on a 5 point Likert scale, with opposites on both sides. The items formed a reliable scale ( = .80).

35

Attractiveness. Attractiveness of the profile owners was measured with three items, such as To which extent does this person seem attractive/unattractive to you (based on McCroskey & McCain, 1974). The items were measured on a 5 point Likert scale, with opposites on both sides. The items formed a reliable scale ( = .92). Agreeableness. To measure the agreeableness of the profile owners, participants rated them on seven items, such as To which extent does this person seem friendly/unfriendly to you (based on the Reysen, 2005). The items were measured on a 5 point Likert scale, with opposites on both sides. The items formed a reliable scale ( = .85). Agentic traits (roughly drawn from Buffardi and Campbell, 2008). To measure the perceived agentic traits of the profile owners, participants rated them on 4 items, such as To which extent does this person seem confident to you. The items to measure agentic traits did not form a reliable scale ( = .58). For this reason, we included the agentic traits confident, assertive, intelligent and entertaining as single item measures in the analysis. The items were measured on a 5 point Likert scale with opposites on both sides. Happiness. Perceived happiness of the profile owners was measured the single item To which extent does this person seem happy/ unhappy to you. Answers varied on a 5 point Likert scale with opposites on both sides.

Results Table 2 provides an overview of the correlations between all dependent variables in the study. As expected, attractiveness was significantly correlated to all communal and agentic traits. For this reason, we included attractiveness as a covariate in the analysis.

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Table 1. Means, standard deviation, reliability, and number of items for constructs. Measure Perceived Narcissism Agreeableness Confidence Intelligence Entertaining Assertiveness Happiness Attractiveness M 3.22 3.32 3.64 3.38 3.23 3.25 3.25 3.04 SD .78 .58 .88 .95 .85 .85 .85 .89 .92 .80 .85 Number of items 3 7 1 1 1 1 1 3

Table 2. Correlations between all dependent variables in the study Measure

1 2 -.35** 3 .31** 4 5 6 7 8

1 Perceived Narcissism 1.00 2 Agreeableness 3 Confidence 4 Assertiveness 5 Intelligence 6 Entertainment 7 Happiness 8 Attractiveness

.35** .21** .40**

1.00

-.15* .51** .25**

.21** 1.00

-.20** -.04 .63** .26**

.10

-.12 .59** .36** .16** .53** .49**

.38** 1.00

1.00

.26**
1.00

.59** .39** .32** .29** .33**

1.00

.30**
1.00

Note: ** p< .01 * p < .05 (2-tailed)

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Narcissism To test the difference in rating between narcissistic and neutral Facebook profiles, we conducted a MANCOVA. Exposure to a narcissistic profile (narcissistic versus neutral) and the gender of the profile owner (male versus female) were the independent factors. The main dependent variables were narcissism, agreeableness as communal trait, confidence, assertiveness, intelligence and entertainment as agentic traits and happiness. The mean scores and standard deviations per group on all dependent variables are presented in Table 3. As expected, participants perceived the narcissistic Facebook profiles as more narcissistic than the neutral Facebook profiles, F(1, 269) = 148.33, p < .001, = .35. Moreover, male profile owners were rated as more narcissistic than female profile owners, F(1, 269) = 8.56, p = .004, = .03. We did not find a significant interaction effect between narcissism and gender on perceived narcissism, F(1, 269) = .58, p = .448. The positive effect of profile narcissism on perceived narcissism did not differ significantly between female and male profile owners. Communal traits Narcissistic profile owners were rated as significantly less agreeable than neutral profile owners, F(1, 269) = 30.13, p < .001, = .10. The gender of the profile owner did not have any effect on the perceived agreeableness, F(1, 269) = .43, p = .514. In addition, we did not find a significant interaction effect between narcissism and gender on agreeableness, F(1, 269) = 1.54, p = .216. The negative effect of narcissism on agreeableness for the profile owner did not differ significantly between female and male profile owners.

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Agentic traits Narcissistic profile owners were perceived as significantly more confident than their neutral counterparts, F(1, 269) = 10.65, p = .001, = .04. Male profile owners were perceived as more confident than female profile owners, F(1, 269) = 18.39, p < .001, = .06. However, the effect of narcissism on perceived confidence, did not differ between male and female profile owners, F(1, 269) = .48, p = .492. In addition, the MANCOVA yielded a significant effect of narcissism on assertiveness, F(1, 269) = 10.16, p < .01, = .04. Narcissistic profile owners were rated as more assertive than their neutral counterparts. Gender did not influence perceived assertiveness, F(1, 269) = .88, p = .350, nor did gender influence the effect of narcissism on perceived assertiveness, F(1, 269) = 1.38, p = .240. Narcissism had a negative effect on perceived intelligence, F(1, 269) = 8.40, p = .004, = .03. Narcissistic profile owners were rated as less intelligent and entertaining than their neutral counterparts. Gender did not influence perceived intelligence, F(1, 269) = .78, p = .377, or the effect of narcissism on perceived intelligence, F(1, 269) = 3.43, p = .065. In addition, narcissism on Facebook had a negative effect on perceived entertainment, F(1, 269) = 4.89, p = .028, = .02. Narcissistic profile owners were perceived as less entertaining than their neutral counterparts. Gender did not influence perceived entertainment, F(1, 269) = 3.19, p = .075, or the effect of narcissism on perceived entertainment, F(1, 269) = .87, p = .352. Happiness The MANCOVA did not yield a significant main effect of narcissism on perceived happiness, F (1, 269) = .75, p = .387. In contrast with our expectations, participants rated the

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narcissistic profile owners not as happier than neutral profiles owners. However, we did find a significant interaction effect of narcissism and gender on perceived happiness, F (1, 269) = 13.95, p < .05, = .02. Narcissism had a positive effect on perceived happiness for males, whereas for female profile owners, narcissism had a negative effect. Figure 1 displays this interaction effect. Figure 1. Interaction effect between gender and narcissism on perceived happiness
4 3,9 3,8 3,7 3,6 3,5 3,4 3,3 3,2 3,1 3 Neutral profile Narcissistic profile

Male profile owners Female profile owners

Table 3. Means and standard deviations of narcissism, communal and agentic traits in all conditions. Male Profile M (SD) Perceived narcissism Narcissistic Profile Neutral Profile Total Agreeableness Narcissistic Profile Neutral Profile Total 3.08 (50) 3.29 (.59) 3.18 (.55) 3.26 (58) 3.69 (.50) 3.48 (.58) 3.17 (.54) 3.49 (.58) 3.32 (.59) 3.77 (.55) 2.91 (.72) 3.35 (.77) 3.57 (.64) 2.59 (.57) 3.08 (.78) 3.67 (.60) 2.75 (.67) 3.22 (.78) Female Profile M (SD) Total M (SD)

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Table 3 (continued). Means and standard deviations of narcissism, communal and agentic traits in all conditions. Male Profile M (SD) Confidence Narcissistic Profile Neutral Profile Total Assertiveness Narcissistic Profile Neutral Profile Total Intelligence Narcissistic Profile Neutral Profile Total Entertaining Narcissistic Profile Neutral Profile Total Happiness Narcissistic Profile Neutral Profile Total Discussion The aim of this study was to investigate how narcissists on Facebook are perceived by others at first sight. Narcissists crave for admiration and respect from others, both offline and online. Facebook has been referred to as an ideal platform for narcissists to maintain their 3.68 (.71) 3.54 (.74) 3.61 (.73) 3.45 (.84) 3.78 (.76) 3.61 (.81) 3.57 (.78) 3.65 (.75) 3.61 (.77) 3.06 (.95) 3.14 (.86) 3.10 (.91) 3.18 (.80) 3.54 (.70) 3.36 (.77) 3.12 (.88) 3.34 (.81) 3.23 (.85) 3.07 (1.06) 3.14 (1.05) 3.11 (1.05) 3.39 (.70) 3.93 (.68) 3.66 (.74) 3.22 (.91) 3.53 (.97) 3.38 (.95) 3.32 (.86) 3.12 (.80) 3.22 (.83) 3.48 (.96) 3.07 (.68) 3.28 (.85) 3.40 (.91) 3.10 (.74) 3.25 (.84) 3.79 (.84) 3.52 (.80) 3.66 (.83) 3.76 (1.00) 3.46 (.82) 3.61 (.93) 3.78 (.92) 3.49 (.81) 3.64 (.88) Female Profile M (SD) Total M (SD)

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inflated self-image (Twenge et al., 2008). This current study further investigated the discrepancy between the desires of narcissists to be admired and the possible negative consequences of their social disruptive online behavior. The results showed that narcissists succeed to some extent in finding the admiration they seek on Facebook. In line with our expectations and previous studies (Back et al., 2010; Buffardi & Campbell, 2008; Vazire et al., 2008), narcissism on Facebook is easily recognized by others and narcissistic profile owners are perceived as more confident and assertive than their neutral counterparts. On the other hand, profile owners who engage in narcissistic Facebook behavior were rated as less agreeable than their neutral counterparts. Narcissists at first sight are seen as confident and assertive, but not as friendly, warm and likable. It appears that narcissists on Facebook are quite successful in achieving their goal, since they look for admiration rather than mutual liking at first sight (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). As previous studies had not investigated the role of gender in detail, we aimed to fill this gap in the literature. Narcissistic behavior was expected to be more socially acceptable in males than in females, resulting in more negative evaluations for females. In contrast to our expectations, we did not find differences between the evaluation of narcissism on Facebook between females and males with reference to agentic nor communal traits. However, gender did influence the effect of online narcissism on perceived happiness. Narcissistic males were perceived as happier than neutral males, whereas narcissistic females were rated as less happy than their neutral counterparts. These findings can be understood in light of gender stereotypical behavior. Women who are more agentic, can be evaluated as less happy because their behavior violates prescriptive gender stereotypes (Rudman & Glick, 2001, 2008). Future research with validated scales is necessary to further examine the differences in the evaluation of narcissism between males and females.

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Two limitations of the present research should be addressed. A first limitation of the study is that it only focuses on the evaluation of narcissism at first sight. The primary goal of Facebook is to strengthen relationships and stay in touch with friends made in the real world (Valkenburg & Peter, 2009). In addition, narcissists manipulation tendencies might be effective at first acquaintance, but ineffective for the development of longer lasting social relationships (Back et al., 2010). Whereas the first impression of narcissists can be positive, people in more long term relationships with narcissists evaluate them more negatively. They often describe them as competitive, aggressive, hostile and ego-centric (Malkin et al., 2013; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). The mediating role of relationship length was investigated by Paulhus (1998). He found that at first sight offline self-enhancers were seen as agreeable, well adjusted, and competent. After 7 weeks, however, these same self-enhancers were rated negatively. For this reason, it is interesting to obtain more insight in the way narcissists are perceived on Facebook by their existing network. Future studies can build upon this work and investigate whether narcissists on Facebook are perceived in the same way by acquaintances. For example, follow up studies can have a longitudinal design in which participants have to add narcissistic profile owners to their online network. After some time, participants have to rate the profile owner on several personality traits. A second limitation concerns the explorative nature of the study. Because this study is, to the best of our knowledge, one of the first in the field, we only took a few dependent variables into consideration. Future studies can broaden the field and look into the effects of narcissism on Facebook on other perceived personality traits of the Big Five, i.e. extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness and openness to experience. The Big Five is been known to measure all different traits in personality without overlapping (Goldberg, 1990). Moreover, several traits of the Big Five have been previously linked to narcissism, for

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example to extraversion (Vernon, Villian, Vickers, & Harris, 2008). Therefore, it is interesting to see whether narcissists on Facebook are perceived by others in the same way. The social network site Facebook has gained a prominent place in the lives of many individuals. Facebook provides narcissists a platform where they can promote themselves to a large audience in order to get the attention and admiration they so desperately crave for. Although narcissists are evaluated as assertive and confident by others, they are also seen as unfriendly. This probably indicates that, on the long term, narcissism on Facebook can hinder friendship development and be detrimental for a healthy social development of emerging adults.

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Reysen, S. (2005). Construction of a new scale: The Reysen Likability Scale. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 33(2), 201208. Rudman, L. A., & Glick, P. (2001). Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes and Backlash Toward Agentic Women. Journal of Social Issues, 57(4), 743762. Rudman, L. A., & Glick, P. (2008). The Social Psychology of Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations. The Guilford Press: New York. Thomaes, S., Stegge, H., Bushman, B. J., Olthof, T., & Denissen, J. (2008). Development and validation of the childhood narcissism scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 90(4), 382391. Twenge, J. M., Konrath, S., Foster, J. D., Campbell, W. K., & Bushman, B. J. (2008). Egos inflating over time: a cross-temporal meta-analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality, 76(4), 875902. Tyler, I. (2007). From the Me Decade to the Me Millennium: The Cultural History of Narcissism. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(3), 343363. Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2009). Social Consequences of the Internet for Adolescents: A Decade of Research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(1), 15. Vazire, S., Naumann, L. P., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2008). Portrait of a narcissist: Manifestations of narcissism in physical appearance. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(6), 14391447. Vernon, P. ., Villian, V. C., Vickers, L. C., & Harris, J. A. (2008). A behavioral genetic investigation of the Dark Triad and the Big 5. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(2), 445452. Zhou, H., Li, Y., Zhang, B., & Zeng, M. (2012). The Relationship Between Narcissism and Friendship Qualities in Adolescents: Gender as a Moderator. Sex Roles, 67(7-8), 452 462.

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Appendix 1 Questionnaire

Demografics What is your gender? What is your age? What is your highest level of education? Do you have a profile on Facebook? How often do you use Facebook? [1 never 9 continuously]

Perceived narcissism 5 point Likert scale with opposites on both sides

To which extent do you think this person is Modest cocky Shy attention seeker Submissive authoritarian

Agreeableness 5-point Likert scale with opposites on both sides

To which extent do you think this person is Unfriendly friendly Unpleasant pleasant Fun not fun Nice irritating A good friend not a good friend Social - lonely

To which extent do you want to be friends with this person? [1 absolutely not 5 absolutely]

Agentic traits 5 point Likert scale with opposites on both sides To which extent do you think this person is

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Tractable assertive Insecure confident Annoying entertaining Stupid intelligent

Happiness Unhappy happy

Attractiveness 5-point Likert scale with opposites on both sides To which extent do you think this person is Unattractive attractive Ugly pretty Not sexy sexy

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Appendix 2 Stimulus materials

1. Male 1, narcissistic profile Frontpage

49

Picture page

50

2. Male 1, neutral profile Front page

51

Picture page

52

3. Male 2, narcissistic profile Frontpage

53

Picture page

54

4. Male 2, neutral profile Frontpage

55

Picture page

56

5. Female 1, narcissistic profile Frontpage

57

Picture page

58

6. Female 1, neutral profile Front page

59

Picture page

60

7. Female 2, narcissistic profile Frontpage

61

Picture page

62

8. Female 2, neutral profile Frontpage

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Picture page