Selfie posting behaviors are associated with narcissism among men P. Sorokowski a,⇑ , A. Sorokowska a,b , A. Oleszkiewicz a , T. Frackowiak a , A. Huk a , K. Pisanski a a Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Poland b Interdisciplinary Center ‘‘Smell & Taste’’, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, TU Dresden, Germany article info Article history: Received 26 February 2015 Received in revised form 28 April 2015 Accepted 2 May 2015 Keywords: Selfie Social media Social online networking Facebook Narcissism Narcissistic Personality Inventory Sex differences abstract Although many studies have investigated individual differences in online social networking, few have examined the recent and rapidly popularized social phenomenon of the ‘‘selfie’’ (a selfportrait pho- tograph of oneself). In two studies with a pooled sample of 1296 men and women, we tested the predic- tion that individuals who score high on four narcissism sub-scales (Self-sufficiency, Vanity, Leadership, and Admiration Demand) will be more likely to post selfies to social media sites than will individuals who exhibit low narcissism. We examined three categories of selfies: own selfies; selfies with a romantic partner; and group selfies, controlling for non-selfie photographs. Women posted more selfies of all types than did men. However, women’s selfie-posting behavior was generally unrelated to their narcissism scores. In contrast, men’s overall narcissism scores positively predicted posting own selfies, selfies with a partner, and group selfies. Moreover, men’s Vanity, Leadership, and Admiration Demand scores each independently predicted the posting of one or more types of selfies. Our findings provide the first evi- dence that the link between narcissism and selfie-posting behavior is comparatively weak among women than men, and provide novel insight into the social motivations and functions of online social networking. Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Social media, including online social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, have developed at an extreme rate over the last several years (Chou, Hunt, Beckjord, Moser, & Hesse, 2009; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Common usages of social media, and its relative novelty, are related to an emergence of new psy- chological and social phenomena (Back et al., 2010; Błachnio, Przepiórka, & Rudnicka, 2013; Houghton & Joinson, 2010; Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012; Ross et al., 2009), some of which have yet to be thoroughly investigated. Many researchers have examined individual differences in social media usage. The results of these studies suggest that social media activity is related to characteristics of the Five Factor Model (Ross et al., 2009; Ryan & Xenos, 2011) and jealousy (Muise, Christofides, & Desmarais, 2009). Narcissism has also been shown to predict online social activity. Researchers have found that indi- viduals characterized by relatively elevated narcissism are egocen- tric, have a sense of grandiosity, dominance, and entitlement, and perceive themselves as more attractive and better than others, but – importantly – are still marked by insecurity (Fox & Rooney, 2015; Raskin & Terry, 1988). Researchers studying narcissism have gen- erally suggested a positive association between this characteristic and social media usage (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008; Carpenter, 2012; Lee, Ahn, & Kim, 2014; McKinney, Kelly, & Duran, 2012; Mehdizadeh, 2010; Ryan & Xenos, 2011). However, closer exami- nation of previous studies reveals many negative results, method- ological limitations, or only partial confirmation of this thesis (Deters, Mehl, & Eid, 2014; McKinney et al., 2012; Panek, Nardis, & Konrath, 2013; Skues, Williams, & Wise, 2012). Because narcissists tend to be exhibitionistic, attention seeking, and highly concerned with their physical appearance (Vazire, Naumann, Rentfrow, & Gosling, 2008), it seems logical to predict that narcissistic individuals may be more likely to post their pic- tures on social media than others. Narcissism has been found to be a significant predictor of the motivation for selecting profile pic- tures (Kapidzic, 2013), and narcissistic users are more likely to upload their attractive photos on social media than are less narcis- sistic users (Wang, Jackson, Zhang, & Su, 2012). Ong and colleagues (2011) additionally reported that narcissists assessed the attrac- tiveness of their online pictures as unobjectively high (i.e., higher than ratings obtained from their peers). It remains unclear, how- ever, whether narcissists post more pictures on social media than do others. For example, Ryan and Xenos (2011) did not find any http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.05.004 0191-8869/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author at: University of Wroclaw, Institute of Psychology, ul. Dawida, 50-527 Wroclaw, Poland. E-mail addresses: sorokowskipiotr@yahoo.co.uk (P. Sorokowski), sorokows- ka@gmail.com (A. Sorokowska), ania.oleszkiewicz@gmail.com (A. Oleszkiewicz), t.frackowiak@psychologia.uni.wroc.pl (T. Frackowiak), anna.maria.huk@gmail.com (A. Huk), kasiapisanski@gmail.com (K. Pisanski). Personality and Individual Differences 85 (2015) 123–127 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid