Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid Narcissism and romantic relationship presentation on social media: The role of motivations and partner attractiveness Gwendolyn Seidman a, ⁎ , Allison Roberts a , Virgil Zeigler-Hill b a Albright College, United States of America b Oakland University, United States of America ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Narcissism Narcissistic admiration rivalry concept Social media Romantic relationships Physical attractiveness 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. 1. 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 vis- iting them multiple times each day (Smith & Anderson, 2018). The tremendous popularity of SNS, along with the opportunities they pro- vide 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 relation- ships. 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 narcis- sists 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 asso- ciation 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 re- lationships 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 re- lationship 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 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.05.039 Received 28 April 2019; Received in revised form 20 May 2019; Accepted 22 May 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Psychology Department, Albright College, 13th and Bern Streets, Reading, PA 19612, United States of America. E-mail address: gseidman@albright.edu (G. Seidman). Personality and Individual Differences 149 (2019) 21–30 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T