Narcissistic and Histrionic Pathological Traits Association with Passive Data from Facebook Profile Lucas de Francisco Carvalho 1 & Catarina P. Sette 1,2 & Jonatha T. Bacciotti 1 & Giselle Pianowski 1 & Claudia Marino 3,4 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 Abstract Evidences suggest a relationship between narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) traits and passive data from social network sites, mainly, number of friends. A possible hypothesis for this relationship is the presence of the attention seeking trait, which is also a core component of the histrionic personality disorder (HPD). The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between NPD and HPD traits with passive data from Facebook profiles. Participants were 131 Brazilian Facebook users (93 women) aging from 18 to 64 years (M = 31.13 years, SD = 9.23). We administered the attention seeking and grandiosity dimensions from the Dimensional Clinical Personality Inventory 2 (IDCP-2), the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems- Personality Disorders (IIP-PD), and research assistants completed a questionnaire related to 31 Facebook passive data. Pearson correlations showed a complex pattern, but when we controlled for general level of personality pathology using IIP- PD cutoff, we observed a change in the correlation pattern, and higher correlations with HPD traits than with NPD traits. Differences found in correlations with the control variable are explained based on Simpson’ s paradox. Data suggests that the HPD core traits, i.e., an exaggerated need for attention, may be the leading trait to explain the relation between Facebook passive data and NPD. Keywords Internet and personality . Narcissism . Histrionic . Personality disorder . Social network site . Facebook Highlights 1. We have found differences between correlations pattern when considering more health sample and more pathological sample. 2. Histrionic traits seem to be more correlated with passive data from Facebook than narcissistic traits. 3. Need for attention may be the trait that better explain the correlations. 4. As a hypothesis to be investigated in future research, we propose that the correlation pattern when controlling for the tendency to show pathological personality functioning, was produced by the phenomenon called Simpson’ s paradox. * Catarina P. Sette catarinasette@hotmail.com Lucas de Francisco Carvalho lucas@labape.com.br Jonatha T. Bacciotti johbacciotti@gmail.com Giselle Pianowski gisellepianowski@gmail.com Claudia Marino claudia.marino@phd.unipd.it 1 Department of Psychology Universidade São Francisco, Campinas, SP, Brazil 2 Programa de Pós-graduação em Psicologia da Universidade São Francisco, Rua Waldemar César da Silveira, 105, Campinas, SP CEP 13045510, Brazil 3 Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e dela Socializzacione, Universita’di Padova, Padua, Italy 4 Division of Psychology, School of Applied Sciences, London South Bank University, London, UK Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-019-00090-1