Personality Pdf 96293

Partial capture of text on file.

Personality and Individual Differences 51 (2011) 57–62
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Narcissism and implicit attention seeking: Evidence from linguistic analyses
of social networking and online presentation
a,⇑ b a c
C. Nathan DeWall , Laura E. Buffardi , Ian Bonser , W. Keith Campbell
aDepartment of Psychology, University of Kentucky, 201 Kastle Hall, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, United States
bUniversidad de Deusto, Avenida de las Universidades, 24, 48007 Bilbao, Spain
cDepartment of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, United States
article info abstract
Article history: Twostudies examined hownarcissism, a personality trait marked by self-promotion, vanity, and grandi-
Received 7 December 2010 osity, related to how people communicate information about themselves online. We predicted that nar-
Received in revised form 24 February 2011 cissists communicate in ways that draw attention to themselves. Specically, we predicted that
Accepted 7 March 2011 narcissistic people who used relatively few rst-person singular pronouns (e.g., I, and me) would dis-
Available online 31 March 2011 play more self-promoting and sexy images of themselves on their Facebook.com prole pages (Study 1)
Keywords: andwouldusemoreprofaneandaggressivewordsinanonlineself-descriptivetask(Study2).Bothstud-
Narcissism ies supported this hypothesis. Implications for narcissism and online communication research are
Worduse discussed.
Linguistic inquiry word count 2011Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Social networking
Online communication
Compensation
Eachday,peoplehavethecapacitytocommunicatewithothers 1. Narcissism in virtual and non-virtual environments
through internet connections. With the advent and growing popu-
larity of social networking websites such as Facebook.com and Narcissismreferstoaninatedandgrandioseself-concept.Nar-
MySpace.com, people can rapidly share information about them- cissistic people have elevated levels of agentic traits such as intel-
selves with hundreds, if not thousands, of others. The prevalence ligence, power, and dominance (e.g., Brown & Zeigler-Hill, 2004;
of online communication has even seeped into modern vernacular, Campbell, Rudich, & Sedikides, 2002). In terms of the ve-factor
with people saying that they will Facebook their friends or that model (FFM), narcissists score highly on extraversion and low on
they will blog about their recent vacation. What is less clear, agreeableness (Miller & Campbell, 2008). Sub-clinical narcissists
however, is how the words people use to describe themselves on- have good mental health, which is due in part to their high levels
line offer a window into motivationally relevant ways personality of self-esteem (Sedikides, Rudich, Gregg, Kumashiro, & Rusbult,
expresses itself on the World Wide Web. The current research 2004). The link between narcissism and agentic feelings is deeply
examined how narcissism, a personality trait marked by self-pro- ingrained. On both explicit and implicit measures, narcissists en-
motion, vanity, and grandiosity, relates to how people communi- dorse elevated levels of agency (Campbell, Bosson, Goheen, Lakey,
cate information about themselves online. &Kernis, 2007; Campbell, Rudich, & Sedikides, 2002).
Weexpected that narcissists communicate in ways that draw Within the context of interpersonal relationships, narcissists
attention to themselves. Specically, we predicted that narcissistic use their relationship partners as a means of regulating their posi-
people who used relatively few rst-person singular pronouns tive self-views. This can take the form of selecting attractive
woulddisplaymoreself-promotingandsexyimagesofthemselves romanticpartnerswhocanincreasepositiveperceptionsoftheself
ontheir Facebook.com proles (Study 1) and would use more pro- (Campbell, 1999), or performing well on difcult tasks when doing
fane and aggressive words in an online self-descriptive task (Study so is linked to gaining public admiration (Wallace & Baumeister,
2). We turn now to formulate our hypotheses. 2002). Narcissists are also especially adept at attracting relation-
ship partners. At early stages of relationship formation, they are
interesting, exciting, condent, and entertaining (Foster, Shrira, &
⇑ Corresponding author. Campbell, 2006; Oltmanns, Friedman, Fiedler, & Turkheimer,
E-mail addresses: nathan.dewall@uky.edu, cnathandewall@gmail.com (C. 2004). As their relationships progress, however, narcissists show
Nathan DeWall). less warmth and care for relationship partners, engage in game
0191-8869/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.03.011
58 C. Nathan DeWall et al./Personality and Individual Differences 51 (2011) 57–62
playing and indelity, and are liked less by their partners com- responses depend on the combination of narcissism and the num-
pared to people low in narcissism (e.g., Campbell, Foster, & Finkel, ber of rst-person singular pronouns used, we did not expect to
2002; Schmitt & Buss, 2001). observereliable main effects for narcissism or rst-person singular
Arecent study of narcissism in social networking prole pages pronoun usage.
dovetailed nicely with previous ndings investigating narcissism
in non-virtual environments (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008). On Face- 4. Present research
book.com prole web pages, narcissism related to higher levels of
social activity and greater self-promoting themes in posted con- In the present studies, we predicted that narcissists would dis-
tent. There was agreement between independent observers rat- play a compensatory pattern through other routes. Specically,
ings of how narcissistic web page owners were and how whentheydidnotdrawattentiontothemselvesbyusingrst-per-
narcissistic web page owners rated themselves. Thus, narcissism son singular pronouns, we hypothesized that they would compen-
manifests itself similarly in virtual and non-virtual environments. sate by posting photographs and using language that would draw
attention to themselves. The current research tested this hypothe-
2. Narcissists word use and esteem regulation sis in two studies. In Study 1, we harvested information from
undergraduate Facebook.com prole pages and examined whether
Narcissists use a number of different routes to boost their self- narcissistic prole owners displayed a self-promoting and sexy
esteemand,thereby,maintainanoverlypositiveandinatedsense photoofthemselveswhentheyhadusedlowlevelsofrst-person
of self. Important to the present research, one method by which singular pronounstodescribethemselvesonline.Study2extended
narcissists regulate their esteem is through communication pat- this research to a large sample of adults who completed a measure
terns. Narcissists brag about their accomplishments in conversa- of narcissism and a self-description task on the internet.
tion (Buss & Chiodo, 1991) and use more rst-person singular
pronouns during impromptu monologues (Raskin & Shaw, 1988). 4.1. Study 1: Implicit compensation in Facebook proles
First-person pronoun use is one particularly useful variable to
examine with respect to narcissism because pronouns offer rich Study 1 provided an initial test of the hypothesis that narcissis-
information regarding how people relate to others, especially tic people compensate for using relatively few words related to
howpeople distinguish themselves from others. Thus, using rst- themselves by engaging in actions that may draw attention to
person singular pronouns is one means by which narcissists draw themselves. Participants were owners of Facebook.com prole
attention to themselves. pages, which contained a section in which participants described
Narcissists word use on the internet is one focus of this re- themselves and uploaded a picture of themselves to be displayed
search. A growing body of research has shown that word use can to members of their social network. We expected narcissistic par-
provide an invaluable means of assessing cognitive, emotional, ticipants to display a self-promoting and sexy picture of them-
and behavioral processes (Pennebaker, Mehl, & Niederhoffer, selves, but only when they had not used many rst-person
2003). Like Raskin and Shaw (1988), we use the quantity of rst- singular pronouns when describing themselves to others.
person singular pronouns used as a proxy for psychological self-
importance to examine how narcissists who have used relatively 5. Method
few words that relate to themselves communicate in virtual
environments. 5.1. Participants
1
3. Narcissism and implicit compensation Eighty undergraduateFacebook.comowners(55women,25men;
age:M=18.89(SD=1.03))participatedinexchangeforpartialcourse
Acrucial component of narcissism is the need to be the center credit.AllparticipantsgaveconsenttohavetheirFacebook.compages
of attention because doing so fullls narcissists goal of being agen- to be used in the present research.
tic. When attention to the self is not forthcoming, narcissists may
engage in compensatory actions to direct attention toward the self 5.2. Materials and procedure
(Buss & Chiodo, 1991). The current research seeks to show that
narcissists engage in behaviors online to draw attention to them- Owner participants arrived at the laboratory individually and
selves when they have used relatively few words about them- then completed the narcissistic personality inventory (NPI; Raskin
selves. Although narcissists use language to direct attention to & Terry, 1988). The NPI had high internal reliability (a=.78;
the self more than non-narcissists (Raskin & Shaw, 1988), they M=17.76, SD=6.02, range: 5–30) and responses were summed
mayoccasionally use relatively few rst-person pronouns if doing to form a composite measure of narcissistic personality.
so can gain them liking, status, and admiration from others. This Next, participants logged onto Facebook.com on a lab computer
would enable narcissists to fulll their goal of appearing agentic and displayed their main prole page on the computer screen,
(Brown & Zeigler-Hill, 2004; Campbell, Rudich, and Sedikides, whichisdisplayedtomembersoftheownerssocialnetwork.Once
2002). Yet, because the need for narcissists to draw attention to the prole page was displayed, the research assistant saved it and
the self is deeply ingrained in their psyche, narcissists may not debriefed the participant.
be consciously aware of this implicit compensation process that Linguistic content was taken from the About Me section of the
occurs when they use relatively few words about themselves. Facebook.comprolepage.Inthissection,ownersofFacebook.com
Thus, we predicted an interaction between narcissism and the pages describe themselves in any way that they desire to their so-
numberofrst-personsingularpronounsparticipants used in pre- cial network. To analyzethelinguisticcontentoftheAboutMesec-
dictingresponsesthatmaydrawattentiontotheself.Whennarcis- tion, we used the linguistic inquiry word count program (LIWC;
sists use relatively few rst-person singular pronouns, they may Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2007). The LIWC is a widely used
seek to draw attention to themselves. In contrast, when narcissists
use a larger number of rst-person singular pronouns, they should 1 Eighty of Buffardi and Campbells (2008) 129 participants were included in this
not engage in responses that may result in them receiving addi- study because these participants included About Me sections in their Facebook.com
tional attention. Because our conceptual framework suggests that proles.
C. Nathan DeWall et al./Personality and Individual Differences 51 (2011) 57–62 59
andwell-validatedprogramthatcountsthepercentageofwordsin displaying a main photo that was less self-promoting and sexy.
a body of text that correspond to various categories (Mehl, 2006). The narcissism main effect was not signicant, b=0.04, t=0.38,
The program uses an internal default dictionary comprised of sev- p=.71.
eral word categories according to how much a group of words re- Toclarifythenatureofthisinteraction,weexaminedthesimple
late to a particular topic. The LIWC word categories have adequate effect of narcissism on main photo ratings among those who used
psychometricproperties(Pennebakeretal.,2007).Wewerespecif- relatively high (i.e.,+1 SD) and low (i.e., 1 SD) amounts of rst-
ically interested in how often participants used rst-person singu- person singular pronouns. Among participants who used relatively
lar pronouns, as frequent use of these pronouns is associated with low amounts of rst-person singular pronouns, narcissism related
narcissistic personality (Raskin & Shaw, 1988). All About Me sec- to higher ratings of drawing attention to self in their main photo,
tions were spell-checked prior to analysis. The narratives con- b=0.33, t=2.08, p=.04. In contrast, among participants who used
tained 4854 total words. relatively high amounts of rst-person singular pronouns, narcis-
EachFacebook.comprolepagecontainsamainphoto,whichis sism was unrelated to how much attention they drew to them-
viewed by all members of the owners social network. We had ve selves in their main photo, b = 0.25, t = 1.60, p = .11.
coders, all blind to owners NPI scores, rate each owners main Additional analyses examined the simple effect of rst-person
photo on characteristics that would draw attention to the owners singular pronoun use on drawing attention to oneself in the main
page. First, the main photo was rated according to how much the photo among participants who were relatively high (i.e.,+1SD) and
owner was self-promoting in the photo by averaging coders rat- low(i.e., 1SD) on narcissism. As expected, among narcissistic par-
ings of how self-promoting and vain the photo was. Second, the ticipants, use of rst-person singular pronouns correlated nega-
mainphotowasratedonhowsexytheownerappearedbyaverag- tively with drawing attention to oneself by displaying a self-
ing coders judgments of how sexy, modest (reversed), and clothed promoting and sexy main photo, b=0.50, t=3.11, p=.003. In
(reversed) the main photo was. All ratings were made on a 7-point contrast, non-narcissistic participants showed no correlation with
scalerangingfrom1(notatall)to7(verymuch).Becauseconsensus rst-person singular pronoun use and displaying a self-promoting
among the ve coders on the self-promoting and sexy adjectives andsexymainphoto,b=0.09,t=0.55,p=.58.
(self-promoting,vain,sexy,modest,andclothed)wassufcient(al-
phas .71–.90 for the ve items), responses to the two self-promo- 7. Discussion
tion items and the three sexy items were collapsed across the
ve coders. Ratings of self-promotion and sexiness were highly Study 1 offered initial evidence that narcissistic people drew
correlated (r = .88, p < .001) and were averaged to form a compos- attention to themselves by displaying a self-promoting and sexy
ite measure of drawing attention to self. main photo on their Facebook.com prole page, but this behavior
was contingent on how many words they had used about them-
6. Results selves in an online self-description. When narcissistic participants
usedlowlevelsofrst-personsingularpronounstodescribethem-
We predicted that narcissistic participants would call more selves, they displayed a photo that was highly self-promoting and
attention to themselves by displaying a self-promoting and sexy sexy. In contrast, narcissism did not relate to ratings of their main
mainphotowhentheyhadusedalownumberofrst-personsin- photo when participants had used a large number of rst-person
gular pronouns in their About Me sections. Men tend to have high- singular pronouns to describe themselves.
er narcissism scores than women do (Ames, Rose, & Anderson,
2006). Because our results were not moderated by participant gen- 7.1. Study 2
der, we included participant gender as a covariate in all analyses.
All predictors were centered prior to analysis. Study2soughttoreplicateandextendthendingsofStudy1in
As expected, a signicant narcissismrst-person singular twoways.First, we used a large sample of adults instead of an en-
pronoun use interaction emerged, b=0.27, t=2.52, p=.01 tirely undergraduate sample. Because narcissism correlates nega-
(Fig. 1). The main effect for rst-person singular pronoun use fell tively with age (Foster, Campbell, & Twenge, 2003), it was
just short of signicance, b = 0.21, t = 1.93, p < .06, such that desirable to replicate our effects in a sample characterized by low-
greater use of rst-person singular pronouns was associated with erlevelsofnarcissism.Second,weusedawrittenmeasureofdraw-
ingattentiontotheselfinsteadofavisualmeasure,namelytheuse
of profanity and aggressive words participants used when describ-
ing themselves. This type of word use qualies as a behavior that
could be used to draw attention to the self because of the low
base-rate of using profane and aggressive (e.g., kill and fuck) words
to describe oneself. We expected that narcissistic participants
would use more swear words in their self-descriptions when they
had used low levels of rst-person singular pronouns, but not
when they had already drawn attention to themselves by using
high levels of rst-person singular pronouns.
8. Method
8.1. Participants
One thousand seventy-two adult volunteers (859 women, 200
men, 13 did not specify gender) were recruited via online adver-
tisements placed in different US cities (age: M=32.72,
Fig. 1. Narcissism use of rst-person singular pronoun interaction on ratings of SD=11.71). Participants were free to complete this study from
self-promoting and sexiness Facebook.com prole main photo. Study 1. wherever they were able to access the internet. The postings on
60 C. Nathan DeWall et al./Personality and Individual Differences 51 (2011) 57–62
www.craigslist.org directed participants to the website www.sur-
veymonkey.com, which was used to design and host the survey.
Participants did not receive any compensation for participation.
Of these participants, 234 provided incomplete NPI and/or self-
description data, leaving 838 participants (689 women, 145 men,
4 did not specify gender; age: M=33.32, SD=11.72) for nal
analysis.
8.2. Materials and procedure
Participants were told the study involved completing a person-
ality test and then writing an essay about themselves. After giving
their consent, participants completed the narcissistic personality
inventory (
a=.83;M=14.62,SD=6.83,range:0–38).Next,partic-
ipants were asked to write three essays about themselves. The
instructions emphasized that participants would be communicat-
ing about traits that were relevant to themselves, to be as specic
as possible, and that their results would be analyzed carefully by
the researchers. Participants were also informed that their results
would not be shared with people other than the researchers in Fig. 2. Narcissism use of rst-person singular pronoun interaction on use of
charge of the study. Hence, the instructions alerted participants profane and aggressive words when making a self-description. Study 2.
that their online self-descriptions would be considered carefully Amongparticipants whousedarelativelylow amountof rst-per-
by the researchers in charge of the study. By random assignment, son singular pronouns, narcissism was associated with greater use
participants were assigned to write their three essays about why of swear words, b=0.20, t=4.19, p<.001. In contrast, among par-
they did or did not have certain personality traits. Participants ticipants who used a relatively high percentage of rst-person sin-
were also randomly assigned to write about personality traits that gular pronouns, narcissism did not relate to more frequent use of
were pre-rated as highly negative (i.e., dishonest, untrustworthy, antisocial words, b = 0.05, t = 0.97, p = .34.
andunkind)orhighlypositive (i.e., honest, trustworthy, and kind). Additional analyses examined the simple effect of word use
For example, a participant assigned to write about why he or she amongparticipantshigh(i.e.,+1SD)andlow(i.e.,1SD)innarcis-
had positive personality traits was instructed to write three brief sism. As expected, among narcissistic participants, use of rst-per-
essays regarding why you have each of the following personality son singular pronouns correlated negatively with antisocial word
traits: honest, trustworthy, kind. After participants completed use, b = 0.13, t = 2.67, p = .008. In contrast, non-narcissistic par-
their essays, they received a debrieng. ticipants showedanunexpectedpositivecorrelationwithrst-per-
Weperformed linguistic analyses using the LIWC (Pennebaker sonsingularpronounuseandantisocialworduse,b=0.12,t=2.41,
et al., 2007). All narratives were spell-checked prior to submission p<.02.
to the LIWC. The narratives contained 72,229 total words. We cre-
ated an antisocial word use index by combining the percentage of 10. Discussion
words related to anger and aggression (e.g., hate and kill) with
swear words (e.g., fuck and damn). The use of swear words corre- ThesendingsextendtheStudy1ndingsbyshowingthatnar-
sponds to accepted denitions of antisocial behavior in that their cissists shift their linguistic style according to the amount of rst-
use is not in agreement with standards for appropriate behavior person singular pronouns they use in an online self-description
(Anderson & Bushman, 2002). Our effects were not moderated by activity. When narcissists used a low number of rst-person singu-
whether participants wrote about why they did or did not have lar pronouns, they drew attention to themselves by using higher
the particular trait or the valence of the traits. Hence we collapsed numbers of profane and aggressive words in narratives about
ourresultsacrossallconditions.Becauseourresultswerenotmod- themselves. When narcissists had already drawn attention to
erated by participant gender, we also included participant gender themselves by using a high number of rst-person singular pro-
as a covariate in all analyses. nouns, however, they did not use higher numbers of profane and
aggressive words in their narratives. Thus, narcissistic participants
9. Results displayed signs of implicit compensation as a means of drawing
possible attention to the self when attention was not forthcoming.
We predicted that narcissistic participants would call more
attention to themselves by using antisocial words when they had 10.1. General discussion
used a low number of rst-person singular pronouns in their es-
says. As expected, a signicant narcissism x rst-person singular Digital communication has become a way of life. People email
pronoun use emerged, b=0.13, t=3.55, p<.001 (see Fig. 2). instead of writing letters, text instead of call, and plan events with
We also found a main effect for narcissism, b=0.08, t=2.21, friends and family through social networking sites instead of send-
p<.03, such that higher scores related to greater use of antisocial ing invitations through the mail. Because digital communication is
words. This main effect replicates prior work showing a relation- so widespread, the current investigation did not seek to add to
ship between narcissism and aggression (Bushman & Baumeister, prior research comparing personality traits between people who
1998). The main effect for rst-person singular pronoun use was do versus do not use digital communication methods (Marcus,
not signicant, b = 0.004, t = 0.13, p = .90. Machilek, & Schütz, 2006). Instead, the current work investigated
To clarify the nature of this interaction, we examined the effect whether narcissistic people use strategies in how they communi-
of narcissism on antisocial word usage among participants who cate with others online so that they are not deprived of attention
used relatively high (i.e., +1 SD) and low (i.e., 1 SD) amounts of being directed toward the self. If narcissistic people do not use
rst-person singular pronouns in their self-descriptive essays. wordsthatdrawattentiontotheself,weexpectedthattheywould

The words contained in this file might help you see if this file matches what you are looking for:

...Personality and individual differences contents lists available at sciencedirect journal homepage www elsevier com locate paid narcissism implicit attention seeking evidence from linguistic analyses of social networking online presentation a b c nathan dewall laura e buffardi ian bonser w keith campbell adepartment psychology university kentucky kastle hall lexington ky united states buniversidad de deusto avenida las universidades bilbao spain cdepartment georgia athens ga article info abstract history twostudies examined hownarcissism trait marked by self promotion vanity grandi received december osity related to how people communicate information about themselves we predicted that nar in revised form february cissists ways draw specically accepted march narcissistic who used relatively few rst person singular pronouns g i me would dis play more promoting sexy images on their facebook prole pages study keywords andwouldusemoreprofaneandaggressivewordsinanonlineself descriptivetask bo...

Related files

Share

Help

Related files

Share

Share to social media

Help

Login Area