The Big Five, self-esteem, and narcissism as predictors of the topics people write about in Facebook status updates
Open accessAbstract
Status updates are one of the most popular features of Facebook, but few studies have examined the traits and motives that influence the topics that people choose to update about. In this study, 555 Facebook users completed measures of the Big Five, self-esteem, narcissism, motives for using Facebook, and frequency of updating about a range of topics. Results revealed that extraverts more frequently updated about their social activities and everyday life, which was motivated by their use of Facebook to communicate and connect with others. People high in openness were more likely to update about intellectual topics, consistent with their use of Facebook for sharing information. Participants who were low in self-esteem were more likely to update about romantic partners, whereas those who were high in conscientiousness were more likely to update about their children. Narcissists’ use of Facebook for attention-seeking and validation explained their greater likelihood of updating about their accomplishments and their diet and exercise routine. Furthermore, narcissists’ tendency to update about their accomplishments explained the greater number of likes and comments that they reported receiving to their updates.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Online, narcissists try to stand out by dominating social-media newsfeeds with frequent posts about exercise, diets, and personal achievements.
“Online, narcissists might similarly try to stand out by dominating social-media newsfeeds with frequent posts of their exercise habits, diets, and personal achievements (Marshall, Lefringhausen, & Ferenczi, 2015; McCain & Campbell, 2016).”
From The "Why" and "How" of Narcissism: A Process Model of Narcissistic Status Pursuit (2020) · cites this paper as Marshall, Lefringhausen, & Ferenczi, 2015
Cites
Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008) · Behavior Research Methods · doi:10.3758/brm.40.3.879 · Cited by 34,117 · see citing works
Society and the Adolescent Self-Image
Rosenberg, M. (1965) · doi:10.1515/9781400876136 · Cited by 30,126 · see citing works
Who interacts on the Web?: The intersection of users’ personality and social media use
Correa, T., Hinsley, A. W., & de Zúñiga, H. G. (2010) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2009.09.003 · Cited by 1,915 · see citing works
Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use
Ross, C., Orr, E. S., Sisic, M., Arseneault, J. M., Simmering, M. G., & Orr, R. R. (2009) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2008.12.024 · Cited by 1,728 · see citing works
Ryan, T., & Xenos, S. (2011) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2011.02.004 · Cited by 1,260 · see citing works
Narcissism and social networking web sites
Buffardi, L. E., & Campbell, W. K. (2008) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/0146167208320061 · Cited by 1,159 · see citing works
Self-presentation 2.0: Narcissism and self-esteem on facebook
Mehdizadeh, S. (2010) · Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking · doi:10.1089/cyber.2009.0257 · Cited by 1,064 · see citing works
A tale of two sites: Twitter vs. Facebook and the personality predictors of social media usage
Hughes, D. J., Rowe, M., Batey, M., & Lee, A. (2012) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2011.11.001 · Cited by 1,011 · see citing works
Social network use and personality
Amichai-Hamburger, Y., & Vinitzky, G. (2010) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.03.018 · Cited by 979 · cited 1× · see citing works
“…as reflected in their more frequent use of Facebook (Gosling, Augustine, Vazire, Holtzmann, & Gaddis, 2011), greater number of Facebook friends (Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010), and preference for features of Facebook that allow for active social contribution, such as status updates (Ryan…”
BackgroundForest, A. L., & Wood, J. V. (2012) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797611429709 · Cited by 547 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Andreassen, C. S., Pallesen, S., & Griffiths, M. D. (2017) · Addictive Behaviors · doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.03.006 · Cited by 1,504 · see citing works
A comprehensive meta-analysis on Problematic Facebook Use
Marino, C., Gini, G., Vieno, A., & Spada, M. M. (2018) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.02.009 · Cited by 378 · see citing works
The "Why" and "How" of Narcissism: A Process Model of Narcissistic Status Pursuit
Grapsas, S., Brummelman, E., Back, M. D., & Denissen, J. J. A. (2020) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691619873350 · Cited by 312 · see citing works
Social networking online and personality of self-worth: a meta-analysis
Liu, D., & Baumeister, R. F. (2016) · Journal of Research in Personality · doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2016.06.024 · Cited by 192 · see citing works
Hawk, S. T., van den Eijnden, R. J. J. M., van Lissa, C. J., & ter Bogt, T. F. M. (2019) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.10.032 · Cited by 157 · see citing works
Lin, J.-H. (2016) · Asian Journal of Communication · doi:10.1080/01292986.2015.1126749 · Cited by 102 · see citing works
Whaite, E. O., Shensa, A., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., & Primack, B. A. (2018) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.10.030 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
Moore, K., & Craciun, G. (2021) · Psychological Reports · doi:10.1177/0033294120936184 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
Lopes, B., & Yu, H. (2017) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.08.036 · Cited by 91 · see citing works
Grieve, R., March, E., & Watkinson, J. (2020) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2019.08.020 · Cited by 76 · see citing works
Get behind my selfies: The Big Five traits and social networking behaviors through selfies
Choi, T. R., Sung, Y., Lee, J.-A., & Choi, S. M. (2017) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2016.12.057 · Cited by 68 · see citing works
Arpaci, I., Baloğlu, M., & Kesici, Ş. (2018) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.09.034 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
The relationship between narcissism, intensity of Facebook use, Facebook flow and Facebook addiction
Brailovskaia, J., Bierhoff, H.-W., Rohmann, E., Raeder, F., & Margraf, J. (2020) · Addictive Behaviors Reports · doi:10.1016/j.abrep.2020.100265 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Learning analytics and open, flexible, and distance learning
Siemens, G. (2019) · Distance Education · doi:10.1080/01587919.2019.1656153 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Correlations of online social network size with well-being and distress: a meta-analysis
Huang, C. (2021) · Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace · doi:10.5817/cp2021-2-3 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Interpersonal goals as predictors of facebook use, social capital, and envy
Tobin, S. J., Chant, G., & Clay, R. (2020) · Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking · doi:10.1089/cyber.2019.0446 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
- Authors
- Marshall, T. C., Lefringhausen, K., & Ferenczi, N.
- Affiliations
- Brunel University of London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Marshall, Tara C.
- Venue
- Personality and Individual Differences
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-10
- Volume
- 85
- Pages
- 35-40
- ISSN
- 0191-8869 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1493961864
- Cited by
- 320
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 44 · 2019: 48 · 2018: 36 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 5
- FWCI
- 38.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Personality and Individual Differences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (acceptedVersion)
- Brunel University Research Archive (BURA) (Brunel University London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health via Writing
- Keywords
- Facebook status updates, Big Five personality traits, self-esteem, narcissism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, motivations for social media use, attention seeking, validation seeking, romantic relationships, achievement, likes and comments, social media self-disclosure
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
