Selfies, Personality, and Narcissism

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a statistically significant relationship between the frequency of capturing selfies and extraversion, agreeableness, and self-esteem and whether these measures could give rise to a new predictive assessment scale for narcissism. Participants were recruited through the social media website Facebook. Two hundred and six individuals were administered a brief demographic questionnaire about their social media usage and the frequency with which they captured selfies. They were also administered the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), the Big Five Inventory (BFI), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) through Qualtrics. Two hundred and five participants’ results were analyzed for this study by performing a Pearson correlation and a multiple regression analysis. Based on the data collected, not all of the hypotheses were supported. However, the findings did reveal a statistically significant positive relationship between the frequency of selfies an individual captured and their scores on the NPI. Additionally, it was determined through a multiple regression analysis that extraversion BFI scores, agreeableness BFI scores, and RSES scores could be predictive of scores on the NPI. Further testing should be implemented with a greater sample size to validate the reliability of using extraversion BFI scores, agreeableness BFI scores, and RSES scores as a predictive measure of scores on the NPI.