Hypersensitive Narcissism, Social Media Usage, and Selfitis Behaviour among University Students: Mediating Role of Self-Esteem

Syed Wasi Hassan*, and Asad Javed

Riphah Institute of Clinical & Professional Psychology, Riphah International University, Lahore, Pakistan

*Corresponding Author: [email protected]

Abstract

The current study aimed to examine the relationship between hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, and selfitis behaviour along with the mediating role of self-esteem among university students in Pakistan. Correlational research design and purposive sampling technique were used in the study. The sample comprised (N=200) university students with a mean age of 21.45 years (SD=2.42). Both men (n=100) and women (n=100) participants were included in the study. Standard instruments such as the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS), Selfitis Behaviour Scale (SBS), Social Media Affinity Scale (SMAS), and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) were used to collect the data. The results indicated that hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, and selfitis behaviour have a significant positive correlation, while they exhibit a non-significant correlation with self-esteem. The findings also revealed that hypersensitive narcissism and social media usage positively predict selfitis behaviour. It was also determined that hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, selfitis behaviour, and self-esteem have the same impact on both genders. Self-esteem was taken as a mediator but the results showed that it did not mediate between these variables. The study may assist future educators, mental health professionals, and policymakers in recognizing and addressing such risk factors to promote a healthier academic and social environment. The study may further contribute to discussions related to digital well-being and the need for guidelines to ensure that social media platforms are used in ways that enhance rather than diminish the self-esteem of university students.

Keywords: hypersensitive narcissism, selfitis behaviour, self-esteem, social media usage

Introduction

Overall, 93 million selfies are taken worldwide every day (Hines, 2016) and nearly 6000 selfies are shared on Instagram every minute (Cohen, 2016). Indicators of selfitis behaviour warrants studies because of the mass notoriety of selfies and relating conceivable pathology, including reports where people have endeavored suicide due to unsatisfying quality of their selfie (Senft & Baym, 2015).

Selfie-uploading could be a simple and powerful practice for narcissists to accomplish their narcissistic objectives and uploading selfies is right now quite possibly the most well-known employment of social media (Coulthard & Ogden, 2018). The connection between narcissism and social media usage is confounded by other, perhaps overlapping, personality characteristics (like self-esteem) and demographics (like sex) (March & McBean, 2018) that likewise predict online practices.

People higher in narcissism will in general upload more selfies, update their display picture more regularly, and invest more time on Instagram as compared to others (Moon et al., 2016). In view of the previous findings, it is presumed that the incessant and exorbitant selfie-uploading might demonstrate an exaggerated self-appreciation, self-privilege, and sensations of prevalence—the significant qualities of narcissism, nonetheless, the association of narcissism and social media could vary contingent on the kind of narcissism (Salafia & Rimzhim, 2020).

Research on 'selfitis' has stressed upon the conceivably habit-forming, obsessive-compulsive nature of selfie-capturing and sharing among people (Lin et al., 2020), prompting further logical discussion on the danger of medicalizing regular practices (Griffiths & Balakrishnan, 2018). Selfitis behaviour actually requires further examination (McLean et al., 2019).

For narcissistic people, social networking sites address the ideal spot to support their exaggerated self-views and to look for consideration and endorsement from others (McCain & Campbell, 2018). Choosing and sharing appealing selfies on social networking sites have a capacity through which narcissists accomplish the self-administrative target of retaining and upgrading their exaggerated self-views (Wang et al., 2018).

On 31^st March, 2014, Vincent (2014) declared on a website that selfitis is a psychological disorder classed by APA. He defined the term as the obsessive-compulsive craving to take photographs of one's self and post them on social media as a way of compensating for the absence of self-esteem and filling a space in intimacy. There are three levels of selfitis, namely borderline, acute, and chronic. Borderline is defined as capturing photographs of one's self minimum three times a day, however not posting them on social media. The acute stage is defined as taking photographs of one's self minimum three times a day and posting each of the photographs on social media. Lastly, the chronic level is defined as the irresistible feeling of capturing unlimited photographs of one's self and posting them on social media excessively for at least six times per day (Vincent, 2014). Later, that article turned out to be fake (Balakrishnan & Griffiths 2018).

By capturing selfies, individuals elevate themselves to acquire appreciation from others. One's awareness of self-respect and the manner in which he/she sees oneself can be impacted by the online criticism they get through the "comments" and "likes" of others (Tobin et al., 2015). Shin et al. (2017) expressed that selfies aid as a significant tool for self-show. This implies that selfies can be utilized to mirror a person's perspective on their self-concept and to take care of their exaggerated self-view (Singh et al., 2018).

Albeit past research has featured potential relationship among narcissism and self-esteem in relation to the selfitis behaviour (Barry et al., 2019), these relationships are yet to be investigated. Further, another research study has highlighted the significant associations between self-esteem and hypersensitive narcissism (Di Pierro et al., 2016). Individuals who scored more on narcissism were found to have low self-esteem and high social media usage. Furthermore, who captured and altered more selfies scored more on narcissism and selfitis (Dhillon, 2019).

The beginning stages for talking about narcissism and its connection to self-esteem are the exemplary psychodynamic efforts of Kohut (1977), Kernberg (1975), and Freud (1914). As per well-known understandings of these works, narcissism can be clarified through a 'mask' model. According to this model, a mask of outer grandiosity covers a narcissist's inner inferiority. In 1902, Cooley presented the looking-glass self theory. He accepts that a person's self is made through the thoughts and ideas that others have regarding him/her. Individuals will in general utilize their minds to perceive how people see them and what character they show during social communications and gatherings (Cooley, 1902).

Self-verification theory (Swann, 1987) expressed that individuals look for checks to second their self-perceptions. Individuals favor others to perceive and approve them as they see themselves. By getting self-check, people guarantee that their convictions about themselves are reasonable, and so they can anticipate and practice some power over the results of their lives (Chen et al., 2006). Getting self-check enables individuals to level social collaborations through directing activity and telling others what to expect from people. Individuals look for self-confirmation to think good about themselves (Swann, 1983).

Extending on this approach and considering the prevalence of selfitis behaviour, more analytical study is required to investigate the reason and factors of selfie-uploading notwithstanding, the people's inspirations for selfie-uploading. Social media usage has been anticipated by age (Davenport et al., 2014) and personality variables (Wang et al., 2018) therefore, more research is required to know the relation between online behaviors and personality. Scientists have effectively started to conjecture and examine the connection between selfie-uploading (a demonstration of self-show) and narcissism which is the most concentrated factor on personality characteristics (Arpacia et al., 2018). According to a report, 259 people died while capturing selfies in 137 happenings from Oct 2011 to Nov 2017 globally, of which 72.5% were males and 27.5% were females. A great number of happenings and selfie-related deaths have been accounted for in India, trailed by Russia, USA, and Pakistan (Bansal et al., 2018). Thus, this review article is meant to address this hazard and lead a survey of selfitis behaviour and its associations with hypersensitive narcissism and social media usage while reviewing the mediating role of self-esteem in university students.

At last, a cross-sectional research by Wang et al. (2018) among Chinese youthful grown- ups showed the mediating part of body fulfillment among narcissism and selfie-sharing and the moderating impact of perspectives toward selfies on the connection between body fulfillment and selfie-uploading.

The current study explored that the hypersensitive component of narcissism is less because of the self-esteem of the hypersensitive narcissists and their delicate ability to be aware of their own worth is hypersensitive and labile. On the other hand, grandiose narcissists have commonly much higher and steadier self-esteem (Miller et al., 2011). Thus, hypersensitive narcissists capture and upload selfies and use social media platforms to enhance their self-esteem (Andreassen et al., 2017). One purpose of this research was to investigate the mediating role that self-esteem plays in regulating hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, and selfitis behaviour. Second, there is no published study relating the hypersensitive component of narcissism with selfitis behaviour, social media usage, and self-esteem among university students. Thus, this study is intended to fill the gap in the literature.

Hypotheses

• There would be a significant positive relationship between hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage and selfitis behaviour among university students.
• There would be a significant negative relationship between hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, and selfitis behaviour with self-esteem among university students.
• Hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage and self-esteem would predict selfitis behaviour among university students.
• There would be gender differences in hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, selfitis behaviour and self-esteem among university students.
• Self-esteem would be a mediator between hypersensitive narcissism and selfitis behaviour among university students.
• Self-esteem would be a mediator between social media usage and selfitis behaviour among university students.

Method

Sample

Correlation research design was used for the current study. The purposive sampling technique was utilized to choose the sample. Students were asked questions about inclusion criteria (for example, age and selfie taking frequency) before the data collection. The sample comprised of (N = 200) university students of undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The data was collected online using Google Docs as well as in person from students of three universities in three different cities of Punjab, Pakistan. The sample was additionally categorized into (n = 100) men and (n = 100) women. The inclusion criteria was based on (i) currently enrolled university students (ii) students with age ranged between 18 to 35 years (iii) students from undergrad and postgrad programs (iv) involved in active social media usage (v) active engagement in selfie taking behavior (vi) men and women, both genders. Exclusion criteria was based on (i) non-university students (ii) university students with age below 18 or above 35 years (iii) enrolled in doctorate programs (iv) non-active social media users (v) no active engagement in selfie taking behavior.

Measures

Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS)

Hypersensitive narcissism scale (HSNS) is a measure of hypersensitive narcissism inferred by correlating the items of Murray's (1938) narcissism scale with a compound measure of hypersensitive narcissism derived from MMPI. Hypersensitive narcissism scale (Hendin & Cheek, 1997) is a Likert-type 10-item scale from 1 = very uncharacteristic to 5 = very characteristic self-report. It is unequivocally intended to dimensionally evaluate hypersensitive narcissism. The items are added in order to get the hypersensitive narcissism scale's complete score. In short, the more the hypersensitive narcissism scale's total score, the more is the hypersensitive narcissism. The alpha reliability value for HSNS was .79 which depicted good internal consistency.

Social Media Affinity Scale (SMAS)

The SMAS comprises 13 items. These items were assessed on a five-point Likert-scale, ranging from (strongly disagree to strongly agree), of which nine are positive and four are negative. Questions 2, 4, 9, and 10 are negative. These four were re-coded before running the analysis. The scale is exhaustive, that it incorporates items addressing social media usage and convictions about social media (Gerlich et al., 2010). The alpha value for SMAS was .84 which depicted high internal consistency.

Selfitis Behaviour Scale (SBS)

The SBS contains 20 items that are rated on a five-point Likert scale going from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). High score demonstrates more elevated levels of selfitis behaviour. The SB scale incorporates six subdomains, namely environmental enhancement (1,7,13,19), social competition (2,8,14,20), attention seeking (3,9,15), mood modification (4,10,16), self-confidence (5,11,17), and subjective conformity (6,12,18) (Balakrishnan & Griffiths, 2018). The alpha value for SBS was .87 which depicted high internal consistency.

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES)

It is known as a 10-item survey that measures global self-esteem by estimating both good and regrettable sentiments about oneself. The scale is accepted to be uni-dimensional. All questions are addressed utilizing a 4-point Likert scale that is marked from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (2). The questions 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 are oppositely scored and the total score is gained by adding all the answers. Scoring should be calculated on a continuous scale. More scores mean higher self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965). The alpha reliability value for RSES was .77 which depicted good internal consistency.

Procedure

The study was first approved by the institutional review board. Following that, permissions were sought from the authors of the scales to use the scales in the present study. Before going to the data collection stage, pilot testing was done to ensure that students were able to understand and fill the questionnaire without any difficulty. Later, for the main study, data was collected both via online mode as well as in-person from public sector universities. Before their participation in the study, participants were informed of the study purpose and their role and rights as study participants. Each participant also filled an informed consent form to ensure voluntary participation. Further, participants' queries related to the study were also addressed by the researchers. Only those participants were included who fulfilled the inclusion criteria of the research and willingly participated in the research. The data obtained from the study participants was analyzed using SPSS (Version 24).

Results

First of all, descriptive statistics were calculated for demographic variables. After that, Pearson's correlation, regression analysis, t-test, one way ANOVA and mediation analysis were run for hypothesis testing.

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale, Social Media Affinity Scale, Selfitis Behaviour Scale, and Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (N=200)

Table 2

Correlations Matrix for Hypersensitive Narcissism, Social Media Usage, Selfitis Behaviour and Self-Esteem among University Students (N=200)

Note. ^**p <.01.

Table 2 shows that significant positive correlation exists between hypersensitive narcissism and social media usage which explains that an increase in hypersensitive narcissism will increase social media usage and vice versa. Significant positive correlation was found between hypersensitive narcissism and selfitis behaviour which indicates that an increase in hypersensitive narcissism will increase selfitis behaviour and decrease in hypersensitive narcissism will decrease in selfitis behaviour. Non-significant correlation was found between hypersensitive narcissism and self-esteem which indicates that there is no significant correlation between these two variables. However, significant positive correlation was found between social media usage and selfitis behaviour which indicates that an increase in social media usage will increase selfitis behaviour and decrease in social media usage will decrease in selfitis behaviour. Subsequently, significant negative correlation was found between social media usage and self-esteem which indicates that an increase in social media usage will decrease in self-esteem and decrease in social media usage will increase in self-esteem. Non-significant correlation was found between selfitis behaviour and self-esteem which indicates that there is no significant correlation between these two variables.

Table 3

Regression Coefficients of Hypersensitive Narcissism, Social Media Usage, and Self- Esteem on Selfitis Behaviour (N=200)

Table 3 shows the impact of hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, and self-esteem on selfitis behaviour among university students. The R² value of 0.1 showed that the predictors explained 10% variance in the outcome variable. The findings revealed that hypersensitive narcissism and social media usage positively predicted selfitis behaviour whereas self-esteem has a non-significant effect on the selfitis behaviour.

Table 4

Mean Comparison between Men and Women Participants on Hypersensitive Narcissism, Social Media Usage, Selfitis Behavior, and Self Esteem (N=200)

In Table 4, t-test results show non-significant mean differences on hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, selfitis behaviour, and self-esteem among men and women participants.

Table 5

Association of Path ‘a' (Independent Variable with Mediator)

Table 6

Association of Path ‘b' (Mediator with Dependent Variable)

Figure 1

Mediating Role of Self-Esteem between Hypersensitive Narcissism and Selfitis Behaviour

To investigate the mediation, analysis was performed using Hayes's PROCESS on SPSS (Version 24). The outcome variable was selfitis behaviour and the predictor variable was hypersensitive narcissism. However, the mediator variable for the analysis was self-esteem. The direct effect of hypersensitive narcissism on selfitis behaviour was found to be statistically significant [DE=.57, 95% C.I. (0.28, 0.87)]. The indirect effect of hypersensitive narcissism on selfitis behaviour was found to be statistically non-significant [IE=.0008, 95% C.I. (-0.02, 0.02). The total effect of hypersensitive narcissism on selfitis behaviour was found to be statistically significant [TE=.57, 95% C.I. (0.28, 0.87)]. These results showed that self-esteem did not play a mediating role between hypersensitive narcissism and selfitis behaviour among university students. This indicates that self-esteem does not play a significant role in explaining the relationship between hypersensitive narcissism and selfitis behaviour among university students.

Table 7

Association of Path ‘a' (Independent Variable with Mediator)

Table 8

Association of Path ‘b' (Mediator with Dependent Variable)

Figure 2

Mediating Role of Self-Esteem between Social Media Usage and Selfitis Behaviour

Under the mediation analysis by using Hayes's PROCESS, the outcome variable was selfitis behaviour and the predictor variable was social media usage. Whereas, the mediator variable for the analysis was self-esteem. The direct effect of social media usage on selfitis behaviour was found to be statistically significant [DE=.56, 95% C.I. (0.23, 0.88)]. The indirect effect of social media usage on selfitis behaviour was found to be statistically non-significant [IE=-.02, 95% C.I. (-0.14, 0.06)]. The total effect of social media usage on selfitis behaviour was found to be statistically significant [TE=.53, 95% C.I. (0.22, 0.85)]. These results showed that self-esteem did not play a mediating role between social media usage and selfitis behaviour among university students, which means that self-esteem does not play a significant role in explaining the relationship between the social media usage and selfitis behaviour among university students.

Discussion

The objective of the current study was to find an association between hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, selfitis behaviour, and self-esteem.The first hypothesis of the study was that there would be a significant positive relationship between hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, and selfitis behaviour among university students. The results demonstrated that there was a significant connection between hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, and selfitis behaviour among university students. These findings are supported by evidence demonstrating a significant positive association between hypersensitive narcissism and social media usage (Lee, 2017; Liu & Ma, 2018; Shin et al., 2016). Also, a review study on hypersensitive narcissism and non-narcissists found hypersensitive narcissism to be significantly high on social media usage (Casale et al., 2016). Hypersensitive narcissists will in general depend more on social response to direct oneself than overt narcissists (Zeigler-Hill et al., 2008). Fox and Rooney (2015) proposed a round association that exists between narcissism and selfies where more elevated levels of narcissism are identified with rise in the selfitis behaviour and an increment in selfitis behaviour consequently raises levels of narcissism. Buffardi and Campbell (2008) suggested that narcissists will in general take part in more Facebook use, and explicitly, they post more self-endorsing material and update display pictures that accentuate the appeal. The relationship among narcissism and self-show on social networking sites has been imitated in numerous different examinations (Kapidzic, 2013). Mehdizadeh (2010) affirmed that more narcissistic people revealed more elevated levels of Facebook use and shared more self-advancing material on their profiles. Individuals will in general take photos of themselves, while capturing the parts of activities they are indulged in with their companions. This behaviour showcases the association between relations between narcissism and self-presentation (Asgheret al., 2022; Brailovskaia & Bierhoff, 2016) and appear to be driven by needs such as seeking and showcasing experiences, social connection, and reaching out among media users (Oeldorf-Hirsch & Sundar, 2016).

The second hypothesis was that, there would be a significant negative relationship of hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, and selfitis behaviour with self-esteem among university students. Joinson (2004) detailed that those individuals with low self-esteem showed a robust affinity for internet correspondence than people with high self-esteem. A review directed by the University of Salford on the consequences of social media on self-esteem detailed that 50% of the members (298) uncovered that their social media usage has exacerbated their lives (Indvik, 2012). As per the review, the members revealed that their self-esteem was influenced when they contrasted their achievements with those of their web-based companions. Thus, the review exhibited the final result that social media caused low self-esteem (Indvik, 2012). In addition, positive feedback or comments received on social media could increase self-esteem (Valkenburg et al., 2017). Eckles et al. (2014) inspected the effect of impermanent experience of social media on self-esteem. The scholars utilized a correlational methodology where the review 1 (mentioned above) analyzed whether the continuous Facebook usage is related with lower self-esteem or not and the study 2 inspected the effect of transitory experience of social media profiles on self-esteem. In review 1, people who Facebooked regularly had low self-esteem; on the contrary, the review 2 showed that the members' self-esteem and relative self-assessments were low. Hence, it was proved that narcissism is a significant predictor of selfitis behaviour.

 The third hypothesis was that hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, and self-esteem would predict selfitis behaviour among university students. The visual components on social media profiles such as photos, play a crucial role in shaping one's self-view (2014 et al., 2014) and are observed to be powerful in molding others' impressions regarding people (Van Der Heide et al., 2012). Taken together, these examinations showed that the narcissistic personality characteristic fills in as a significant determinant for the self-show on social networking service.

The fourth hypothesis was, there would be gender differences in hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, selfitis behaviour, and self-esteem among university students. Kapidzic (2013) likewise found that narcissism fills in as a critical indicator of inspiration for picking Facebook display pictures that feature physical and social allure for both the boys and girls. The investigations by Arpaci et al. (2018) and several other studies could not specify gender roles, while inspecting the connection among narcissism and online photograph uploading. Social media permits both the genders to be dynamic makers of content, progressively centered on pictures and visual content (Veldhuis et al., 2020).

The fifth hypothesis was that self-esteem would be a mediator between hypersensitive narcissism and selfitis behaviour among university students. Kaur and Vig (2016) reasoned that selfitis was most connected with low self-esteem, narcissism, isolation, and sadness. Until this point in time, a couple of studies have investigated the relationship between various types of narcissism and selfie-sharing among youths and youthful grown-ups (Boursier et al., 2020). Malik et al. (2020) in their review analyzed that one of the significant reasons of selfitis behaviour among adolescents is their low self-esteem where narcissism was a substantial cause of selfitis behaviour.

The sixth hypothesis was, self-esteem would be a mediator between social media usage and selfitis behaviour among university students. Selfie-capturing and uploading are among the most famous exercises being practiced on social media with the requirement for self-investigation, correspondence, consideration chasing, and positive input from friends and outsiders (McLean et al., 2019). Different specialists investigating sex related contrasts related with selfitis behaviour have featured that young people from both the genders utilize selfies for self- showing on social media (Guo et al., 2018), while sharing various kinds of selfies (Boursier & Manna, 2018).

Conclusion

The study concluded that hypersensitive narcissists and people with low self-esteem use more social media and have elevated levels of selfitis behaviour However, it was found out that there are no gender differences in the hypersensitive narcissism, social media usage, selfitis behaviour, and self-esteem. Social media usage, narcissism, and the emerging phenomenon of "selfitis" are pertinent in today's digital age. The current study focuses on university students, a specific demographic known for high engagement with social media, and this targeted approach enhances the strength of the study and provides insights into the unique challenges faced by this group.

Limitations and Suggestions

There was no previously published research on the current topic, so relating the results with the previous literature was very difficult. Future researchers should include a grandiose subtype of narcissism as only the hypersensitive subtype was taken in this research. Variables like attention seeking, body image, self-objectification, and so on should also be included in future research to better understand the selfitis behaviour. More cross-cultural research should be done and researchers should research more diverse samples including other cities and countries. Future researchers can also use qualitative methods to explore selfitis behaviour in-depth by including more participants and increasing the sample size. Scales other than those used in the current study can be used and indigenous tools should be developed to access the local population.

Implications

It could assist educators, mental health professionals, and policymakers in recognizing and addressing these risk factors to promote a healthier academic and social environment. The study could contribute to the discussions around digital well-being and the need for guidelines to ensure that social media platforms are used in ways that enhance rather than diminish self-esteem.

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