RESEARCH ARTICLE
Selfie Behaviors and Personality Traits: More than Meets the Eye
Alexandra M. Mihailescu1, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 13
First Page: 223
Last Page: 231
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-13-223
DOI: 10.2174/1874350102013010223
Article History:
Received Date: 29/02/2020Revision Received Date: 20/05/2020
Acceptance Date: 10/06/2020
Electronic publication date: 19/08/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Selfies are a rising phenomenon associated with the widespread use of smartphones and social media. The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between different personality traits and selfie behaviors.
Methods:
Undergraduate psychology students were asked to complete a questionnaire about their frequency of selfie taking, selfie posting to social media, and selfie sharing through private messaging. They were also asked to complete the Rosenberg 10-item self-esteem scale and the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP)-50 item scale to evaluate the Big Five personality traits.
Results:
A total of 96 participants were included in this study (mean age ± standard deviation of 26.4 ± 9.0 years, 81.3% women). On univariate analysis there was a significant negative correlation between the frequency of selfie taking (Spearman r = -0.228, p = 0.025) or posting (Spearman r = -0.238, p = 0.025) and emotional stability. However, on multivariate linear regression analysis adjusting for age among other factors, only self-esteem was independently and negatively correlated with the frequency of selfie taking (beta = -0.206, p = 0.020) or posting (beta = -0.233, p = 0.020), with the effect most notable in young (<25 years) individuals for selfie taking. Extraversion was independently and positively correlated with the frequency of selfie sharing (beta = 0.264, p = 0.005), with the effect most notable in young (<25 years) women.
Conclusion:
Findings from this study further expand our knowledge of the relationship between different personality traits and rising digital media phenomena.
