Me, My Self-Presentations and I: Within-Person Associations between Narcissism, Social Media Use and Peer Attachment

Abstract

Although the relationship between social media and narcissism in adolescents has been widely studied, the direction of this link remains unclear to date. This is striking given the potential deconstructive consequences of narcissism for adolescents’ peer relationships. Therefore, this three-wave panel study (Nw1=1032) examined at both the between- and within-person level how narcissism is related to adolescents’ positive self-presentations on the one hand, and to adolescents’ peer attachment on the other hand. At the between-person level, there were significant positive correlations between positive self-presentations on social media and narcissism, and between narcissism and peer relationships. At the within-person level, only the cross-lagged relation of narcissism predicting an adolescent’s tendency to post appearance-related self-presentations on social media was significant. Multiple group tests for gender and receiving positive feedback on one’s self-presentations showed no differences in these within-person associations.