Self-presentation on social media – when self-enhancement confronts self-verification in a virtual public space

Zheng, Anlan

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/105063 Copy

Description

Title

Self-presentation on social media – when self-enhancement confronts self-verification in a virtual public space

Author(s)

Zheng, Anlan

Issue Date

2019-04-19

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Duff, Brittany

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Duff, Brittany

Committee Member(s)

• Vargas, Patrick
• Yao, Mike
• Faber, Ron

Department of Study

Inst of Communications Rsch

Discipline

Communications and Media

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

Social media, Self-enhancement, Self-verification, Self-presentation

Abstract

Social media has become an important part of people’s daily life. Every day people frequently switch between the physical world and the digital world created by social media. Recent research has examined the impact of social media on people’s self-evaluation (e.g. Valkenburg, Peter & Schouten, 2006; Vogel, Rose, Roberts & Eckles, 2014; Gonzales & Hancock, 2009). However, there has not been any research that examined this issue from the perspective of psychological motives – that is, what are the underlying motives that drive people to behave in such patterns? Understanding such psychological motives underlying people’s social media use is important because they affect how people evaluate themselves, which further drives their behavior on social media. Three studies reported here suggest that the public nature of social media influences self-enhancement and self-verification, which are two major psychological motives of people’s self-evaluation process. Specifically, it was found that when self-disclosing on social media, people tend to only self-enhance but not self-verify. In comparison, in the offline world, they both self-enhance and self-verify. Moreover, it was also found that on social media, people tend to only self-enhance but not self-verify with distant friends. However, they would like to both self-enhance and self-verify with close friends. In addition, implications of the findings in advertising industry are discussed.

Graduation Semester

2019-05

Type of Resource

text

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105063

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2019 Anlan Zheng

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