Abstract
Previous research has found that some people use Facebook for antisocial purposes, such as for “trolling” or attention-seeking. Conversely, others use Facebook in prosocial, relationship-enhancing ways, such as to increase belonging or to connect with friends. Few studies, however, have investigated differences between men and women in their antisocial and prosocial use of Facebook. The present study sought to address this research gap by examining whether these sex differences might be explained by narcissism and relational self-construal (i.e., the extent to which an individual defines their self in terms of close relationships). To this end, 573 participants living in the United States completed measures of narcissism, relational self-construal, and motives for using Facebook. Results revealed that men reported more antisocial motives for using Facebook than did women, which was explained by their greater narcissism. Conversely, women reported stronger prosocial motives for using Facebook, which was explained by their more relational self-construal. We discuss ways that these findings can contribute to the development of interventions to promote prosocial online behaviour.
Highlights
Logging into Facebook, individuals are afforded a variety of opportunities in how they choose to interact with others
Do men and women differ in these uses of Facebook? While some researchers have assumed that men and women share the same motives for engaging with others on Facebook (Hargittai, 2007), others have called for further investigation into sex differences in motives for using social networks (Lin, Califf, & Featherman, 2013)
The present results suggest that men's more antisocial use of Facebook is explained in part by their greater narcissism, whereas women's more prosocial use of Facebook is explained partly by their more relational self-construal
Summary
Logging into Facebook, individuals are afforded a variety of opportunities in how they choose to interact with others. We proposed that women would be more strongly motivated to use Facebook for prosocial purposes, in part because their more relational self-construal e the extent that they define their identity through their social relationships (Cross, Bacon, & Morris, 2000) e and their focus on close others (Cross, Hardin, & Gercek-Swing, 2011) encourages their greater engagement in relationship-promoting behaviours (Mattingly, Oswald, & Clark, 2011) These findings may contribute to the tailoring of interventions and policies which encourage prosocial online behaviours by promoting more relational ways of interacting while curbing antisocial behaviour. We discuss the ways that sex differences in antisocial and prosocial Facebook motives might be explained by sex differences in narcissism and self-construal, respectively
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