Relationship of Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy Personality Traits with Social Media Addiction among Adults: Gender and Marital Status are in Focus

Abstract

Personality characteristics such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are considered dark triad features. These are linked with a range of negative outcomes. Social media usage is growing more and more popular every day. However, people's functionality declines with frequent usage of social media. The overall sample of the research was consisting of (N= 400) out of which (211 were female and 189 were male) ranging in age from 17 to 41 years recruited by consecutive sampling. Data was gathered by using the Social Media Addiction Scale developed by Tutgunl & Deniz (2015) and the Short Dark Triad Scale developed by Paulhus (2014). Results obtained by using bivariate correlation showed that all three traits of the Dark Personality Triad were positively correlated with social media addiction. Male respondents have a higher level of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy than female respondents, while female participants were a higher level of social media addiction than male participants. On the other hand, both genders scored equally on the narcissism dark personality triadThere was a slight difference in Machiavellianism and psychopathology scores among married and unmarried students. The unmarried students reported slightly higher scores on Machiavellianism and psychopathology traits. Lastly, the results also reported that use of social media addiction was higher among married students as compared with unmarried students.