The role of self-construal in romantic gift posting across Social Networking Sites

Abstract

For romantic couples, posting romantic gift pictures on social network sites has become a tool for public declarations of love. This research investigates how self-construal influences recipients’ romantic gift-posting behavior across three popular social network sites (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) at the country and individual levels. In the first two of three studies, we demonstrate that interdependent self-construal participants are more likely to post romantic gift pictures on Facebook and Instagram, but not on Twitter, than independent self-construal participants because the former group feels that the gifts represent themselves (on Facebook) and they want to flaunt their status (on Instagram). The third study reveals the moderating effects of gift types (experiential vs. material) on the romantic gift-posting behavior between independent and interdependent self-construals across SNSs. This research highlights the need to develop a better understanding of information sharing behavior on social network sites among romantic couples from different cultures as well as those within a culture. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed.