Got Tons of Facebook Friends? You May Be a Narcissist, Says Study [VIDEO]
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Do you have tons of Facebook friends and often update your status? If so, you may be a narcissist, a new study suggests.
Research from Western Illinois University showed a link between the number of Facebook friends you have and how active you are on the site to the likelihood of being a “socially disruptive” narcissist.
The study — which was recently published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences — was conducted among 300 participants, who took a Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire.
Those with more Facebook friends, who tagged themselves in photos and updated their status throughout the day were more likely to have narcissistic traits.
“People who have a heightened need to feel good about themselves will often turn to Facebook as a way to do so,” study author Chris Carpenter from Western Illinois University told Mashable.
“Facebook gives those with narcissistic tendencies the opportunity to exploit the site to get the feedback they need and become the center of attention.”
Carpenter said that Facebook users that self-promote themselves on the site show signs of two narcissistic behaviors. The first is called grandiose exhibition (GE), which refers to people who love to be the center of attention. The second is a category that involves entitlement/explotiveness (EE), which indicates how far people will go to get the respect and attention they think they deserve.
“There isn’t a baseline of how many friends a person has or how often they update their status that would qualify as them to have these narcissistic characteristics,” Carpenter said. “However, it’s interesting to note how often these people use first-person pronouns such as ‘I’ and ‘me’ on the site.”
This isn’t the first time a study has been conducted about Facebook narcissists. In 2010, a study published from York University highlighted the differences between how men and women self-promoted themselves on Facebook.
Men tended to promote themselves in the “About Me” description, while women used pictures that “include[d] revealing, flashy and adorned photos of their physical appearance.”
Do you think narcissism can be linked to how people use Facebook? Let us know in the comments.
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I really hope not!
I am also, but I maintained more than one account, what about that?
Add me! Look here! Click like! Share this post! Whew, I feel better…
like!
I would be interested to know what is defined as a lot. I think my number is excessive (over 1000), but compared to the 5k limit, it isn’t that much. Also, a lot of people who are are artists and performers use it to promote themselves. Is that narcissistic or just a good business practice?
Agreed. And what about this recent Mashable article: http://mashable.com/2012/02/21/facebook-profiles-job-performance/? An extroverted Facebook profile makes you a good worker…but also a narcissist? Can you be one without the other?
1. An exaggerated sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. Believes he is “special” and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a sense of entitlement
6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends
7. Lacks empathy
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him
9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes
–Taken from: http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/dsm-iv.html
There’s a HUGE difference between a person promoting themselves and an artist or performer promoting their music, artwork, videos, or other creation.
Narcissist:
I’m so cool. Look what I can do. I am so much more interesting than anyone. (I, I, I, me, me, me…)
Artist:
[Name of album] by [band or music project] is available now on [name of recording company's, band's, or project website]! Don’t forget to buy your tickets if you want to see us in concert! (Notice the words ‘I’ and ‘me’ were never used. The message centered on the music, and the closest the message came to mentioning the person was the used of the rather inclusive word
‘us’ once.)
lol, most artists and performers are narcissists by nature anyway
…so if I keep my friends list small but frequently update my status, does that make me a bi-polar narcissist? And do I have multiple personality disorder if I moonlight at http://facebook.com/literarymom and http://facebook.com/infjchristians ? There’s that shameless self-promotion :p
I call this (GE) the “beauty factor.”
FB is a great metric for understanding human behavior(s) in a social media context.
Vincent Medina (EE)
Managing Director
search: Google Search Visibility Expert
And? Is it to bad to be a narcissist? who sais that? A vidio guy from Facebook! – wow piople lets belive him, if he is on video than he is right!
I actualy don’t thik i’m narcissist, Couse i use Facebook and other social places for geting news. But i also think that is nothing bad in beeng narcissist.
You’re definitely not an editor that’s for sure.
Like! ;)
You cant have too many friends, and I disagree with that other dude from about a year ago who thinks there is a limit to the number of friends the brain can remember. Most of mine I know IRL.
I think we all have a bit of narcissism, each of us. Especially these days with a lot of attention directed toward personal branding for entrepreneurs and businesses. I suppose taking a look at the intention of the postings would be a good place to start. Is it to bring attention to oneself just because one craves the attention? Or is it more geared toward sharing information for the benefits of others?
We all know a few people that fit into this mold. I have friends that use social media to market themselves in more ways than a musician and with less product a dude selling oranges off the freeway.
I feel as if many people need acceptance of some form in our lives and social-media allows us to become marketers of our own existence. The online-social patterns that emerge from observing my friends have always been fascinating to me. It doesn’t really harm me, but it does sometimes annoy me to see the daily “look at me aren’t I cute” photos.
This article was definitely written about me.
Interesting that they needed a study to know this. Self-image and identity validation are the driving forces behind Facebook as well as the driving forces behind a lot of marketing and advertising.
I would suggest that narcissism is simply an unhealthy result of prioritizing one’s self too much just like getting fat is an unhealthy result of eating too much. We’re all guilty of the causes of narcissism from time to time (selfishness, egoism, vanity), just like we’re all guilty of over-eating from time to time, but determining who’s in fact a narcissist is like determining who’s fat: It’s subjective.
That all said, please LIKE this post so I can tell myself I’m brilliant. ;-)
Me too! I have hundreds of Facebook friends, but many of them are necessary business contacts.. I share with them developer experience, like when working on our World Live Cams app with 4000 webcams from all over the world, especially gorgeous-looking on the new iPad: http://livecams.vinternete.com
I keep a big Facebook social graph so I can promote the things I write. It’s a distribution strategy, not a way for me to feel better about myself.
This is complete bullshit.
Not to mention, the author doesn’t even touch on the idea of Healthy Narcissism. See more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_narcissism
It makes sense, Facebook is a part of the social network, so people will eventually exhibit some undesirable social traits like being a narcissist.
This is kind of funny. I wonder whether their population consisted of teeny-boppers or people seeking a social network because they don’t have one in real life… or if they looked at people who have a healthy social network in real life and just use social media for passive income (e.g. bloggers/tastemakers) or to network/connect professionally. But then again, I might just be considered “socially disruptive” right now :).
I know there are several people that are going to feel me on this one. To me, it seems obvious that these scientists forget that workaholics love posting on Facebook. This way, we can continue to work 60-80 hours a week and no one is mad at us for not hanging out. They can enjoy your “presence” without having to be there in person. I have found that posting every 3 hours helps to prevent people from calling and texting me when I need to be working. Facebook is a social focusing tool.
Daaaah ha! TRICK BLOG! If you read it, you are a narcissist!
Narcissism IS linked to how people use Facebook
immediately I can think of a few people who act like this in this my friendlist haha! pretty sad for them cuz it seems pretty much of a truth to me
I think the key difference is how people use Facebook. Having 1000 friends doesn’t make you a narcissist. Thinking 1000 people care about what you ate for lunch if narcissism.
I think another part of it is how people attempt to control their Facebook world. I know of more than a handful of people who unfriend anybody who gives them negative feedback or don’t validate them. Making a joke, pointing out their compliment fishing, or any other sort of feedback that they feel uncomfortable with gets you unfriended because they want to craft a very controlled world where only people who validate them (or don’t say anything) are allowed.
For instance, someone I know on FB (and real life) tagged 80 – 100 people in a photo of just herself. When people started commenting that they aren’t in the photo and wondering why she tagged them she got very angry and threatened to unfriend anybody who had a problem with what she did.
I think a lot of people are reading this report wrong though. Posting often and having a lot of friends does not make one a narcissist and the report makes no claim of such (despite Mashable’s cheeky opening sentence). What it says is that narcissists tend to post often and have a lot of friends.
Like daveplantz said, fat people tend to eat a lot. That doesn’t mean that all people who eat a lot are fat. Many people post a lot on Facebook for various reasons. Posting frequently isn’t necessarily narcissistic but narcissists tend to post more frequently than “the norm” (whatever that is).
Your first line hit the nail on the head. Hope you mind if I use it :)
“*dont mind…” :)
Ohhh your post made more sense to me than the article, ha, k…
Soooo true!
Nail. Head. Direct Hit.
Also it makes me feel reassured, so thanks!
Too damn true. I think the same applies to Twitter, somewhat, I’m sure. I’m not qualified to and have certainly not formally studied people’s behaviour, but am a keen observer. This confirms what I already knew. More in depth articles like this would be appreciated :)
mhmm… Sometimes I post to Facebook a lot, sometimes I don’t…
Wait I lost track of what this article was, hahaa oh well I am gone… How about a brigg meyers quiz thing !
I LOVE ME!!!
It can!!! Sick and tired of seeing entire albums made of pics taken by theirs selves on the mirror.
I’ve only taken a picture of myself in a mirror once. On a scavenger hunt, we were supposed to find a ‘halo’, so I used the flash. Voila. My body and a giant flash where my head should have been. That may have been the best picture of me ever taken.
Does this “study” take into account results of other “studies” which suggest that modern communication technology has rewired our brains ? Besides,given the nature and popularity of the web, can the same set of rules that are used to analyze behavior in physical world be equally applicable to online behavior ?
I am interested to see this study, would you please send me a link to it? Thanx, Rafa – Curacao
I would think that online dating sites would be included in these conclusions. I know people who spend hours on dating sites but rarely if ever date or date more than once. Seems to be narcissistic behavior to me.
Maybe they’re just too scared to have a relationship?
Hey, I have 3 FB accounts and 3 Twitter accounts; Shoot might as well have me going BOING in the rubber room, babies!
Being a social media outsider and a scientist with critical thinking, I observe this across the whole social media sphere, not just FB. Clout and Mashable appear to be two of the dominant drivers of this along with FB, Twitter and Pintrest.
Alex, I’d be curious if this tendancy toward narcissism is observable across society and we just see it more clearly within social media. The people who connect with others the most on any of those platforms tend to ask questions more than answer and communicate ideas more than self. Just a thought.
Social media gives it a platform which was never their previously. Broadcast is now further than previously capable of but the tendency for instantaneous feedback (number of “likes,” number of follow up comments or friends, your Klout or alternative scoring methods) feeds back on it self to increase narcissistic kudos. Previously, a far right extremest shouting out in the street was seen as the odd ball of society and had a sphere of influence only over a minor number of inderviduals. Start a controversial FB page and suddenly an extremest has a following (regardless of if they are genuine followers of like mind or monitors viewing by interest), viewers, self enforcing credibility by reciprocal comments, views and suddenly becomes a minor celeb in their own mind.
Social media can be very good for promotion and collaboration. The principle of LinkedIn in the sense of linking through professional management and collaboration allows credibility of knowledge and influence. Linking for the sake of linking (the narcissistic method) destroys the credibility not just of the individual, but of the site/group. How many Twitter uses do you seen following many thousands in the hope that followers will follow back? I can think of a few!
Mashable has the same principle on certain brands. The narcisitic tendency is for the publication and pushing of week stories based on aligning a view with a certain brand. By showing that they are with the brand lifts their status by proxy, so more views as in reinforces a readers view therefore increase the alleged credibility of the publisher.
Let me see if I understand correctly. Narcissism = selfishness, right? So, only self-centered people grow “friends” online? I would agree fictional “friends” like those who have been purchased or who are actually little bots could gather around someone totally self-centered. But actual people like ideas, thoughts and genuine communication. Many people successfully communicate in this way online. They tend to gather a bit of a following because what they say, share, ask, and pass on connects with a part of us.
The question is this: could we do the same test on 300 people who do not share online and find similar results? Narcissism/selfishness prances around society in many forms. It’s a problem. It’s the reason we need police, laws, fences, etc. Is it just more visible online?
researcher hypothesizes a broad generalization about millions of people. researcher discovers people like themselves. researcher makes the ultimate narcissistic facebook post.
And in other news, THE SUN IS STILL SHINING. Why was a “study” needed for this conclusion?? Most of us have some FB friends who “collect” friendships with just about anyone who they think is hot, and/or they post six or more times daily… usually involving inane stuff about how they feel today, where they have their daily coffee, what they made/ate for dinner, who they had drinks with, etc. I usually banish these people to the Dark Dungeon of only “Most Important” updates; however every once in a while I visit said dungeon or briefly unshackle their posts to see what I’ve been missing. Usually, not much!
Narcissism is often a symptom of Low Self Esteem. So although we love to complain about our narcissist friends, ideally we should feel empathy for them. Unfortunately, just liking or commenting on your narcissist friends’ posts only serves to reinforce their validation-seeking mindset and habits. The best way to empathize is to write or talk to your friend one-on-one — find out what’s bothering them about their lives, help them work toward solving their problems, and thus be a “real” friend.
And… at the risk of sounding like I’M seeking validation online, I’ll step off the soapbox now. ;-)
I showed this video to my wife. Dhe still is convinced that i am a narcissist, all because i have a website that bears my name. My name is Tom Nardone and the website is htttp://www.iamtomnardone.com. I do it to be funny and all the feed back i get are good.
I’d say there’s a difference between Extroversion and NPD. Extroverts are “other oriented,” they like people. Someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder may exhibit extroversion (they can be outgoing) but, they usually lack natural empathy (although it can be feigned). Here’s the DSM-IV Criteria. While I can’t diagnose personality disorders (because I’m not a mental health professional), I think this is good to share–and, a person must meet at least 5 of the criteria below from what I understand: 1. An exaggerated sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. Believes he is “special” and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a sense of entitlement
6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends
7. Lacks empathy
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him
9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes
–Taken from: http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/dsm-iv.html
there can be a lot of possible reason why a person have thousands of friends in Facebook, especially if you are working and if you are affiliated in organizations..i don’t wanna make an account for each..so ill have all of them in one account..i don’t think that’s narcissism
Seriously? They needed a study to figure that out? Anyone who is not socially disassociated and not busy basing their importance on numbers of *whatever* they have…knows narcissistic behavior.
I sometimes feel all the social technology has somehow made us take a step backwards in evolution.
The next primate in line will believe they have to tweet to another monkey to protest loudly so the apple falls from the tree.
Oh Duh
Too many connections on social media platforms? You may be a social media marketing director, says reality.
Hmmm… so if I have a bunch of Facebook friends I’m a narcissist. Yet If I make my wall private because I don’t want to deal with having to clean up other people’s virtual graffiti which leads to undeserved judgment about me and who I know, I’ve been labeled a narcissist.
You are too active on Facebook? You’re a narcissist! You won’t let me post what I want on your wall? You’re a narcissist!
The solution is to have fake profiles. Then you aren’t the one who’s a narcissist, your multiple personalities are, and they can feed everyone else’s narcissism and miserable little need to achieve validation through the click of the like button.
If I tell you I don’t need your validation by giving this comment a thumbs up or not, does that make me a narcissist?