Does validation on social media tell you what type of person you are?

By Martin Graff, Ph.D.

If you use social media, do you consider these statements to be accurate about you, or are you unconcerned or uninfluenced by others online?

The attention I get from social media is important to me. I consider someone to be popular based on the number of likes they get. I wish I could gain more likes online.

In a study my colleagues and I conducted, we hypothesized that personality and self-esteem affect how people use social media. We asked participants to respond to statements that showed how they appreciate being valued online.

We received responses from 332 people between the ages of 18 and 78; a third were men and two-thirds were women. Seventy percent of our responders reported posting online one to five times daily on up to 10 types of social media.

Our survey measured self-esteem and the personality characteristics of extraversion (sociable, outgoing), agreeableness (warm, sympathetic), conscientiousness (organized, disciplined), neuroticism (irritable, moody), and openness (imaginative, unconventional).

We found several ways in which types of validation in social media were related to self-esteem and personality:

Effort in Social Media:

Characterized by asking for likes or even paying to get more validation, this effort was related to low levels of agreeableness, trust, warmth, and modesty.

Taking Action:

This included deleting a post that did not receive many likes and was related to low levels of self-esteem, low conscientiousness, and low openness.

Honest Posting:

These people always presented themselves accurately online. Unconcerned with getting likes, they seemed to be more extraverted, sociable, and outgoing.

Blindness in Social Media:

Examples: Accepting friend requests from people they didn’t know or posting information inconsistent with their beliefs just to gain likes. This was related to low levels of conscientiousness, as well as impulsiveness, and being disorganized.

Positive Posting:

I always post positive things about myself. This was related to self-esteem, having confidence in one’s abilities, and low levels of neuroticism.

Finally, we found that none of the personality or self-esteem measures were related to whether receiving likes and validation improved one’s mood or self-esteem.