Going public on social media: The effects of thousands of Instagram followers on users with a high need for social approval

Sciara, Simona; Contu, Federico; Bianchini, Mariavittoria; Chiocchi, Marta; Sonnewald, Giacomo Giorgio

doi:10.1007/s12144-021-02172-x

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…According to the theory, for instance, to ensure that their symbolizing has been noticed by others, self-symbolizers can be expected to check whether other users actually viewed their Instagram posts. High amounts of views, likes, and followers can be interpreted as successful registration of identity symbols, and maybe be pursued to maintain high levels of completeness (e.g., by hiding a low number of likes to others, setting one's profile to public to have more followers; Sciara et al, 2021). In this sense, social media qualify as the ideal tool to validate one's identity using others' acknowledgment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resolving incompleteness on social media: Online self-symbolizing reduces the orienting effects of incomplete identity goals.

Sciara¹,

Regalia²,

Gollwitzer³

2022

Motivation Science

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Based on self-completion theory (SCT), the present experiment broadens previous research on the effects of incompleteness on social media posting by testing 2 complementary hypotheses. First, identity goal incompleteness—as a goal-oriented state—should induce orienting effects, including impulsiveness in online posting, uninterest in others’ posted contents, feelings of irritation, and narrowing of attention. Second, all these orienting effects should be resolved through the publishing of a self-symbolizing post on Instagram which entails indicators of goal attainment. In a 2-factorial experiment (N = 264), we varied the sense of identity goal incompleteness versus completeness in a sample of committed medical students and then provided an opportunity to restore completeness or not through a self-symbolizing versus neutral Instagram post. Finally, we assessed participants’ levels of impulsiveness, uninterest in others, feelings of irritation, and narrowed attention in solving a visual game. Results confirmed that identity goal incompleteness—as any goal-oriented state—causes specific orienting effects intended to facilitate goal achievement. Further, we demonstrated that posting self-symbolizing content on social media manages to restore completeness making these orienting effects disappear. Theoretical and practical implications of our results for a better understanding of social media behaviors and deepening the study of self-completion processes are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resolving incompleteness on social media: Online self-symbolizing reduces the orienting effects of incomplete identity goals.

Sciara¹,

Regalia²,

Gollwitzer³

2022

Motivation Science

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This is in contrast to friendship-based social media networks, such as Facebook or Snapchat, on which relationships are inherently mutual. Another motivation for this could be that having more followers can be an indicator of social capital or peer approval [19,58]. From our survey, we found the median ratio of followers to following for participants' main accounts is 1.01 and the mean ratio is 1.98 (see Fig.…”

mentioning

confidence: 80%

Understanding Teenage Perceptions and Configurations of Privacy on Instagram

Zhao¹,

Inaba²,

Monroy-Hernández³

2022

Preprint

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As teenage use of social media platform continues to proliferate, so do concerns about teenage privacy and safety online. Prior work has established that privacy on networked publics, such as social media, is complex, requiring users to navigate not only the technical affordances on the platform but also interpersonal relationships and social norms. We investigate how teenagers think about privacy on the popular imagesharing platform, Instagram. We draw on an online survey (N=144) and semi-structured interviews (N=21) with teenagers, ages 13-19, to gain a better understanding how teenagers configure privacy on the popular image-sharing platform Instagram and why they make these privacy decisions. Finally, based on our findings, we provide design recommendations towards the design of better privacy controls for promoting teenage safety online.CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; Empirical studies in HCI; • Security and privacy → Social aspects of security and privacy.

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“…This understanding can affect the decisions and behaviors of individuals, especially in social life (Sciara et al, 2021). Students with a high NfSA are in the process of sharing knowledge in social media environments with the help of their friends, parents, and so forth, and approvals can be effective.…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the factors influencing students' knowledge‐sharing behavior in the social media‐based learning community

Yılmaz

2023

Psychology in the Schools

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Virtual learning communities can be formed through social media platforms, enabling the implementation of various learning activities. One of the essential components of virtual learning communities created on social media is the knowledge‐sharing behaviors (KSB) of students. Studies show that some students actively participate in the knowledge‐sharing processes, while some students do not actively participate in this process the observed phenomenon could potentially be attributed to the psycho‐social condition of the students. The main goal of this research was to establish the factors related to the KSB of the students in the virtual learning community created in the social media environment. The research investigated the structural associations among KSB, need for social approval (NfSA), happiness, self‐control and self‐management (SC‐SM), and dispositional hope (DH) structures. A total of 176 university students, engaged in the virtual learning community formed on social media, were included in the research. The research was implemented within the scope of Computing II course. Students used the virtual learning community created for the course during one academic semester and shared knowledge. In the study, relationships between structures were discovered by path analysis. Research results showed that the NfSA and DH were significantly related to KSB. According to the results, happiness and SC–SM did not significantly relate to KSB. It can be said that supporting students' social approval needs and increasing hope levels can be beneficial to improve students' KSB in virtual learning communities to be created in social media environments. According to another result of the study, it was observed that as the SC–SM levels of the students increased, their happiness and DH levels also increased. In line with the results obtained from the results, what can be done to improve the KSB of students in virtual learning communities was discussed, and various suggestions were made for researchers and practitioners.

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Going public on social media: The effects of thousands of Instagram followers on users with a high need for social approval

Cited by 9 publications

References 73 publications

Resolving incompleteness on social media: Online self-symbolizing reduces the orienting effects of incomplete identity goals.

Resolving incompleteness on social media: Online self-symbolizing reduces the orienting effects of incomplete identity goals.

Understanding Teenage Perceptions and Configurations of Privacy on Instagram

Examining the factors influencing students' knowledge‐sharing behavior in the social media‐based learning community

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