A recent daily diary study revealed that how people with narcissistic personality traits perceive their success on social media is primarily driven by their internal expectations rather than their actual posting routines. The study, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, highlights that unmet online goals can actively reduce the day-to-day psychological well-being of individuals who exhibit more vulnerable forms of narcissism. These findings help shed light on how different aspects of personality shape the daily digital experiences of frequent Internet users.
Psychologists conceptualize narcissism as a personality system aimed at managing self-esteem through constant feedback from others. It is not just a matter of vanity, but a continuous and functional effort to seek approval, exert absolute influence, and maintain social status. People with high levels of these traits often engage in specific interpersonal strategies to protect their inflated self-concepts and regulate their emotional states.
Social media platforms provide a highly accessible and ecologically valid environment in which to study these personality dynamics. These allow individuals to curate their self-presentation, reach a wide audience, and receive instant tangible feedback in the form of likes and comments. Because users intentionally choose what they post and are free to edit their public images, these platforms provide an ideal environment for observing how individuals seek to regulate their self-esteem through everyday social interactions.
Narcissism is usually divided into two main categories known as grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism. Grandiose narcissism is characterized by a strong sense of entitlement, an exaggerated sense of self-importance, and a pervasive tendency to control social situations. This category is usually divided into two distinct behavioral patterns known as admiration and rivalry.
Admiration involves promoting one’s accomplishments in order to charm others, actively pursue unique status, and attract positive attention. Competition involves defending one’s advantage through arrogance, hostility toward perceived competitors, and frequent devaluation of others. Rivalry people are often quick to interpret interactions as personal threats.
In contrast, vulnerable narcissism exhibits a much more unstable psychological profile. People high in this trait struggle with fragile self-esteem, deep-seated insecurities, and a significantly heightened fear of rejection. They often feel fundamentally ignored and are highly sensitive to negative social evaluation. This extreme sensitivity can lead to long-term interpersonal difficulties, deep frustration, and a generally negative emotional state.
While past research has examined the general social media habits of people with these traits, there has been little focus on the specific day-to-day responses they receive online. Researchers Carmen Schlalyu, Catherine B. Carnelly, and Claire M. Hart worked to fill this knowledge gap. They aimed to understand how different narcissistic traits influence daily posting behaviors and how those behaviors are related to a person’s subjective well-being.
To explore these dynamics, researchers designed a daily diary study to track the social media habits of 154 adults over three weeks. Participants completed an initial survey assessing baseline levels of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Over the next 21 days, they completed follow-up surveys every two days detailing their most recent social media posts and interpersonal relationships.
During each check-in session, participants pasted the exact text of a recent post into a survey and rated the content on factors such as positivity, negativity, and honesty. They also documented specific social benefits that they positively expected to receive, such as making new connections, maintaining current friendships, and increasing popularity. In subsequent sessions, we recorded the number of likes and comments we actually received and evaluated how those objective results matched our initial hopes.
This study had very clear results based on the exact type of narcissism exhibited by the participants. People with high levels of narcissistic admiration consistently present themselves more frequently and post content in a highly positive and selective tone. These highly active users reported strong satisfaction with their social media interactions and expressed a strong belief that their posts helped them successfully initiate relationships and maintain interpersonal intimacy.
Conversely, the presence of narcissistic rivalry was associated with a variety of digital habits. Participants who scored high on rivalry actually self-presented less and shared less positive content overall. They also reported feeling that there were fewer social benefits and less success in starting and maintaining digital relationships compared to relationships sparked by admiration.
Participants with high levels of vulnerable narcissism exhibited other unique patterns of behavior online. Similar to those with rivalries, they tended to post relatively unfavorable content. They consistently expected their networks to receive more attention, recognition, and popularity than they actually delivered, resulting in a continuing gap between digital expectations and digital reality.
When analyzing the data, the researchers observed that the actual act of posting or self-presenting had no effect on the perceived social outcomes of any group. In other words, the feelings of social success or failure that participants reported were not directly caused by the way they expressed themselves online or the content they actually provided. As an alternative explanation, the authors suggest that individuals’ internal expectations, existing social goals, and biased interpretations of feedback played a much larger role in shaping perceived digital reality.
The study also investigated exactly how these online interactions affect a person’s subjective well-being, a measure that includes satisfaction with their daily life and emotional state. Vulnerable narcissism was consistently associated with lower overall happiness over the study period. This emotional deficit was especially evident when they felt that their posts were not helping them build new relationships.
For users with average to high levels of vulnerable narcissism, unmet expectations regarding the initiation of a relationship were associated with a clear decrease in daily well-being. These people are especially sensitive to social rejection, so their inability to connect with others online seems to confirm their underlying insecurities. Grandiose personalities did not display similar emotional vulnerability to unmet social expectations.
These findings have practical implications for social media network designers and users who operate social media networks. Technology companies frequently rely on raw behavioral analytics, such as total time spent online and frequency of clicks, to assess user satisfaction and mental health. Our findings suggest that approaches based on these indicators remain inadequate for predicting an individual’s emotional state. Designing digital environments to allow users to interpret feedback constructively can provide a safer experience for users who are highly sensitive to online rejection.
The researchers noted several limitations regarding their methodology. This data relies heavily on self-reported ratings of post-post honesty and positivity, which may introduce personal biases not shared by objective observers. The sample was drawn primarily from the United Kingdom, which means the findings may not be seamlessly generalizable to people from different cultural or socio-economic backgrounds.
For future research, the authors suggest combining self-reported experiences with independent assessments of social media behavior. Incorporating the perspective of the audience, rather than just the person posting the content, has the potential to provide a more balanced understanding of these digital interactions. Investigating how other interpersonal characteristics influence the pursuit of connections online may reveal new layers of human social behavior in the digital age.
The study, “Daily Exhibits: A Daily Diary Study of Narcissists’ Social Media Self-Expression, Perceptions of Social Consequences, and Subjective Well-Being,” was authored by Carmen Schlalyu, Catherine B. Carnelly, and Claire M. Hart.
