social media and narcissism essay

Narcissism and Social Media: Should We Be Afraid?

Research reveals a complex picture of the effects of social media on narcissism..

Posted September 13, 2019 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

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Narcissism is a term that can be used in a variety of ways—from the throwaway insult, to a personality characteristic that seems to suffuse all of a person’s behaviors, to a full-blown personality disorder .

Narcissism is a cluster of behaviors that occur together and include grandiose feelings of self-importance, the need for power or admiration, dwelling on one’s own appearance and achievements, and an inability to empathize with others. It can be focused on exaggerating the self and/or putting others down. The term is more widely used in society than before, and a question that is often asked by social commentators is: ‘Does social media increase levels of narcissism?’ The answer from research conducted in many laboratories is, almost certainly, "yes"—but with lots of caveats!

It now seems clear that different types of social media have different relationships to different aspects of narcissism. That sentence is almost as difficult to follow as the patterns of emerging results themselves! To begin with, research has found strong associations between the aggressive "grandiose narcissism" and a whole range of social media behaviors, such as: time spent on social media, the frequency of tweets, and the frequency of posting selfies 1 . However, little relationship has been found between social media behavior and the more "vulnerable" and self-directed types of narcissism 1 . Thus, different aspects of narcissism are differentially associated with social media—but are different forms of social media also implicated with narcissism?

In our own work 2 , we found that people who had high levels of narcissism traits to begin with tended to use Twitter (and other textual-based platforms) more-and-more over time. However, those who used Facebook (and other visually-based platforms) tended to become more narcissistic over time. This differential association between social media platforms and narcissism is highly similar to that noted in another piece of research that demonstrated that Facebook and Twitter differed in the facets of narcissism that drove their usage: those high in "superiority" feelings prefer Twitter, whereas those high in "exhibitionism" prefer Facebook 3 .

The question for most of these studies, as always, is which comes first—the narcissism or the social media use? Moreover, we need to ask whether this is a direct link between the two variables or whether some other factor is involved. In answer to the first question, in our own longitudinal study 2 , we noted that there were different relationships over time between narcissism and the use of different social media platforms—prior narcissism drove later Twitter use, but prior Facebook use drove later narcissism. While not causal evidence, these data are suggestive of the direction of action between narcissism and social media use—and it is different for different forms of social media.

Of course, it may be that some other aspect of personality or behavior is linking narcissism with social media use. One possibility is suggested by a recent study 4 , where it was found that cyberbullying and cyberstalking mediated the narcissism-social media relationship. Narcissists tend to want to exert power. One way in which they can do this is to intimidate others, and they can intimidate through committing personal cybercrimes. In this way, narcissism is linked to social media use, indirectly, through personal cybercrime, as the latter social-media action allows the narcissist to dominate others. This may be why "grandiose" narcissism, with its more aggressive tendencies, is linked to the use of social media more than the "vulnerable" forms of narcissism 1 .

So, different forms of social media are related, in different ways, to different aspects of narcissism—so far, so complicated! This brings us to another wrinkle in this increasingly complex story: the differences between men and women. Men and women differ in terms of their propensity to show narcissism, at least currently in many societies, with greater rates for men (8% of the male population) than for women (5% of the female population) 5 . Men also score slightly higher than women in terms of "exploitative/entitlement" feelings, and "authority/ leadership " needs, although there is no difference in "exhibitionism." 6 However, it turns out that this sex difference does not translate into the world of social media in any straightforward manner. There is evidence from a variety of sources that social media is having a disproportionately negative impact on women, including on their levels of narcissism and related behaviors.

A recent study noted that girls use social media more than boys (43% of girls versus 31% of boys use it for at least an hour a day at age 15) 7 . These girls also reported lower levels of happiness , and more social and emotional difficulties as they grow up. To explain these findings, it was suggested that girls make comparisons between themselves and others more often than boys, and such social comparison is enhanced (indeed promoted) on social media, causing social media’s differentially negative effects between the sexes 7 .

But we shouldn't just accept that this is a passive effect of girls being influenced by others through their need for social-comparison making. Research is increasingly showing that such social-comparison for women is an active, and partly aggressive, process that may be deeply associated with female narcissism. In our laboratory, we found that women are much more likely to use intimidatory self-presentation tactics on social media than men. Echoing the work mentioned earlier, it has been shown that the narcissistic trait of "exploitativeness" is associated with increased selfie taking by girls 8 . This can lead to increased female aggression , often inter-female 9 , as well as creating extremely disturbing problems for the "exploitative" (or, indeed, "vulnerable") narcissist—such as increasingly sexualized portrayals of the self 8 .

The disturbing trend towards female-posted sexualized selfies could be explained as resulting from "intimidatory" self-presentation strategies used by girls with narcissism 9 . This behavior may get reinforced by the user receiving "likes," which are especially important for the "vulnerable" narcissist, and this reinforcement drives more of this completely inappropriate and self-harming behavior. But, not receiving "likes" can be just as bad for this group and their behavior!

Receiving no reinforcement from such behavior can lead to a temporary increased level of activity and aggression—a well-known phenomenon of non-reward in the animal laboratory 10 —as well as to a host of negative impacts on physiology and immunity, through the action of stress hormones 11 —a known effect of internet addiction 12 . Coupled with a resulting "narcissistic rage" from not getting social approval, in this social-media context, this results in increased posting activity, distress and damage to the person’s self-esteem , as well as prompting aggressive cyber-behaviors emitted in order to aggrandize, and protect, the self by humiliating others.

Thus, not only is the relationship between social media use and narcissism complex, and mediated by the types of social media use, and the characteristics of the users, but it has implications for how we should view this form of cyber behavior. The problem of inappropriate content is more than just a problem for the social media companies and censorship—such inappropriate behaviors and content may actually be fostered by the psychological impacts of the social media platforms, and the personalities of their users. The evidence is strongly pointing to the need for a thorough re-evaluation of our relationship with this technology.

1. McCain, J. L., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Narcissism and social media use: A meta-analytic review. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7(3), 308.

2. Reed, P., Bircek, N. I., Osborne, L. A., Viganò, C., & Truzoli, R. (2018). Visual Social Media Use Moderates the Relationship between Initial Problematic Internet Use and Later Narcissism. The Open Psychology Journal, 11(1).

3. Panek, E. T., Nardis, Y., & Konrath, S. (2013). Mirror or Megaphone?: How relationships between narcissism and social networking site use differ on Facebook and Twitter. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 2004–2012.

4. Kircaburun, K., Jonason, P. K., & Griffiths, M. D. (2018). The Dark Tetrad traits and problematic social media use: The mediating role of cyberbullying and cyberstalking. Personality and Individual Differences, 135, 264-269.

5. Stinson, F. S., Dawson, D. A., Goldstein, R. B., Chou, S. P., Huang, B., Smith, S. M., ... & Grant, B. F. (2008). Prevalence, correlates, disability, and comorbidity of DSM-IV narcissistic personality disorder: results from the wave 2 national epidemiologic survey on alcohol and related conditions. The Journal of clinical psychiatry, 69(7), 1033.

6. Grijalva, E., Newman, D. A., Tay, L., Donnellan, M. B., Harms, P. D., Robins, R. W., & Yan, T. (2014). Gender Differences in Narcissism: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin, doi:10.1037/a0038231

7. Booker, C. L., Kelly, Y. J., & Sacker, A. (2018). Gender differences in the associations between age trends of social media interaction and well-being among 10-15 year olds in the UK. BMC public health, 18(1), 321.

8. Stuart, J., & Kurek, A. (2019). Looking hot in selfies: Narcissistic beginnings, aggressive outcomes?. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 0165025419865621.

9. Chua, T. H. H., & Chang, L. (2016). Follow me and like my beautiful selfies: Singapore teenage girls’ engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 190-197.

10. Amsel, A. (1992). Frustration theory: An analysis of dispositional learning and memory (No. 11). Cambridge University Press.

11. Papini, M. R., & Dudley, R. T. (1997). Consequences of surprising reward omissions. Review of General Psychology, 1(2), 175-197.

12. Reed, P., Vile, R., Osborne, L. A., Romano, M., & Truzoli, R. (2015). Problematic internet usage and immune function. PloS one, 10(8), e0134538.

Phil Reed, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Swansea University.

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Is social media turning people into narcissists?

Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Georgia

Disclosure statement

W. Keith Campbell has received funding from the National Center for Responsible Gaming and the Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders

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Social media has revolutionised how we communicate. In this series , we look at how it has changed the media, politics, health, education and the law.

There has been a massive increase in the use of social media – from being almost non-existent 15 years ago, it now takes up a major part of our lives and our children’s lives.

Facebook, for example, boasts over one billion users per day.

This explosion of social media has led to many cultural, social, and economic changes.

Narcissism – having an inflated view of oneself – has become a major topic of research interest, and also of concern.

Is social media becoming an outlet for narcissistic individuals to self-promote? And is social media turning us and our children into narcissists?

Seeking attention

Some use their social media accounts as platforms for self-promotion - places to seek attention and admiration. Others take up an oversized amount of space in social media feeds.

These “friends” bragging about their amazing lives – replete with pictures and hashtags – come across as at least a bit narcissistic.

Even the names and taglines of many social media sites seemed to reflect this narcissistic, or at least individualistic, bent.

Youtube: “broadcast yourself”. Twitter: “what are you doing?”; and “iPod”, “iPad” and “iPhone”.

Time magazine named “You” the person of the year in 2006, amd even included a mirror and computer on the cover.

Facebook was named after the books some schools publish with everyone’s name and face. And LinkedIn was designed for business networking (the “links”).

This led to culture becoming considerably more self-focused.

Hardware designers made cameras that took pictures of their owners, and the selfie took over. Selfie was named word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013. (The first use of the word “selfie” was actually by a drunk Aussie in 2002 who took a picture of his own bloodied lip after a fall to show his friends.)

Today we have 100 million people on social media sites like SnapChat taking selfies, running them through filters, and sending them to friends.

Researchers follow these trends as best they can, but they are always about two years behind.

Narcissists are more self-promoting

A 2008 study on narcissism and Facebook found evidence that more narcissistic individuals were more self-promoting on Facebook and had more “friends”.

This finding is consistent with what many people expect – narcissistic individuals do well in an environment where there are shallow relationships and opportunities to self-promote.

It does not mean that Facebook is only for narcissism – social media is a tool that can be used to form and maintain close relationships, learn new things, or just provide entertainment. But it is also an attractive place for narcissists to do their thing.

This finding has held up across many other studies across the world, with narcissism predicting self-promotion and number of connections.

More recently, researchers have tackled the question of narcissism and selfies.

Several papers have found that narcissistic individuals take more selfies, spend more time on social media , feel good about it, and are a little more self-promoting (for example, show more body shots and more solo selfies).

They also tend to be well integrated into these social media networks, having large numbers of friends and followers. In general, men are a little more narcissistic than women, but we find that narcissistic men and woman use social media in similar ways.

Does social media increase narcissism?

The more challenging question is if the arrow points the other way. That is, does social media use cause narcissism?

This has proven a much more challenging question to answer. When we first studied changes in narcissism over time , it looked like narcissism and social media use might be accelerating together.

But this data is correlational and doesn’t tell us about individuals’ social media use; therefore it doesn’t really say much about how social media will influence users.

Since then, researchers have tried a couple different strategies.

One is experimental. For example, you take two random groups, have one group work on their social media page and the other on an unrelated computer task. Then you measure differences in narcissism to see if the social media group is higher. Results from this approach have been mixed and inconclusive.

Another approach is longitudinal, measuring narcissism and social media use over time and seeing if they are mutually reinforcing; that is, whether narcissism predicts increased social media use and whether that, in turn, predicts increasing narcissism. At least one study shows this pattern.

It might also be the case that social media inflates the narcissism of those already predisposed, but has no effect on others.

So it is plausible that social media use increases narcissism. But there is also longitudinal research suggesting that social media use can make children more empathetic. For example, children who spend time engaged with their friends on social media might become more concerned with the up and downs in their friends’ lives.

Thus, given the vagaries of social science and the challenge of figuring out how to answer the causal question (without randomly assigning 300 children to avoid social media until they turn 18 and have their narcissism measured), I think it is best to wait for more data.

Successful social media creators

Narcissists are successful social media creators. They build bridges to others and generate content. They may be annoying at times and have a small risk for Internet addiction , but the role that narcissistic individuals play in building social media networks may have helped create the massive social media we have today.

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The learning network | student question | is social media making us more narcissistic.

Student Question | Is Social Media Making Us More Narcissistic?

Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.

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Do you spend too much time trying to be attractive and interesting to others? Are you just a little too in love with your own Instagram feed?

An essay addressing those questions was chosen by two of our Student Council members this week. Angie Shen explains why she thinks it’s important:

As the generation who grew up with social media, a reflection on narcissism is of critical importance to teenagers. What are the psychological and ethical implications of constant engagement with or obsession over social media? How does it change our relationship with others and how we see ourselves?

“ Narcissism Is Increasing. So You’re Not So Special. ” begins:

My teenage son recently informed me that there is an Internet quiz to test oneself for narcissism. His friend had just taken it. “How did it turn out?” I asked. “He says he did great!” my son responded. “He got the maximum score!” When I was a child, no one outside the mental health profession talked about narcissism; people were more concerned with inadequate self-esteem, which at the time was believed to lurk behind nearly every difficulty. Like so many excesses of the 1970s, the self-love cult spun out of control and is now rampaging through our culture like Godzilla through Tokyo. A 2010 study in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science found that the percentage of college students exhibiting narcissistic personality traits, based on their scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, a widely used diagnostic test, has increased by more than half since the early 1980s, to 30 percent. In their book “Narcissism Epidemic,” the psychology professors Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell show that narcissism has increased as quickly as obesity has since the 1980s. Even our egos are getting fat. It has even infected our political debate. Donald Trump? “Remarkably narcissistic,” the developmental psychologist Howard Gardner told Vanity Fair magazine. I can’t say whether Mr. Trump is or isn’t a narcissist. But I do dispute the assertion that if he is, it is somehow remarkable. This is a costly problem. While full-blown narcissists often report high levels of personal satisfaction, they create havoc and misery around them. There is overwhelming evidence linking narcissism with lower honesty and raised aggression. It’s notable for Valentine’s Day that narcissists struggle to stay committed to romantic partners, in no small part because they consider themselves superior. The full-blown narcissist might reply, “So what?” But narcissism isn’t an either-or characteristic. It’s more of a set of progressive symptoms (like alcoholism) than an identifiable state (like diabetes). Millions of Americans exhibit symptoms, but still have a conscience and a hunger for moral improvement. At the very least, they really don’t want to be terrible people.

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us …

— Do you recognize yourself or your friends or family in any of the descriptions in this article? Are you sometimes too fixated on collecting “likes” and thinking about how others see you?

— What’s the line between “healthy self-love” that “requires being fully alive at this moment, as opposed to being virtually alive while wondering what others think,” and unhealthy narcissism? How can you stay on the healthy side of the line?

— Did you take the test ? What did it tell you about yourself?

Henry Xu, another Student Council member who recommended this article, suggests these questions:

— What about Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and other social media feeds makes them so hard to put down?

— Do you think this writer’s proposal of a “social media fast” is a viable way to combat narcissism?

— For those who aren’t as attached to social media, do challenges from an overinflated sense of self still arise? If so, from where?

— If everyone is becoming more narcissistic, does that make narcissism necessarily a bad thing?

Want to think more about these questions? The Room for Debate blog’s forum Facebook and Narcissism can help.

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. All comments are moderated by Learning Network staff members, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

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Narcissism and Social Media: The Role of Communal Narcissism

Kolbrun harpa kristinsdottir.

1 Department of Psychology, Reykjavik University, 102 Reykjavik, Iceland; si.ur@61knurblok (K.H.K.); moc.liamg@gissgievnnar (R.S.)

Haukur Freyr Gylfason

2 Department of Business, Reykjavik University, 102 Reykjavik, Iceland

Rannveig Sigurvinsdottir

Associated data.

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to ethical restrictions.

Agentic narcissism and vulnerable narcissism have been widely studied in relation to social media use. However, with research on communal narcissism in its early stages, the current study examines communal narcissism in relation to social media use. Specifically, the current study investigates whether communal narcissism is related to use and frequency of use of the popular social networking sites Instagram, Reddit and Twitter, and if communal narcissism relates to the importance of receiving feedback and to the quality-rating of self-presented content on those platforms. A total of 334 individuals were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, with two-thirds being male (66.7%). A regression analysis showed that communal narcissism was related to increased use of Instagram and Twitter but not Reddit. Sharing content, the importance of feedback and better than average ratings had positive associations with communal narcissism. The relationship between communal narcissism and sharing on social media was fully mediated by wanting validation on social media and higher ratings of self-presented content. Communal narcissism had a notably strong relationship with wanting validation on all platforms and our results suggest that communal narcissism might be especially relevant in the context of social media use.

1. Introduction

Social media use has become a routine part of daily life for a large part of the population [ 1 ]. The internet offers an array of content that can be absorbed quickly and effectively, both through the medium of text, such as obtaining information through articles and blogs [ 2 ], and through a visual format, including pictures, videos and images [ 3 ]. The introduction of such sophisticated technology to everyday life has created new norms of how people present themselves online [ 4 ], through flaunting glamourous lifestyles, flattering self-pictures and an endless supply of self-love quotes [ 5 , 6 ], which have formed the basis for a kind of celebrity [ 5 ] and novel professions termed “influencers” [ 7 ]. While the reasons for using social media vary [ 8 , 9 ], some individuals use the internet for self-enhancement and to present an idealized version of themselves. This is where personality factors such as narcissism may play a role [ 10 ], particularly because individuals high in narcissism have a previously established tendency to exaggerate desired qualities, they have unrealistically positive self-views [ 11 , 12 , 13 ], and may therefore use the internet for extensive forms of self-enhancement.

Narcissism refers to entitlement, self-absorption, self-importance, grandiose expectations of oneself and a tendency for self-enhancement [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. The most studied subtypes of narcissism are grandiose-agentic narcissism (hereafter referred to as agentic narcissism) and vulnerable narcissism [ 10 , 16 ], which are subtypes of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (referred to as overt and covert narcissism) [ 18 ]. Individuals high on agentic narcissism tend to be exploitative, extroverted, attention-seeking and domineering, which is accompanied by arrogance, entitlement and high explicit self-esteem and self-enhancement. Individuals high on vulnerable narcissism share many qualities with agentic narcissism in terms of arrogance, entitlement and perceived superiority, however, vulnerable narcissists are more introverted and anxious and conceal their feelings and exploitative behaviors with deception, defensiveness, false modesty and concern for others. Individuals high on agentic narcissism generally do not concern themselves with such subtleties [ 13 , 15 , 16 , 19 ]. That being said, the introduction the agency–communion model of grandiose narcissism distinguished between communal and agentic self-enhancement [ 20 ], explaining how grandiosity, arrogance, entitlement and perceived superiority can also exist in a communal domain. While communal narcissism is a grandiose manifestation like agentic narcissism, it differs from agentic-grandiosity as individuals high on communal narcissism value power and grandiosity in a communal domain, by seeking admiration for being a “saint” [ 11 , 15 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Individuals high on communal narcissism rate themselves high on traits such as altruism, benevolence and warmth towards others [ 11 , 14 ], but are extremely driven by the need to validate power [ 24 ]. Their benevolent self-image does not characterize their objective communal behavior [ 25 ], and others often rate them low in actual communion [ 20 , 26 ]. Therefore, while individuals high on communal narcissism seek different means of acquiring power and admiration than agentic narcissists [ 20 , 21 , 22 ], factors of self-importance, unrealistically positive self-views and entitlement are shared facets of communal narcissism, vulnerable narcissism and agentic narcissism [ 11 , 20 , 27 ].

Unsurprisingly, these shared narcissistic tendencies relate to some online behaviors [ 10 ]. For example, individuals high on agentic narcissism use social media more frequently [ 28 , 29 , 30 ], post more pictures of themselves [ 31 , 32 , 33 ], share more information on social media [ 34 ] and engage more in addictive social media use [ 35 ]. Agentic narcissists seem to be particularly attracted to visual media [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]. However, less is known about narcissism and motives for using social media and preference for social media sites [ 11 ] and whether communal narcissists use social media in the same way as other narcissists.

The Current Study

To date, agentic narcissism and online behaviors have been the most examined, followed by vulnerable narcissism [ 10 ], but literature on communal narcissism in the online community is in its very early stages. The little available research has shown that communal narcissism relates to greater problematic behavior offline, such as peer-perceived aggression [ 26 ], counterproductive workplace behavior, which often relates to interpersonal conflict [ 39 ], and communal narcissistic statements on Facebook, which are generally viewed negatively by others [ 40 ]. Therefore, as agentic narcissism has been found related to various aspects of social media use [ 10 , 30 , 37 ], and considering similarities in grandiosity, motives and manifestation [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 25 , 40 ], it warrants examination of how communal narcissism as a construct relates to social media use and behavior, especially given previously established problematic behaviors. Currently, to our knowledge, no research has examined communal narcissism in the online community, controlling for agentic narcissism and vulnerable narcissism. This is important because even though communal narcissism shares some characteristics with other types of narcissism, it is a distinct concept.

Therefore, as communal narcissism has been severely neglected from the literature on narcissistic tendencies and social media to date, it remains unknown if communal narcissistic behaviors and qualities apply in the online community as well. It is expected that communal narcissism will display a prominent relationship with social media use, as with other manifestations of narcissism [ 10 ], due to shared facets of power-seeking, entitlement and self-enhancement [ 11 , 15 , 25 ]. Previous research has demonstrated that narcissism correlates positively with social media usage [ 28 , 29 , 30 ], relates to increased sharing of information on both visual and text based-social media platforms [ 34 ] and has been linked to greater usage of the social networking sites Twitter (a mixed platform) [ 37 ] and Instagram (a visual platform) [ 36 ]. Therefore, a similar pattern is expected for communal narcissism and social media use. However, these relationships seem to differ on the nature of the representation of content on the sites. Notably, a relationship between narcissism and problematic internet use has been found to be mediated by visual social media, a relationship not found for text-based social media [ 38 ], and posting self-pictures on visual social media relates to higher levels of narcissism [ 30 , 31 , 32 ]. Therefore, given the prior established relationships between agentic narcissism and visual social media, it was hypothesized that communal narcissism would have a stronger relationship with use and sharing on visual social media, indicating that communal narcissism relates similarly to social media platforms as the agentic type of narcissism.

The focus of previous social media and narcissism studies has also largely been on Facebook use [ 10 , 34 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ]. A meta-analysis on agentic and vulnerable narcissism and social media reported that previous literatures’ significant limitations included a lack of understanding of narcissism and other social media sites (e.g., Instagram and Reddit) and other social networking mechanisms [ 10 ]. It was therefore decided to include a text-based, visual or mixed distinction in the current study, which also coincided with previous findings with different results due to text/visual content representation [ 38 ]. Furthermore, individuals high on narcissism tend to seek more feedback on their social media posts and partake in excessive forms of self-promotion [ 35 , 37 , 39 ]. Thus, it was hypothesized that this excessive need for admiration will be present for communal narcissists in the online community as well in the form of wanting electronic feedback. Lastly, because communal narcissism is generally related to unrealistically positive self-views [ 11 , 14 , 23 ], it was also expected that individuals high on communal narcissism would rate their own self-presented content online as above average.

The goal of this study was to examine the relationships between social media use and communal narcissism and assess the use of popular social media sites, which possessed visual, text-based and mixed content representation, to address previous gaps in the literature [ 10 ]. First, Instagram use was examined [ 3 ]. Instagram is a popular visual social media platform that allows sharing of images and videos, where users can receive “likes” and “comments” on their posts [ 45 ]. Secondly, Reddit use was examined. Reddit is a primarily a text-based site, where users can ask questions, share news, scientific research, opinions and theories and even share intimate information and rank other users’ posts using “karma-points” [ 46 , 47 ]. Lastly, Twitter use was examined, as it portrays a combination of text-based and visual posts [ 3 ].

Previous studies have explored narcissism and frequency of sharing [ 34 , 48 ] and frequency of use [ 28 , 29 ] which was included in the current analysis, with the addition of rating one’s own content and rating the importance of receiving feedback on social media. Some motives for social media, such as wanting admiration and wanting followers, have been found to have a strong relationship with narcissism [ 37 ]. Given that vulnerable, agentic [ 49 ] and communal narcissists [ 11 ] seek validation, we examined this motive for sharing behavior for individuals high on communal narcissism. In line with the previous findings [ 20 , 50 , 51 ] and given the previously established relationships between communal narcissism and overclaiming [ 20 ] and a desire for praise for communal behavior [ 11 ], it was expected that communal narcissism would be positively associated with certain motives for social media use, and that these motives could ultimately mediate the relationship between narcissism and actual sharing and use of social media. Notably, rating self-presented content as superior to others and high importance of receiving feedback on social media were examined as possible motives for frequency of sharing on social networking sites for individuals high on communal narcissism [ 52 ]. Furthermore, as demographic information relates to narcissism, with elevated levels among younger people [ 53 ] and men [ 54 ], they were included as covariates.

To demonstrate, Figure 1 shows the theoretical model between different types of narcissism and social media behaviors. We proposed that narcissism would relate to sharing content on social media, and that this relationship would be mediated by motives for social media use. In this way, narcissists may share information on social media because they believe that their content is of greater quality than content from other people, because of their inflated sense of self-worth and unrealistically positive self-views [ 11 , 14 , 23 ]. Narcissists could also use social media as a way of seeking out validation and admiration from other people, which could be more prominent among vulnerable and communal narcissists because they tend to be concerned about the opinions of other people more than agentic narcissists.

Hypothesized model of relationships between narcissism and social media behaviors and motives.

2.1. Participants and Procedure

To find out the required sample size, a priori power analysis was conducted. Based on previous research [ 28 , 29 , 30 ], a probable effect size when assessing the association between narcissism and frequency of social media use was thought to be medium sized. To detect a similar effect ( f 2 = 0.15, with statistical power (1 − β) = 0.95, and five predictors), a sample size of N = 138 was required [ 55 , 56 ].

Participants in this study were 334 in total, with 66.7% male and 32.3% female. The age of the sample ranged from 18 to 74, with most participants reporting being aged 25 to 34 years old (48.8%). Most participants came from North America (57.5%), then Asia (19.5%), followed by Europe (9.9%), Latin America and the Caribbean (7.8%) and Middle East and Africa (5.1%). Originally, a total of 360 participants were recruited for the study, but 26 participants failed the quality control test of answering too quickly and thus were excluded, as established in previous studies [ 57 , 58 ] to ensure valid and reliable answers. Participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk, where they were paid $1 for their participation. Amazon Mechanical Turk has been found to be effective for data collecting, and as reliable as other methods [ 59 ], which is especially effective when the research is not extremely time-consuming, nor requires immense concentration [ 60 ]. Amazon Mechanical Turk participants represent a more diverse sample than various other methods, e.g., undergraduate students [ 59 ]. It was thereby deemed appropriate for the current study. The only inclusion criterion for participants was to have reached the consenting age of 18, which was an important criterion as the goal was to include a diverse sample to increase the generalizability of the results. All participants were informed of what was expected of them and were asked to give their consent before starting the survey by signing an electronic consent form. The survey followed the APA ethical principles and code of conduct and was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

2.2. Measures

Demographic information. Participants were asked to indicate where they came from, their gender (male or female) and age, where the response options for age were 18–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–64, 65–74, 75–84 and 85 or older.

Social media behavior. Participants were asked whether they used Reddit, Instagram or Twitter separately, and if the answer was yes (coded 1) compared to no (coded 0), more questions were displayed regarding their social media behavior on those sites. If the answer was no to use, they skipped the following question regarding that specific platform. If yes, participants were asked how frequently the platform was used. Secondly, how often they shared opinions (Reddit), self-pictures (Instagram) or images and posts (Twitter). The answer choices for the first two questions ranged from 1 ( very often ) to 5 ( never ). Third, to determine need for validation, participants were asked how important it was for them to earn karma-points (Reddit), likes (Instagram) or likes/retweets (Twitter) on their posts, where the answers ranged from 1 ( extremely important ) to 5 ( not at all important ). Lastly, participants were asked to rate the quality of their own social media content, where the answers were: far below average, moderately below average, slightly below average, average, slightly above average, moderately above average and far above average . Including the possibility to state “ I do not share connect on Reddit/Instagram/Twitter ”.

Narcissism. To measure communal narcissism, the Communal Narcissism Inventory (CNI) was used [ 20 , 61 ]. The CNI is a 16-item scale designed to measure narcissism in a communal domain and contains statements such as “ I am the most helpful person I know ” and “ I am the best friend someone can have ”. Participants rate each item on a scale 1 ( strongly agree ) to 7 ( strongly disagree ). The internal consistency in the current sample was good (α = 0.96).

To measure agentic narcissism and control for its effects, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory 13-item scale (NPI−13) was used [ 62 ] which is a forced answer scale where participants are asked to choose between a (A) narcissistic or (B) non-narcissistic statement, such as “ I insist upon getting the respect that is due to me ” or “ I usually get the respect I deserve ” [ 63 ]. The internal consistency in the current sample was acceptable (α = 0.72).

To measure vulnerable narcissism, the Hypersensitive Narcissism scale (HSNS) was used. The HSNS is a 10-items scale that includes statements such as: “ I dislike sharing credit of an achievement with others ” where answers ranged from 1 ( very characteristic ) to 5 ( very uncharacteristic ) [ 64 , 65 ]. The internal consistency in the current sample was good (α = 0.83). While the CNI differs from measures of agentic narcissism [ 20 ], narcissistic subtypes have shared factors, motives and tendencies [ 22 , 23 , 27 ]. Therefore, it was decided to control for HSNS and NPI−13 in the data analysis to properly determine the effects CNI had directly on the social media variables.

2.3. Method of Analysis

To analyze social media use, Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated [ 66 ] between the Communal Narcissism Scale and each social media platform and behavior, in line with past research on narcissism and social media [ 10 , 29 , 33 , 34 , 42 , 44 ]. Furthermore, to understand the association between narcissism and individual behavior, hierarchical logistic and linear regressions were performed, with gender and age entered as covariates and to understand the effect of communal narcissism independently by controlling for agentic and vulnerable narcissism in the second step of the analysis. Lastly, the hypothesized motives of wanting validation and believing one’s own content to be higher quality were entered into a mediation analysis to understand the mediation effects between communal narcissism and sharing on social media.

The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) was used for the analysis [ 67 ]. Prior to the statistical analysis, the data set was examined for any breaches in assumptions. Given the size of the samples, normality could be assumed, which was consistent with the Q-Q plots examined. No large violations in assumptions were recorded, therefore the data were deemed suitable for parametric testing.

To test whether motives of using social media (quality and validation) mediated the relationship between narcissism and sharing on social media, we carried out a structural equation path model. The path model was tested using Mplus, version 6.12 [ 68 ] using 5000 bootstrapped samples with good model fit [ 69 ]. All reported path model coefficients are standardized values.

A total of 87, 81, and 76% of participants responded as using Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, respectively (see Table 1 ). The correlation between communal and agentic narcissism was r p = 0.497, p < 0.01; between communal and vulnerable narcissism r p = 0.557, p < 0.01 and between communal and vulnerable narcissism r p = 0.480, p < 0.01. To explore the relationship between narcissism and social media use, Pearson correlation coefficients were examined. The results from the analysis are presented in Table 1 , which includes correlation coefficients between communal, agentic, and vulnerable narcissism and Reddit, Instagram and Twitter usage.

Means, standard deviations (SD) and Pearson correlation coefficients for the three types of narcissism (communal, agentic and vulnerable) and social media behavior.

* Significant at the 5% level; ** significant at the 1% level.

As Table 1 shows, communal narcissism had a medium to strong positive relationship with sharing behavior, importance of feedback and rating quality of their own posts for Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, similar to agentic and vulnerable narcissism. Additionally, communal narcissism was positively associated with use and frequency of use of Instagram and Twitter just like agentic and vulnerable narcissism. However, communal and agentic narcissism did not correlate with use and frequency of use for Reddit as vulnerable narcissism did.

To test whether communal narcissism predicted social media behaviors, in addition to agentic and vulnerable narcissism, we ran a logistic regression analysis (see Table 2 ) and hierarchical linear regression analyses (see Table 3 , Table 4 , Table 5 and Table 6 ). We entered the independent variables simultaneously after ascertaining that no assumptions were violated, including the assumption of multicollinearity (tolerance scores were higher than 0.6 and VIF scores were below 1.7). In the first step, we entered gender and age as independent variables and in the second step, we added agentic and vulnerable narcissism as independent variables. Finally, in the third step, communal narcissism was added as an independent variable.

Logistic regression predicting social media usage for Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, showing unstandardized coefficients (b), standard errors (SE) and the odds ratios for the unstandardized coefficients (Exp(b)).

† p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01 (two-tailed). AN = agentic narcissism, VN = vulnerable narcissism, CN = communal narcissism.

Multiple linear regression predicting frequency of social media use for Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, showing unstandardized coefficients (b), standard errors (SE) and standardized coefficients (Beta).

Multiple linear regression predicting frequency of sharing of social media for Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, showing unstandardized coefficients (b), standard errors (SE) and standardized coefficients (Beta).

Multiple linear regression predicting feedback/validation of social media for Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, showing unstandardized coefficients (b), standard errors (SE) and standardized coefficients (Beta).

† p < 0.10, ** p < 0.01 (two-tailed). AN = agentic narcissism, VN = vulnerable narcissism, CN = communal narcissism.

Multiple linear regression predicting quality rating of social media for Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, showing unstandardized coefficients (b), standard errors (SE) and standardized coefficients (Beta).

When controlling for demographics factors and agentic and vulnerable narcissism, communal narcissism was positively related to all the social media behaviors, except for Reddit use and frequency of use (see Table 2 , Table 3 , Table 4 , Table 5 and Table 6 ). This suggests that communal narcissism can predict using Instagram and Twitter, sharing on all platforms, wanting feedback and higher ratings of self-presented content even when controlling for agentic and vulnerable narcissism.

To understand the mediating effects, all three narcissism variables, the motives and sharing were entered into a mediation analysis. Figure 2 shows the final mediation model between narcissism and social media behaviors. The model has been adapted to reflect that agentic narcissism did not relate to social media motives (quality and validation) or social media sharing. Communal narcissism relates strongly both to believing that one’s content is of superior quality as well as seeking validation. Vulnerable narcissism also has positive relationships with validation and quality, although weaker for the latter. Both quality and validation relate to greater sharing.

Final model of the relationship between narcissism and social media behaviors and motives. * Significant at the 5% level; ** significant at the 1% level.

Significant indirect effects emerged from communal narcissism to sharing through both validation (z = 0.144, p = 0.007) and quality (z = 0.159, p = 0.010). These social media motivators fully mediated the relationship between communal narcissism and sharing (direct effect = 0.141, p = 0.135). In addition, there was a significant indirect effect from vulnerable narcissism to sharing through validation (z = 0.093, p = 0.015), which partially mediated the relationship between vulnerable narcissism and sharing (direct effect = 0.257, p < 0.001). Narcissism explains a large amount of variance in validation (r 2 = 0.631) and less variance in quality (r 2 = 0.355). Together, narcissism and motives also explain variation in sharing well (r 2 = 0.670).

4. Discussion

This study analyzed communal narcissism in relation to social media behavior and motives, with the intention of adding to the literature on communal narcissism within the online community. While agentic narcissism has been extensively covered in relation to online use, with vulnerable narcissism covered to some extent [ 10 ], communal narcissism has been largely missing from the online literature to date. As the results indicate, communal narcissism had a positive relationship with use of Instagram and Twitter, frequency of sharing on all platforms, importance of receiving feedback on all platforms and a higher quality-rating of self-presented content on all platforms. Similar to previous findings, narcissism correlated with frequency of sharing, validation and quality-rating [ 10 , 29 , 31 , 34 ], with communal narcissism maintaining its unique association with the social media behaviors when controlling for agentic and vulnerable narcissism. This implies the importance of communal narcissism when studying narcissism within social media [ 11 ].

Individuals high on communal narcissism seemed at least as likely to use Instagram as individuals high on agentic narcissism, which might be comparable to previous studies that have found that agentic narcissists relate more strongly to visual social media [ 34 , 38 ]. In general, it might be the case that the use of visual social media content appeals more to narcissistic individuals, as some studies have indicated [ 34 , 38 ]. In fact, in our study we saw a lack of association between communal narcissism and using Reddit, a primarily text-based platform [ 46 , 47 ].

All things considered, communal narcissism is related to higher prosocial self-enhancement and is inherently rooted in communion [ 25 ]. Therefore, given these findings, the distinct communal narcissistic traits of overclaiming [ 20 ] and a desire for appraisal for communal behavior [ 11 ] may drive these behaviors and underlying motives as the mediation analysis supported. Thus, social media can serve as means for attention and validation from others through the internet and yield desired feelings of grandiosity, entitlement and feelings of superiority (i.e., through better than average ratings), from behind a screen. However, further research is needed to confirm these ideas.

However, the three platforms examined possess different kinds of use, not solely related to visual or text-based representations. For example, Twitter is recognized for online activism [ 70 , 71 ] and Instagram is sometimes used for financial reasons [ 7 ], which might affect use and initiatives, unrelated to the current focus of comparing visual and text-based media. Future studies need to take this into account by adding predictors to their models. Further limitations of the study must be noted. First, the focus was on believed narcissistic use of those platforms e.g., sharing opinions and sharing self-pictures, which might also have affected responses regarding sharing tendencies. Secondly, self-reported questionnaires rely on the ability and willingness of participants to give accurate data about themselves. For example, people may have difficulty providing accurate data about how much social media they use, especially when differentiated by platform. This issue is further exacerbated when studying narcissists, who may distort their answers to self-report questionnaires because of their established tendency to enhance their own performance [ 72 ]. Future studies should include measures to counteract this problem, such as a social desirability scale. Third, this study examined correlation, not causation, therefore we cannot conclude whether the social media behaviors and preferences are increased by narcissism or vice versa, as previously suggested [ 38 ]. Therefore, further research is needed to understand the nature of these relationships. In addition, age was assessed using categorical age ranges, rather than continuously, which may have impacted the results by removing variability. Therefore, future studies should investigate the role of background variables, such as age, nationality, gender and education, and how these might shape the relationships between narcissism and social media use. An important component of investigating these would be for recruitment to specifically target subgroups that allow for comparison across the demographic dimensions. Furthermore, the relationships investigated here are likely to be complex and bi-directional. For example, a feedback loop from sharing content to both quality and validation could be expected, with greater sharing increasing the amount of validation and feedback received from others, which in, in turn, could then lead to greater sharing. Given the cross-sectional nature of the current data, fully investigating the temporality of these relationships is not feasible, but future studies should aim to further this theoretical framing and endeavor to understand the causation and directional nature of the model.

5. Conclusions

That being said, this study presented new findings regarding communal narcissism in the online community. Interestingly, as agentic narcissism has been mostly covered in the literature, these results indicated that communal narcissism displays strong relationships with social media use and specific behaviors as well, and motives for doing so. In addition, while displaying a preference for the visual platform Instagram, upon choosing another social networking site, sharing content, wanting validation and quality-ratings were just as prominent for text-based sites. Perhaps a visual format has a stronger appeal to narcissism, but narcissism does relate to certain behaviors upon choosing any platform, which is an interesting aspect for future studies. Furthermore, this study underlines the importance of properly separating the effects that different manifestations of narcissism can have on various behaviors, both online and in direct communication. More research in needed on communal narcissism in relation to social media use and other online behaviors. In addition, more research is needed to understand causal relationships of narcissism and social media use and a proper separation of different genders, age groups and cultures to generalize the overall effects.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, K.H.K.; methodology, K.H.K., R.S.; formal analysis, K.H.K., H.F.G., R.S.; investigation, K.H.K.; resources, H.F.G.; writing—original draft preparation, K.H.K., H.F.G., R.S.; writing—review and editing, K.H.K., H.F.G., R.S.; project administration, R.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, however, at the time the data were collected Reykjavik University did not have an ethics review board.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare that there are no potential conflict of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of the article.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Theoretical Perspectives on Narcissism and Social Media: The Big (and Beautiful) Picture

• First Online: 28 September 2018

Cite this chapter

• W. Keith Campbell 4 &
• Jessica McCain 4  

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Narcissism and social media use are intertwined and possibly causally related phenomena. Empirical research on narcissism and social media has been ongoing for a decade. The main purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of these research findings and review a selection of theoretical models that may be useful for understanding narcissism and social media. These models include personality/trait theories as well as perceptual, self-regulation, network, and cultural models. Some of the limitations and controversies in this literature are highlighted and avenues for future research suggested. The chapter focuses primarily on grandiose narcissism, although some research pertaining to vulnerable narcissism is also to be included.

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Keith Campbell, W., McCain, J. (2018). Theoretical Perspectives on Narcissism and Social Media: The Big (and Beautiful) Picture. In: Hermann, A., Brunell, A., Foster, J. (eds) Handbook of Trait Narcissism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92171-6_48

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Young Adult Mental Health & Substance Abuse Treatment Centers

• Mental Health

Social Media Narcissism: Are the Apps Creating Narcissists?

Narcissism is defined as a fixation with oneself and one’s physical appearance or public image. Many young adults could be described as narcissistic. That’s because they’re at a stage of life when they are establishing their identity and figuring out who they are in relationship to others. But is narcissism on the rise among young people today? And could social media narcissism be creating a self-obsessed generation?

Research shows that today’s young adults are more narcissistic than ever before. More than 10 percent of people in their 20s are believed to suffer from subclinical narcissism, according to Psychology Today . And it appears that social media may be one cause of narcissism. There’s a reason that selfie-sticks have been dubbed “Narcissisticks.”

Key Takeaways

• Young adults are the most narcissistic age group, and today’s college students are more narcissistic than in the past.
• Gen Z social media users who have narcissistic traits are more likely to become addicted to the apps.
• In addition, those who use social media more often are at risk of becoming more narcissistic.
• Therapy or a mental health treatment program can help young adults develop greater self-awareness and empathy.

Is Narcissism On the Rise Among Young Adults?

Research confirms that young adults are the most narcissistic age group . Not only that—they’re becoming more narcissistic . A study published in the Journal of Personality analyzed data from 85 samples of American college students. Participants completed the 40-question Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). And the researchers found that, between 1982 and 2006, college students’ NPI scores significantly increased.

“Receiving a like on social media produces a physiological high by triggering our reward cycle. This good feeling is due to a dopamine rush in the reward center of the brain.”

A follow-up study added 22 new studies to the meta-analysis and found further increases in narcissism in young adults. Furthermore, the researchers proposed two reasons for this increase. One was a greater focus in recent years on building self-esteem in young people. The other was the internet, specifically social media, which encourages young people to focus obsessively on themselves and their public image.

Social Media and the Two Types of Narcissism

Narcissism is typically divided into two categories:

• Grandiose narcissism, characterized by feelings of superiority and entitlement
• Vulnerable narcissism, characterized by hypersensitivity to criticism and a constant need for reassurance

One study found that young adults with grandiose or vulnerable narcissism were at higher risk of TikTok addiction . And young people with a strong need for admiration (which can be a symptom of narcissistic personality disorder) were also at high risk.

Moreover, a 2020 study of young adults found that both types of narcissists were prone to Facebook addiction. Vulnerable narcissists were particularly likely to become addicted. They tended to seek positive feedback online, where they could more easily control how they appeared than in person.

The Role of Anxiety in Social Media Narcissism

The 2020 study also found that anxiety was the strongest predictor of Facebook addiction. The study authors concluded, “The higher the narcissism level, the more anxiety symptoms are experienced that foster the development of addictive tendencies.”

Both vulnerable and grandiose narcissists experienced anxiety and insecurity. These “Facebook narcissists” had self-confident online personas, but were struggling in real life. And clearly it’s not just Facebook—young adults are more likely today to be TikTok narcissists or Instagram narcissists.

All calls are always confidential.

Narcissism and Social Media Use in Young Adults

Social media, particularly Facebook and Instagram, focus on sharing (and sometimes oversharing) one’s own image and opinions. Therefore, young adults who use these platforms frequently are prone to narcissism. Research shows that higher amounts of social media use predict higher levels of grandiose narcissism . This includes time spent on social media, frequency of posts or tweets, number of friends/followers, and how often participants post pictures of themselves on social media.

In a 2018 study , researchers tracked 74 participants aged 18–34 over four months and used the NPI to quantify their narcissistic traits. Hence, they found that participants who posted large quantities of photos and selfies showed a 25 percent increase in narcissism. Specifically, those who used Facebook and other platforms that focus on images rather than words became more narcissistic over time.

Studies like this one indicate that social media narcissism has the potential to cross over into what’s known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). In fact, participants who showed the most significant increases in narcissism actually qualified for an NPD diagnosis.

The Difference Between Digital Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Showing signs of social media narcissism doesn’t mean that a young adult has narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Symptoms of NPD include having grandiose ideas about oneself and one’s achievements. People with this disorder constantly seek admiration from other people and society as a whole. Furthermore, they become fixated on external success. Additionally, people with NPD tend to lack the ability to empathize.

What makes an individual more likely to have narcissistic personality disorder? Experts believe it’s a combination of factors. These include genetics, neurobiological issues, personality and temperament. Another factor is whether they experienced childhood trauma, such as parental abuse or neglect.  

Know the Facts

Narcissistic personality disorders are believed to affect around 6 percent of people nationwide , but are more prevalent in young people and in males.

How to Recover from Social Media Narcissism

The most obvious way for young adults to reverse a tendency toward social media narcissism is to get off the apps. However, that’s easier said than done, given the addictive nature of social media. Moreover, young adults tend to experience high levels of FOMO when they unplug. Hence, deleting their accounts may not be a realistic goal.

But young people can learn what Newport’s Don Grant, PhD, calls “healthy device management.” That means developing awareness and gaining practical tools for creating a healthy relationship with devices. Here are some tips for young adults who want to limit their time on social media platforms.

Do a social media self-audit.

Pay attention to how much time you spend posting, and how it makes you feel. What is your mood like during and after posting and scrolling? After you post, do you keep anxiously checking for reactions and comparing your images to others? Are your posting and social media comparison enhancing your well-being or detracting from it?

Embrace your authentic self. 

Remember that our “flaws” are part of what make us interesting, real, and relatable. Practice  self-compassion  and try appreciating yourself for all your qualities, not just the ones you post about on social media. Building a caring and supportive relationship with yourself will help you build  authentic relationships  with others, off the apps.

Spend more time offline.

Less time spent posting might mean more time taking a hike, having face-to-face interactions, or doing something creative. Consider if you’ve been procrastinating or avoiding hard things by spending all your time on the apps. Has social media become a way of avoiding real-life issues or expectations?

Try caring less about what others think. 

Emerging adulthood is a time when others’ opinions carry a huge amount of weight. But realistically, what people on social media think about you doesn’t have to affect your daily life. Why not focus your energy instead on cultivating friendships with people who know and love the real you? Research shows that real-life friendships  increase happiness , while online networks have neutral or negative effects on well-being.

Seek treatment for mental health conditions.

Social media narcissism is often a symptom of other mental health issues, like anxiety, depression, or low self-esteem. A mental health professional can help you find positive coping strategies to manage the conditions that may be triggering social media addiction.

Treatment for Narcissistic Traits and NPD in Young Adults

Newport Institute’s clinical experts support young adults to heal and build authentic connections that create trust and self-worth, rather than comparison and self-absorption. Young adults in our specialized treatment programs learn to relate openly and honestly to others, build empathy, regulate their emotions in healthy ways, and tolerate criticism and even failure.

In summary, social media narcissism is increasing among young adults, and can be linked with anxiety and/or with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. However, help is available, and with effective treatment, young people can learn to build compassionate, caring relationships with loved ones and with the world around them.

Contact Us to Learn More and Get Started

We consider it an honor and a privilege to help young people who are struggling find their way back to thriving. And we are dedicated to ensuring that young adults receive the highest-quality and most compassionate care available.

Contact us today to find out more about Newport Institute’s residential treatment centers located nationwide.

• Get Started
• Frequently Asked Questions

What does NPD mean?

NPD stands for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Symptoms of NPD include having grandiose ideas about oneself and one’s achievements. People with this disorder constantly seek admiration from other people and often lack the ability to empathize.

Can you tell a narcissist from social media?

Not necessarily. However, some people self-identify as narcissists in recovery, who are attempting to address their narcissistic traits.

What is social media narcissism?

Social media narcissism is a term for social media engagement that consists of self-absorbed content posted with the goal of getting likes and admiration.

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Open Psych J. 11(1): 163–170.

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Narcissism and social media: the role of communal narcissism.

1. Introduction

The current study, 2.1. participants and procedure, 2.2. measures, 2.3. method of analysis, 4. discussion, 5. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Kristinsdottir, K.H.; Gylfason, H.F.; Sigurvinsdottir, R. Narcissism and Social Media: The Role of Communal Narcissism. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021 , 18 , 10106. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910106

Kristinsdottir KH, Gylfason HF, Sigurvinsdottir R. Narcissism and Social Media: The Role of Communal Narcissism. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health . 2021; 18(19):10106. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910106

Kristinsdottir, Kolbrun Harpa, Haukur Freyr Gylfason, and Rannveig Sigurvinsdottir. 2021. "Narcissism and Social Media: The Role of Communal Narcissism" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 19: 10106. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910106

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Are We All Becoming Narcissists?

What is narcissism, what aspects of social media feed narcissism, how does social media manipulate emotions.

Yes, it can be said that human beings are becoming more narcissistic, to some extent, due to the growing influence of social media in our lives. Various tools on social media directly feed narcissism.

In a world that is increasingly dominated by social networking sites, it’s rather uncommon to find someone without any social media presence. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and now even Tik Tok have completely taken over our lives. From a two-year-old child to a senior citizen wanting to learn the basics of technology, the demographics of social media networks have expanded to all stages of the human lifespan.

Keeping up with fresh profile pictures, maintaining Snapchat streaks, rather than real relationships, uploading what you’re eating on Instagram instead of relishing the moment itself… our social lives have been completely transformed in a mere decade.

Along with all its pros and cons, the social networking boon and doom is also changing our personalities.

Be honest with yourself… have you uploaded pictures without any filters or taken a vacation without publicly announcing it on Facebook?

Social media is making us lean towards narcissism. Gone are the days where only actors and models were obsessed with their looks… narcissism has become a global epidemic, so much so that the people who aren’t active on social media are considered abnormal!

When talking about narcissism, it’s important to remember that we’re discussing narcissism as a personality trait, and not NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), which requires clinical assistance.

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This word has been borrowed from a Greek myth, in which a young man named Narcissus was obsessed with his outward appearance and would spend most of his time looking at his own reflection in a pool.

People scoring on the high end of the narcissism personality trait have characteristics of self-importance, perceived uniqueness, intra-personal grandiosity, exploitative behavior, interpersonal entitlement and a high need for attention.

Narcissists have a high need for validation, so they are often considered show-offs.

When we look at social media, all the tools used on a social networking site feed a narcissist’s need for validation and approval. Here, social media creates a vicious cycle , where already existing narcissists receive their daily dose of validation by uploading pictures, while social media itself assists people in developing and maintaining traits of narcissism.

Also Read: Why Are Some People Obsessed With Taking Selfies?

As narcissism requires constant validation, social media serves as a drug for many people. From constantly uploading pictures and ‘selfie obsession’ to nervously counting the number of likes on their pictures and followers are all tools of social media sites that make narcissists feel better about themselves. Narcissism is especially eminent in teenagers. A study conducted by San Diego State University on 16,000 university students found that 30% were narcissistic in psychological testing.

Pictures And Selfies

Consider Instagram, which was started solely for the purpose of uploading pictures. Then Snapchat came into the picture and selfies became a popular trend.

Selfies help narcissists self-affirm their own outward appearance. In fact, selfies have become so important that most phones now come with high-resolution front-facing cameras. The popularity of selfies grew so much, in fact, that the word was named ‘Word of the Year’ in 2013 by the Oxford Dictionary.

Instagram has various filters with different lighting and color effects that enhance the original picture considerably, which helps in creating an inflated self-image. Before social media, we would fearlessly take pictures with our natural face, because that was the only option, but many people have lost the confidence to post without enhancing their original picture with a filter. These filters actually make you like your original picture a little less, right? Snapchat and Instagram have also come up with various crowns , halos and animated filters that can conceal any irregularity of facial structure or complexion.

Number Of Likes, Followers And Friends

Since narcissism feeds on outside validation, it not only connects to physical appearance, but also to the amount of influence a person has in their circle. This influence can be quantified by the number of likes, followers and friends on Facebook. A number of studies conducted on narcissism and Facebook show that narcissists have more friends on Facebook, post more status updates, and tag themselves in photos more frequently ( Source ).

Narcissists take advantage of these social media tools to show the world that they have more social reach by making as many friends as possible. The higher the number, the greater the ‘kick’ or validation received by narcissistic individuals .

Also Read: How Do Snapchat And Instagram Filters Work?

When we visit any social media site, we not only witness the activities and thoughts of many people, but also experience a wide range of emotions.

When we see happy posts of other people, such as pictures from weddings and vacations, it is hard not to feel envious . People also experience emotional fluctuations while visiting any social networking site, a fact that can be mapped by facial electromyography. Since narcissists have a fragile self-image, they experience higher fluctuations in their emotional state. When compared to people who are non-narcissists, narcissists feel happier and more content with positive reinforcements, such as likes and followers, and feel more anxious and even agitated with less favorable outcomes on social media, such as receiving fewer likes on a photo.

However, do all people experience such emotions? No! People who score higher on agreeableness, extraversion, less neuroticism and conscientiousness experience more positive effects and less negative effects when visiting social media websites. Narcissism also promotes more plastic surgery, a materialistic attitude and attention-seeking crimes, such as bashing or trolling someone online.

Relatable right! Who knew uploading pictures and changing filters are influencing our mind in ways we can never fathom. It all comes down to balance. Try limiting your time investment on social media websites and see if you feel a difference in your state of mind.

• Shi, Y., Luo, Y. L. L., Yang, Z., Liu, Y., & Bao, H. (2018, September 19). Do Narcissists Enjoy Visiting Social Networking Sites? It Depends on How Adaptive They Are. Frontiers in Psychology. Frontiers Media SA.
• Gnambs, T., & Appel, M. (2017, March 23). Narcissism and Social Networking Behavior: A Meta‐Analysis. Journal of Personality. Wiley.
• New generation infected by narcissism, says psychologist. The Sydney Morning Herald

Anupriya is an English and Social Studies teacher at Jamnabai Narsee School, Mumbai. Besides her interest in Literature and Social Sciences, she spends her time reading finance articles and binge watching historical drama series on Netflix. She aspires to be an author.

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-warnings-from-democrats-about-project-2025-and-donald-trump

Fact-checking warnings from Democrats about Project 2025 and Donald Trump

This fact check originally appeared on PolitiFact .

Project 2025 has a starring role in this week’s Democratic National Convention.

And it was front and center on Night 1.

WATCH: Hauling large copy of Project 2025, Michigan state Sen. McMorrow speaks at 2024 DNC

“This is Project 2025,” Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, said as she laid a hardbound copy of the 900-page document on the lectern. “Over the next four nights, you are going to hear a lot about what is in this 900-page document. Why? Because this is the Republican blueprint for a second Trump term.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has warned Americans about “Trump’s Project 2025” agenda — even though former President Donald Trump doesn’t claim the conservative presidential transition document.

“Donald Trump wants to take our country backward,” Harris said July 23 in Milwaukee. “He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. Like, we know we got to take this seriously, and can you believe they put that thing in writing?”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, has joined in on the talking point.

“Don’t believe (Trump) when he’s playing dumb about this Project 2025. He knows exactly what it’ll do,” Walz said Aug. 9 in Glendale, Arizona.

Trump’s campaign has worked to build distance from the project, which the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, led with contributions from dozens of conservative groups.

Much of the plan calls for extensive executive-branch overhauls and draws on both long-standing conservative principles, such as tax cuts, and more recent culture war issues. It lays out recommendations for disbanding the Commerce and Education departments, eliminating certain climate protections and consolidating more power to the president.

Project 2025 offers a sweeping vision for a Republican-led executive branch, and some of its policies mirror Trump’s 2024 agenda, But Harris and her presidential campaign have at times gone too far in describing what the project calls for and how closely the plans overlap with Trump’s campaign.

PolitiFact researched Harris’ warnings about how the plan would affect reproductive rights, federal entitlement programs and education, just as we did for President Joe Biden’s Project 2025 rhetoric. Here’s what the project does and doesn’t call for, and how it squares with Trump’s positions.

Are Trump and Project 2025 connected?

To distance himself from Project 2025 amid the Democratic attacks, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he “knows nothing” about it and has “no idea” who is in charge of it. (CNN identified at least 140 former advisers from the Trump administration who have been involved.)

The Heritage Foundation sought contributions from more than 100 conservative organizations for its policy vision for the next Republican presidency, which was published in 2023.

Project 2025 is now winding down some of its policy operations, and director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, is stepping down, The Washington Post reported July 30. Trump campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita denounced the document.

WATCH: A look at the Project 2025 plan to reshape government and Trump’s links to its authors

However, Project 2025 contributors include a number of high-ranking officials from Trump’s first administration, including former White House adviser Peter Navarro and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

A recently released recording of Russell Vought, a Project 2025 author and the former director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, showed Vought saying Trump’s “very supportive of what we do.” He said Trump was only distancing himself because Democrats were making a bogeyman out of the document.

Project 2025 wouldn’t ban abortion outright, but would curtail access

The Harris campaign shared a graphic on X that claimed “Trump’s Project 2025 plan for workers” would “go after birth control and ban abortion nationwide.”

The plan doesn’t call to ban abortion nationwide, though its recommendations could curtail some contraceptives and limit abortion access.

What’s known about Trump’s abortion agenda neither lines up with Harris’ description nor Project 2025’s wish list.

Project 2025 says the Department of Health and Human Services Department should “return to being known as the Department of Life by explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care.”

It recommends that the Food and Drug Administration reverse its 2000 approval of mifepristone, the first pill taken in a two-drug regimen for a medication abortion. Medication is the most common form of abortion in the U.S. — accounting for around 63 percent in 2023.

If mifepristone were to remain approved, Project 2025 recommends new rules, such as cutting its use from 10 weeks into pregnancy to seven. It would have to be provided to patients in person — part of the group’s efforts to limit access to the drug by mail. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge to mifepristone’s FDA approval over procedural grounds.

WATCH: Trump’s plans for health care and reproductive rights if he returns to White House The manual also calls for the Justice Department to enforce the 1873 Comstock Act on mifepristone, which bans the mailing of “obscene” materials. Abortion access supporters fear that a strict interpretation of the law could go further to ban mailing the materials used in procedural abortions, such as surgical instruments and equipment.

The plan proposes withholding federal money from states that don’t report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention how many abortions take place within their borders. The plan also would prohibit abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, from receiving Medicaid funds. It also calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that the training of medical professionals, including doctors and nurses, omits abortion training.

The document says some forms of emergency contraception — particularly Ella, a pill that can be taken within five days of unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy — should be excluded from no-cost coverage. The Affordable Care Act requires most private health insurers to cover recommended preventive services, which involves a range of birth control methods, including emergency contraception.

Trump has recently said states should decide abortion regulations and that he wouldn’t block access to contraceptives. Trump said during his June 27 debate with Biden that he wouldn’t ban mifepristone after the Supreme Court “approved” it. But the court rejected the lawsuit based on standing, not the case’s merits. He has not weighed in on the Comstock Act or said whether he supports it being used to block abortion medication, or other kinds of abortions.

Project 2025 doesn’t call for cutting Social Security, but proposes some changes to Medicare

“When you read (Project 2025),” Harris told a crowd July 23 in Wisconsin, “you will see, Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare.”

The Project 2025 document does not call for Social Security cuts. None of its 10 references to Social Security addresses plans for cutting the program.

Harris also misleads about Trump’s Social Security views.

In his earlier campaigns and before he was a politician, Trump said about a half-dozen times that he’s open to major overhauls of Social Security, including cuts and privatization. More recently, in a March 2024 CNBC interview, Trump said of entitlement programs such as Social Security, “There’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.” However, he quickly walked that statement back, and his CNBC comment stands at odds with essentially everything else Trump has said during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump’s campaign website says that not “a single penny” should be cut from Social Security. We rated Harris’ claim that Trump intends to cut Social Security Mostly False.

Project 2025 does propose changes to Medicare, including making Medicare Advantage, the private insurance offering in Medicare, the “default” enrollment option. Unlike Original Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans have provider networks and can also require prior authorization, meaning that the plan can approve or deny certain services. Original Medicare plans don’t have prior authorization requirements.

The manual also calls for repealing health policies enacted under Biden, such as the Inflation Reduction Act. The law enabled Medicare to negotiate with drugmakers for the first time in history, and recently resulted in an agreement with drug companies to lower the prices of 10 expensive prescriptions for Medicare enrollees.

Trump, however, has said repeatedly during the 2024 presidential campaign that he will not cut Medicare.

Project 2025 would eliminate the Education Department, which Trump supports

The Harris campaign said Project 2025 would “eliminate the U.S. Department of Education” — and that’s accurate. Project 2025 says federal education policy “should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” The plan scales back the federal government’s role in education policy and devolves the functions that remain to other agencies.

Aside from eliminating the department, the project also proposes scrapping the Biden administration’s Title IX revision, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also would let states opt out of federal education programs and calls for passing a federal parents’ bill of rights similar to ones passed in some Republican-led state legislatures.

Republicans, including Trump, have pledged to close the department, which gained its status in 1979 within Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s presidential Cabinet.

In one of his Agenda 47 policy videos, Trump promised to close the department and “to send all education work and needs back to the states.” Eliminating the department would have to go through Congress.

What Project 2025, Trump would do on overtime pay

In the graphic, the Harris campaign says Project 2025 allows “employers to stop paying workers for overtime work.”

The plan doesn’t call for banning overtime wages. It recommends changes to some Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, regulations and to overtime rules. Some changes, if enacted, could result in some people losing overtime protections, experts told us.

The document proposes that the Labor Department maintain an overtime threshold “that does not punish businesses in lower-cost regions (e.g., the southeast United States).” This threshold is the amount of money executive, administrative or professional employees need to make for an employer to exempt them from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In 2019, the Trump’s administration finalized a rule that expanded overtime pay eligibility to most salaried workers earning less than about $35,568, which it said made about 1.3 million more workers eligible for overtime pay. The Trump-era threshold is high enough to cover most line workers in lower-cost regions, Project 2025 said.

The Biden administration raised that threshold to $43,888 beginning July 1, and that will rise to $58,656 on Jan. 1, 2025. That would grant overtime eligibility to about 4 million workers, the Labor Department said.

It’s unclear how many workers Project 2025’s proposal to return to the Trump-era overtime threshold in some parts of the country would affect, but experts said some would presumably lose the right to overtime wages.

Other overtime proposals in Project 2025’s plan include allowing some workers to choose to accumulate paid time off instead of overtime pay, or to work more hours in one week and fewer in the next, rather than receive overtime.

Trump’s past with overtime pay is complicated. In 2016, the Obama administration said it would raise the overtime to salaried workers earning less than $47,476 a year, about double the exemption level set in 2004 of $23,660 a year.

But when a judge blocked the Obama rule, the Trump administration didn’t challenge the court ruling. Instead it set its own overtime threshold, which raised the amount, but by less than Obama.

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The Power of Cross-Platform Measurement in India

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Surgeon General: Parents Are at Their Wits’ End. We Can Do Better.

By Vivek H. Murthy

Dr. Murthy is the surgeon general.

One day when my daughter was a year old, she stopped moving her right leg. Tests found that she had a deep infection in her thigh that was dangerously close to her bone. She was rushed off to surgery. Thankfully, she’s now a healthy, spirited young girl, but the excruciating days we spent in the hospital were some of the hardest of my life. My wife, Alice, and I felt helpless and heartbroken. We got through it because of excellent medical care, understanding workplaces and loved ones who showed up and reminded us that we were not alone.

When I became a parent, a friend told me I was signing up for a lifetime of joy and worry. The joys are indeed abundant, but as fulfilling as parenting has been, the truth is it has also been more stressful than any job I’ve had. I’ve had many moments of feeling lost and exhausted. So many parents I encounter as I travel across America tell me they have the same experience: They feel lucky to be raising kids, but they are struggling, often in silence and alone.

The stress and mental health challenges faced by parents — just like loneliness , workplace well-being and the impact of social media on youth mental health — aren’t always visible, but they can take a steep toll. It’s time to recognize they constitute a serious public health concern for our country. Parents who feel pushed to the brink deserve more than platitudes. They need tangible support. That’s why I am issuing a surgeon general’s advisory to call attention to the stress and mental health concerns facing parents and caregivers and to lay out what we can do to address them.

A recent study by the American Psychological Association revealed that 48 percent of parents say most days their stress is completely overwhelming, compared with 26 percent of other adults who reported the same. They are navigating traditional hardships of parenting — worrying about money and safety, struggling to get enough sleep — as well as new stressors, including omnipresent screens, a youth mental health crisis and widespread fear about the future.

Stress is tougher to manage when you feel you’re on your own, which is why it’s particularly concerning that so many parents, single parents most of all, report feeling lonelier than other adults . Additionally, parents are stretched for time. Compared with just a few decades ago, mothers and fathers spend more time working and more time caring for their children , leaving them less time for rest, leisure and relationships. Stress, loneliness and exhaustion can easily affect people’s mental health and well-being. And we know that the mental health of parents has a direct impact on the mental health of children.

All of this is compounded by an intensifying culture of comparison, often amplified online, that promotes unrealistic expectations of what parents must do. Chasing these expectations while trying to wade through an endless stream of parenting advice has left many families feeling exhausted, burned out and perpetually behind.

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Key things to know about U.S. election polling in 2024

Confidence in U.S. public opinion polling was shaken by errors in 2016 and 2020. In both years’ general elections, many polls underestimated the strength of Republican candidates, including Donald Trump. These errors laid bare some real limitations of polling.

In the midterms that followed those elections, polling performed better . But many Americans remain skeptical that it can paint an accurate portrait of the public’s political preferences.

Restoring people’s confidence in polling is an important goal, because robust and independent public polling has a critical role to play in a democratic society. It gathers and publishes information about the well-being of the public and about citizens’ views on major issues. And it provides an important counterweight to people in power, or those seeking power, when they make claims about “what the people want.”

The challenges facing polling are undeniable. In addition to the longstanding issues of rising nonresponse and cost, summer 2024 brought extraordinary events that transformed the presidential race . The good news is that people with deep knowledge of polling are working hard to fix the problems exposed in 2016 and 2020, experimenting with more data sources and interview approaches than ever before. Still, polls are more useful to the public if people have realistic expectations about what surveys can do well – and what they cannot.

With that in mind, here are some key points to know about polling heading into this year’s presidential election.

Probability sampling (or “random sampling”). This refers to a polling method in which survey participants are recruited using random sampling from a database or list that includes nearly everyone in the population. The pollster selects the sample. The survey is not open for anyone who wants to sign up.

Online opt-in polling (or “nonprobability sampling”). These polls are recruited using a variety of methods that are sometimes referred to as “convenience sampling.” Respondents come from a variety of online sources such as ads on social media or search engines, websites offering rewards in exchange for survey participation, or self-enrollment. Unlike surveys with probability samples, people can volunteer to participate in opt-in surveys.

Nonresponse and nonresponse bias. Nonresponse is when someone sampled for a survey does not participate. Nonresponse bias occurs when the pattern of nonresponse leads to error in a poll estimate. For example, college graduates are more likely than those without a degree to participate in surveys, leading to the potential that the share of college graduates in the resulting sample will be too high.

Mode of interview. This refers to the format in which respondents are presented with and respond to survey questions. The most common modes are online, live telephone, text message and paper. Some polls use more than one mode.

Weighting. This is a statistical procedure pollsters perform to make their survey align with the broader population on key characteristics like age, race, etc. For example, if a survey has too many college graduates compared with their share in the population, people without a college degree are “weighted up” to match the proper share.

How are election polls being conducted?

Pollsters are making changes in response to the problems in previous elections. As a result, polling is different today than in 2016. Most U.S. polling organizations that conducted and publicly released national surveys in both 2016 and 2022 (61%) used methods in 2022 that differed from what they used in 2016 . And change has continued since 2022.

One change is that the number of active polling organizations has grown significantly, indicating that there are fewer barriers to entry into the polling field. The number of organizations that conduct national election polls more than doubled between 2000 and 2022.

This growth has been driven largely by pollsters using inexpensive opt-in sampling methods. But previous Pew Research Center analyses have demonstrated how surveys that use nonprobability sampling may have errors twice as large , on average, as those that use probability sampling.

The second change is that many of the more prominent polling organizations that use probability sampling – including Pew Research Center – have shifted from conducting polls primarily by telephone to using online methods, or some combination of online, mail and telephone. The result is that polling methodologies are far more diverse now than in the past.

(For more about how public opinion polling works, including a chapter on election polls, read our short online course on public opinion polling basics .)

All good polling relies on statistical adjustment called “weighting,” which makes sure that the survey sample aligns with the broader population on key characteristics. Historically, public opinion researchers have adjusted their data using a core set of demographic variables to correct imbalances between the survey sample and the population.

But there is a growing realization among survey researchers that weighting a poll on just a few variables like age, race and gender is insufficient for getting accurate results. Some groups of people – such as older adults and college graduates – are more likely to take surveys, which can lead to errors that are too sizable for a simple three- or four-variable adjustment to work well. Adjusting on more variables produces more accurate results, according to Center studies in 2016 and 2018 .

A number of pollsters have taken this lesson to heart. For example, recent high-quality polls by Gallup and The New York Times/Siena College adjusted on eight and 12 variables, respectively. Our own polls typically adjust on 12 variables . In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be necessary to have that much intervention by the pollster. But the real world of survey research is not perfect.

Predicting who will vote is critical – and difficult. Preelection polls face one crucial challenge that routine opinion polls do not: determining who of the people surveyed will actually cast a ballot.

Roughly a third of eligible Americans do not vote in presidential elections , despite the enormous attention paid to these contests. Determining who will abstain is difficult because people can’t perfectly predict their future behavior – and because many people feel social pressure to say they’ll vote even if it’s unlikely.

No one knows the profile of voters ahead of Election Day. We can’t know for sure whether young people will turn out in greater numbers than usual, or whether key racial or ethnic groups will do so. This means pollsters are left to make educated guesses about turnout, often using a mix of historical data and current measures of voting enthusiasm. This is very different from routine opinion polls, which mostly do not ask about people’s future intentions.

When major news breaks, a poll’s timing can matter. Public opinion on most issues is remarkably stable, so you don’t necessarily need a recent poll about an issue to get a sense of what people think about it. But dramatic events can and do change public opinion , especially when people are first learning about a new topic. For example, polls this summer saw notable changes in voter attitudes following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. Polls taken immediately after a major event may pick up a shift in public opinion, but those shifts are sometimes short-lived. Polls fielded weeks or months later are what allow us to see whether an event has had a long-term impact on the public’s psyche.

How accurate are polls?

The answer to this question depends on what you want polls to do. Polls are used for all kinds of purposes in addition to showing who’s ahead and who’s behind in a campaign. Fair or not, however, the accuracy of election polling is usually judged by how closely the polls matched the outcome of the election.

By this standard, polling in 2016 and 2020 performed poorly. In both years, state polling was characterized by serious errors. National polling did reasonably well in 2016 but faltered in 2020.

In 2020, a post-election review of polling by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) found that “the 2020 polls featured polling error of an unusual magnitude: It was the highest in 40 years for the national popular vote and the highest in at least 20 years for state-level estimates of the vote in presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial contests.”

How big were the errors? Polls conducted in the last two weeks before the election suggested that Biden’s margin over Trump was nearly twice as large as it ended up being in the final national vote tally.

Errors of this size make it difficult to be confident about who is leading if the election is closely contested, as many U.S. elections are .

Pollsters are rightly working to improve the accuracy of their polls. But even an error of 4 or 5 percentage points isn’t too concerning if the purpose of the poll is to describe whether the public has favorable or unfavorable opinions about candidates , or to show which issues matter to which voters. And on questions that gauge where people stand on issues, we usually want to know broadly where the public stands. We don’t necessarily need to know the precise share of Americans who say, for example, that climate change is mostly caused by human activity. Even judged by its performance in recent elections, polling can still provide a faithful picture of public sentiment on the important issues of the day.

The 2022 midterms saw generally accurate polling, despite a wave of partisan polls predicting a broad Republican victory. In fact, FiveThirtyEight found that “polls were more accurate in 2022 than in any cycle since at least 1998, with almost no bias toward either party.” Moreover, a handful of contrarian polls that predicted a 2022 “red wave” largely washed out when the votes were tallied. In sum, if we focus on polling in the most recent national election, there’s plenty of reason to be encouraged.

Compared with other elections in the past 20 years, polls have been less accurate when Donald Trump is on the ballot. Preelection surveys suffered from large errors – especially at the state level – in 2016 and 2020, when Trump was standing for election. But they performed reasonably well in the 2018 and 2022 midterms, when he was not.

During the 2016 campaign, observers speculated about the possibility that Trump supporters might be less willing to express their support to a pollster – a phenomenon sometimes described as the “shy Trump effect.” But a committee of polling experts evaluated five different tests of the “shy Trump” theory and turned up little to no evidence for each one . Later, Pew Research Center and, in a separate test, a researcher from Yale also found little to no evidence in support of the claim.

Instead, two other explanations are more likely. One is about the difficulty of estimating who will turn out to vote. Research has found that Trump is popular among people who tend to sit out midterms but turn out for him in presidential election years. Since pollsters often use past turnout to predict who will vote, it can be difficult to anticipate when irregular voters will actually show up.

The other explanation is that Republicans in the Trump era have become a little less likely than Democrats to participate in polls . Pollsters call this “partisan nonresponse bias.” Surprisingly, polls historically have not shown any particular pattern of favoring one side or the other. The errors that favored Democratic candidates in the past eight years may be a result of the growth of political polarization, along with declining trust among conservatives in news organizations and other institutions that conduct polls.

Whatever the cause, the fact that Trump is again the nominee of the Republican Party means that pollsters must be especially careful to make sure all segments of the population are properly represented in surveys.

The real margin of error is often about double the one reported. A typical election poll sample of about 1,000 people has a margin of sampling error that’s about plus or minus 3 percentage points. That number expresses the uncertainty that results from taking a sample of the population rather than interviewing everyone . Random samples are likely to differ a little from the population just by chance, in the same way that the quality of your hand in a card game varies from one deal to the next.

The problem is that sampling error is not the only kind of error that affects a poll. Those other kinds of error, in fact, can be as large or larger than sampling error. Consequently, the reported margin of error can lead people to think that polls are more accurate than they really are.

There are three other, equally important sources of error in polling: noncoverage error , where not all the target population has a chance of being sampled; nonresponse error, where certain groups of people may be less likely to participate; and measurement error, where people may not properly understand the questions or misreport their opinions. Not only does the margin of error fail to account for those other sources of potential error, putting a number only on sampling error implies to the public that other kinds of error do not exist.

Several recent studies show that the average total error in a poll estimate may be closer to twice as large as that implied by a typical margin of sampling error. This hidden error underscores the fact that polls may not be precise enough to call the winner in a close election.

Other important things to remember

Transparency in how a poll was conducted is associated with better accuracy . The polling industry has several platforms and initiatives aimed at promoting transparency in survey methodology. These include AAPOR’s transparency initiative and the Roper Center archive . Polling organizations that participate in these organizations have less error, on average, than those that don’t participate, an analysis by FiveThirtyEight found .

Participation in these transparency efforts does not guarantee that a poll is rigorous, but it is undoubtedly a positive signal. Transparency in polling means disclosing essential information, including the poll’s sponsor, the data collection firm, where and how participants were selected, modes of interview, field dates, sample size, question wording, and weighting procedures.

There is evidence that when the public is told that a candidate is extremely likely to win, some people may be less likely to vote . Following the 2016 election, many people wondered whether the pervasive forecasts that seemed to all but guarantee a Hillary Clinton victory – two modelers put her chances at 99% – led some would-be voters to conclude that the race was effectively over and that their vote would not make a difference. There is scientific research to back up that claim: A team of researchers found experimental evidence that when people have high confidence that one candidate will win, they are less likely to vote. This helps explain why some polling analysts say elections should be covered using traditional polling estimates and margins of error rather than speculative win probabilities (also known as “probabilistic forecasts”).

National polls tell us what the entire public thinks about the presidential candidates, but the outcome of the election is determined state by state in the Electoral College . The 2000 and 2016 presidential elections demonstrated a difficult truth: The candidate with the largest share of support among all voters in the United States sometimes loses the election. In those two elections, the national popular vote winners (Al Gore and Hillary Clinton) lost the election in the Electoral College (to George W. Bush and Donald Trump). In recent years, analysts have shown that Republican candidates do somewhat better in the Electoral College than in the popular vote because every state gets three electoral votes regardless of population – and many less-populated states are rural and more Republican.

For some, this raises the question: What is the use of national polls if they don’t tell us who is likely to win the presidency? In fact, national polls try to gauge the opinions of all Americans, regardless of whether they live in a battleground state like Pennsylvania, a reliably red state like Idaho or a reliably blue state like Rhode Island. In short, national polls tell us what the entire citizenry is thinking. Polls that focus only on the competitive states run the risk of giving too little attention to the needs and views of the vast majority of Americans who live in uncompetitive states – about 80%.

Fortunately, this is not how most pollsters view the world . As the noted political scientist Sidney Verba explained, “Surveys produce just what democracy is supposed to produce – equal representation of all citizens.”

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Scott Keeter is a senior survey advisor at Pew Research Center .

Courtney Kennedy is Vice President of Methods and Innovation at Pew Research Center .

How do people in the U.S. take Pew Research Center surveys, anyway?

How public polling has changed in the 21st century, what 2020’s election poll errors tell us about the accuracy of issue polling, a field guide to polling: election 2020 edition, methods 101: how is polling done around the world, most popular.

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