Abstract

Keywords

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Impression management and social media

۳٫ Materialism as an antecedent of status-seeking impression management

۴٫ Social capital as an outcome of impression management

۵٫ Research questions

۶٫ Method

۷٫ Results

۸٫ Discussion

Funding

Data availability statement

Author contribution statement

Submission declaration

Declaration of Competing interest

Acknowledgement

Appendix. Supplementary materials

References

Vitae

Abstract

     Individuals adjust their behavior on social media to varying extent, and commonly in their idealized way. Most studies have focused on the problems associated with materialism and social media use, yet their potential positive contributions remain less clear. In fact, impression management holds potential for both negative and positive: it has been linked with materialistic attitudes, but also increased amounts of self-reported social capital. This study examines how young people’s materialistic values connect with status-seeking impression management on social media, and subsequently to social capital, within the same model. Eight hundred Finnish participants aged 15–۱۹ participated in our structured phone survey. We applied structural equation modeling to examine the connections between materialism, impression management, and online social capital. Our findings show that materialism is positively related to impression management, while impression management is positively associated with online social capital. Additionally, we found positive indirect effects between materialism and both bridging and bonding social capital through impression management. In sum, more materialistic young people who engaged in higher impression management had higher amounts of social capital.

Introduction

     Young people are heavy users of social media (e.g., Pew Research Center, 2021) and social media has become an inseparable part of their lives. As young people have unlimited access to social media, they are constantly exposed to various content and topics, including commercial content. At the same time with the emergence of commercial social media, materialism has increased among youth in the past decades (Twenge & Kasser, 2013) . According to Richins and Dawson (1992) materialism refers to consumers’ values, and their widely-used scale constitutes of three factors: the pivotal role of acquisitions in one’s life, pursuing happiness by means of acquisitions, and the determination of one’s success through possessions. There is already empirical research indicating that social media usage has a positive impact on materialism (e.g., Kamal, Chu & Pedram, 2013; Thoumrungroje, 2018).

     Social media has also provided a new arena for people to manage their impressions in their desired way ( (Baumeister & Bushman, 2015, p. 102). Impression management refers to people’s tendency to try to control and influence how others perceive them (Cole & Chandler, 2019; Leary, 2001). Theoretically, impression management derives from Goffman’s (1959) work, which suggested that when individuals are in front of others, they adjust their behavior so that it conveys their preferred impression to the audience (p. 4) . Studies have suggested that impression management is easier to control online than in face-to-face situations (Ellison, Heino & Gibbs, 2006; Fullwood, 2019; Ward, 2017) , and not least because people have far more time to consider their next steps online.

Results

     Table 4 presents the results of the measurement model, p-values, factor-loadings, and communalities of these variables. Latent factors were materialism, impression management, and social capital, which included two sub-factors: bridging and bonding. Table 5 shows correlations between latent factors. Modification indices showed that the model fit would improve if items’ (۵ and 6) as well as (16 and 17) residual covariances could be estimated freely. These items had similar statement structure in the questionnaire, which explains why residual covariance existed. Therefore, their residual covariances were freely estimated in the analysis. Our measurement model (Fig. 2) showed a good fit: (accepted cut-off criteria in parenthesis) (Hu & Bentler, 1999; Yu & Muth´en, 2002) x2 = 405,423 df = 127, p < .001(>0.05), RMSEA = 0.052 (<0.06), CFI = 0.951 (>0.95), TLI = 0.941 (>0.95), SRMR = 0.047 (<0.08). Therefore, we were able to execute a further analysis of the model (SEM).

     Also, a test model (SEM) showed good model-fit: (cut-off criteria in parenthesis (Hu & Bentler, 1999; Yu & Muth´en, 2002) x2 = 386, 709, df = 129, p< .001 (>0.05), RMSEA = 0.050 (<0.06), CFI = 0.955 (>0.95), TLI = 0.946 (>0.95), SRMR = 0.048 (<0.08), which suggests that the tested model is acceptable. Although the significance of our Chi-square remains significant, it is highly sensitive to the big sample size (Kline, 2011, p. 201) and cannot be used as the only indicator for making decisions about model fit (Schermelleh-Engel, Moosbrugger & Müller, 2003). Therefore, we considered other diagnostics (CFI and TLI, see above) to assess the model fit. Fig. 3 illustrates the results of the SEM. The analysis revealed a positive and significant connection between materialism and impression management (ß = ۰٫۵۸, p < .001). Likewise, impression management was significantly and positively related to the social capital, while the effect of impression management on bridging was (ß = ۰٫۴۱, p < .001) and on bonding (ß = ۰٫۱۴, p = .003). In addition, we found a significant and positive connection between bridging and bonding social capital (ß = ۰٫۵۲, p < .001).