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More friends on SNS, more materialism? The moderating roles of self-esteem and social comparison orientation

On social networking sites, users are continuously exposed to a variety of posts from the networked individuals. Such information may often influence recipients’ perceptions of what is important and goal pursuits such as materialism. Even though several studies have examined the negative consequence...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ruan, Chenhan, Lu, Zhihuang, Li, Huizhong, Lin, Wenhe, Li, Dan, Yuan, Jingting
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10171683/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37163545
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283723
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author Ruan, Chenhan
Lu, Zhihuang
Li, Huizhong
Lin, Wenhe
Li, Dan
Yuan, Jingting
author_facet Ruan, Chenhan
Lu, Zhihuang
Li, Huizhong
Lin, Wenhe
Li, Dan
Yuan, Jingting
author_sort Ruan, Chenhan
collection PubMed
description On social networking sites, users are continuously exposed to a variety of posts from the networked individuals. Such information may often influence recipients’ perceptions of what is important and goal pursuits such as materialism. Even though several studies have examined the negative consequences of using social networking sites, less attention has been paid to the role of friends’ number and its impact on people’s life goal pursuits. This study aimed to investigate the dark side of online friends and explored why and when more friends in social networking sites would promote materialism. Based on a sample of 264 WeChat users, study 1 discovered that friends’ number positively impacted materialism through extrinsic goal (i.e., wealth and status). Additionally, such association was moderated by social comparison orientation and self-esteem. Importantly, self-esteem buffers the detrimental effect of friends’ number on materialism while social comparison orientation increases it. Study 2 further tested the causal relationship and showed that friends’ number on SNS might become a signal to indicate materialism via an experiment. In conclusion, our findings add to the understanding of psychological processes regarding the dark side of online friends’ number and render suggestions for developing positive personal value.
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spelling pubmed-101716832023-05-11 More friends on SNS, more materialism? The moderating roles of self-esteem and social comparison orientation Ruan, Chenhan Lu, Zhihuang Li, Huizhong Lin, Wenhe Li, Dan Yuan, Jingting PLoS One Research Article On social networking sites, users are continuously exposed to a variety of posts from the networked individuals. Such information may often influence recipients’ perceptions of what is important and goal pursuits such as materialism. Even though several studies have examined the negative consequences of using social networking sites, less attention has been paid to the role of friends’ number and its impact on people’s life goal pursuits. This study aimed to investigate the dark side of online friends and explored why and when more friends in social networking sites would promote materialism. Based on a sample of 264 WeChat users, study 1 discovered that friends’ number positively impacted materialism through extrinsic goal (i.e., wealth and status). Additionally, such association was moderated by social comparison orientation and self-esteem. Importantly, self-esteem buffers the detrimental effect of friends’ number on materialism while social comparison orientation increases it. Study 2 further tested the causal relationship and showed that friends’ number on SNS might become a signal to indicate materialism via an experiment. In conclusion, our findings add to the understanding of psychological processes regarding the dark side of online friends’ number and render suggestions for developing positive personal value. Public Library of Science 2023-05-10 /pmc/articles/PMC10171683/ /pubmed/37163545 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283723 Text en © 2023 Ruan et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ruan, Chenhan
Lu, Zhihuang
Li, Huizhong
Lin, Wenhe
Li, Dan
Yuan, Jingting
More friends on SNS, more materialism? The moderating roles of self-esteem and social comparison orientation
title More friends on SNS, more materialism? The moderating roles of self-esteem and social comparison orientation
title_full More friends on SNS, more materialism? The moderating roles of self-esteem and social comparison orientation
title_fullStr More friends on SNS, more materialism? The moderating roles of self-esteem and social comparison orientation
title_full_unstemmed More friends on SNS, more materialism? The moderating roles of self-esteem and social comparison orientation
title_short More friends on SNS, more materialism? The moderating roles of self-esteem and social comparison orientation
title_sort more friends on sns, more materialism? the moderating roles of self-esteem and social comparison orientation
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10171683/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37163545
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283723
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