1. Effects of Facebook
Friend Profile Viewing
on Self-Esteem
Holly Slang
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University

2. When we see a very
popular person on
Facebook, how do
we react?

3. Does our reaction change from when we see 2,602 friends…

4. … to 49 friends?

5. Research Questions
What effect does viewing other people’s profiles, of
varying degrees of popularity, have on self-esteem?
o How does this impact happiness and our personal perceived popularity?
Does the context in which we view the profile matter?
o Could there be a difference between a comparative vs. an associative
context?

6. Previous Literature
• Viewing one’s own Facebook profile increases self-
esteem (Gonzales and Hancock, 2011).
• There is strong negative correlation between trait
self-esteem and Facebook usage
(Mehdizadeh, 2010).
• We perceive that others are happier than we are
online (Chou and Edge, 2012).

7. Methods – Experiment One
• Survey
o N = 242 (Mage=27.3, SD=8.1, 65% Male)
o Amazon Mechanical Turk Services
Do you use
Facebook?
Assign Condition
Conditions 2, 3, 4
view other’s profile
and answer
questions about that
profile and a
behavioral measure
Personal Assessment
Condition 1 (Self)
views own profile and
answers questions
about own profile

8. Conditions
Condition 1 - Self
Condition 2 - Fewer
Condition 3 - Equal
Condition 4 - More

9. Dependent Variables
• Self-Esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale)
• Happiness
• Popularity
• Behavioral Measure

10. Self-Esteem
• Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
o 10-item Likert scale

11. Happiness and Popularity

12. Behavioral Measure: Intention of Post

13. Results:
Self vs. Other
• Participants who looked at another profile reported
higher happiness than participants who looked at their
own (p = .06).
• There was no effect in regards to popularity.
• Participants who looked at their own profile reported
higher self-esteem (p = .31) than participants who
looked at another profile.

14. 2.8
2.85
2.9
2.95
3
3.05
3.1
Self Fewer Equal More
Self-Esteem
Results:
Across Four Conditions
F(3,237)=1.19, p= .32
Participants had the
lowest self-esteem after
viewing the profile of
someone who was more
popular. They felt best
after viewing their own
profile, which is
consistent with previous
research (Gonzales and
Hancock, 2011).

15. 3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
4
Self Fewer Equal More
Popularity
Results:
Across Four Conditions
F(3,236)=1.03, p= .38
Participants perceived
themselves to be most
popular after viewing
the profile of a friend
with an equal number of
friends.

16. Results:
Across Four Conditions
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Fewer Equal More
Intention
F(2,164)=4.34, p= .02
Participants perceived those with more
friends to have worse intentions (higher
value = showing off).

17. Results:
Across Four Conditions
0
1
2
3
4
5
Fewer Equal More
Likelihood to Like Status
F(2,165)=4.34, p= .02
Participants were more willing to like the
status of those with similar popularity.

18. Results:
Gender Differences
• Men and women reported looking at a friend of the
same sex around two-thirds of the time.
• Men report significantly higher self-esteem and
popularity when viewing a friend’s profile who had
more friends than they did (association).
• Women, in contrast, report lower self-esteem and
popularity (social comparison).
These results led to the creation of Experiment Two.

19. Methods – Experiment Two
• Survey
o N = 285 (Mage=28.8, SD=9.56, 62% Male)
o Amazon Mechanical Turk Services
Do you use
Facebook?
Assign Priming
(Associative or
comparative)
Assign Condition
(More, less, or
equal popularity)
View other’s
profile and
answer questions
about that profile
and a behavioral
measure Personal
Assessment
• Dependent Variables
o Same as in Experiment Two

20. Adding Primes
• Participants were primed at the very beginning with
a short statement.
• Association: “It is important in life to develop
relationships with people” in order to encourage
thoughts about friendships and unity.
• Comparison: “It is important in life to develop a
competitive edge” in order to encourage thoughts
about competition and individuation.
• Then asked to reflect with a short response on a
situation in which the participant’s assigned strength
(relationships vs. competitive edge) aided them.

21. Results: Gender Differences
Men’s self-esteem was about equal
for all levels of popularity in the
associative context. However, in a
comparative context, men felt the
highest self-esteem when viewing
someone who was less popular.

22. Results: Gender Differences
Women’s self-esteem was about
equal in the comparison condition
across all popularity levels.
However, they had the lowest self-
esteem when viewing equally
popular friends in an associative
context.

23. Conclusions
• Social networking impacts us in more ways than we are
consciously aware.
• In Study 1, we found that self-esteem is lower when
viewing the profile of a more popular person, but
popularity is higher.
• We perceive a more popular person to have intentions
of showing off more than an equally popular person and
significantly more than a less popular person.
• We are more likely to contribute “likes” to posts by
equally popular people.
• There are significant gender differences in how men and
women respond to each other online.

24. Conclusions (cont.)
• In Study 2, we found men are most affected by
social comparisons of those who are around as
popular as them, while women worry more about
the extremes, those much more popular than them.
• Men felt self-esteem increases when viewing a less
popular person and decreases when viewing a
more popular person, while women felt the
opposite in the comparison condition.
• The genders reacted differently to the primes.
• However, there are significant differences in how
men and women behave online.

25. Future Studies
• Future studies should look to investigate more
perceptions or behaviors associated with Facebook
usage.
• We should investigate the differences between changes
in self-esteem and perceived popularity in that the
former seemed to be connected to comparison and the
latter appeared to be association.
• We should also conduct another experiment with the
focus of uncovering the many gender differences in
online social networking.
• Gaining some insight into why these behaviors exist can
help us understand our interactions, both online and
offline.

26. Acknowledgments
• Mentors: Dr. Dan Ariely and Dr. Lalin Anik
• Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University
• Research coordinator: Dr. Sarah Shoemaker
• Transportation
o NCSSM
o NCSSM Foundation Board
o Biogen Idec

27. Works Cited
Gonzales, A. L., & Hancock, J. T. (2011). Mirror, Mirror on my Facebook Wall:
Effects of Exposure to Facebook on Self-Esteem.
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking , 14 (1-2), 79-82.
Mehdizadeh, S. (2010). Self-Presentation 2.0: Narcissism and Self-Esteem on
Facebook. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking , 13 (4), 357-
364.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.