6. Trending: Fabulous & Insta-Famous? Flashcards
according to a UK survey, dreams of traditionally popular professions (e.g., teacher, banker, doctor, veterinarian) have been superseded by dreams of being
a sports star, pop star or actor/actress, and children in the US ranked fame, looks and wealth at the top of things they would like to achieve when they grow u
Some theories have attempted to explain the desire for fame, including:
Psychoanalytic theory
Personality theory
Developmental
Psychoanalytic theory:
Freud, in his work on creativity, argued that creative artists were motivated by the desire for fame, together with wealth and romantic love, as well as the idea that culture was created to keep individuals’ minds off sex
Personality theory
According to Simonton (1994), the personality characteristics most predictive of motivation towards fame involves the drive to succeed (such as in type A personality), and the tendency to take risks. Braudy (1997) suggests that individuals that are famous can very easily ‘read’ situations and improvise when planning fails.
Developmental
Social class has been found to be a predictor, although there is evidence that some adversity in early life plays a role.
Uhls, Zgourou, and Greenfield (2014) found that watching television and using social media sites was associated with a greater desire to
pursue self-focused goals in adulthood (e.g., fame, money, status), while lower levels of activities that did not involve technology were associated with greater desire for collectivist goals (e.g., helping others) in a sample of American teenagers aged between 9-15 years old
Noser and Zeigler-Hill (2014) measured state self-esteem (i.e., how participants were feeling about themselves at that point in time) every day for one week and found that those who reported more unstable self-esteem (i.e., greater fluctuations in their self-esteem over one week) reported
a stronger desire for fame.
Gountas, Gountas, Reeves, and Moran (2012) found that a stronger desire for fame was associated with
extrinsic motivations such as financial success, attractiveness, and social recognition
Greenwood et al. (2013) found that higher levels of needing to belong were associated with
a greater desire for fame, as was higher levels of trait narcissism
Narcissism is a personality trait that involves a sense of
self-aggrandisement, amongst other characteristics
the context of personality theory, narcissism is regarded as a trait that
varies between individuals on a continuum
approach of the DSM-5 is ________ , and an individual can be formally diagnosed as having “narcissistic personality disorder”.
categorical
Those with a narcissistic personality disorder diagnosis would likely score at the upper end of
trait narcissism
narcissism comes in two forms
overt narcissism (or grandiose) and covert (or vulnerable or hypersensitive narcissism)
Covert narcissism is much like overt narcissism in that individuals high on this trait have a sense of
grandiosity
individuals high on covert narcissism keep this grandiose view of themselves
well-hidden and can appear insecure on the surface
one of the key differences between overt and covert narcissism is that overt narcissism correlates positively with
self-esteem
covert narcissism correlates negatively with
self-esteem
One way that we might expect narcissism to be linked with behaviour on social media is through posting
selfies
one study reported that narcissism predicts both the intention to
post selfies, and the frequency of selfie-posting
One American study specifically examined men, showing that narcissism predicted
both selfie-posting and selfie-editing on social media
research in a Polish sample has found that while narcissism predicted selfie-posting in men, it was unrelated to
selfie-posting in women
Sorokowska et al., 2016) found that selfie-posting was also predicted by the personality trait
extraversion, as well as by a measure of social exhibitionism
Halpern, Valenzuela, & Katz, 2016) has delved into the issue of causality by exploring whether higher levels of narcissism cause selfie-taking, or whether selfie-taking increases levels of narcissism, finding
higher narcissism predicted taking more selfies; however, this effect was self-reinforcing, such that increasing numbers of selfies appeared to raise narcissism levels
