6. Trending: Fabulous & Insta-Famous?

Question 1

according to a UK survey, dreams of traditionally popular professions (e.g., teacher, banker, doctor, veterinarian) have been superseded by dreams of being

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Some theories have attempted to explain the desire for fame, including:

Answer 2

Psychoanalytic theory

Personality theory

Developmental

Question 3

Psychoanalytic theory:

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Personality theory

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

Developmental

Answer 5

Social class has been found to be a predictor, although there is evidence that some adversity in early life plays a role.

Question 6

Uhls, Zgourou, and Greenfield (2014) found that watching television and using social media sites was associated with a greater desire to

Answer 6

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

Question 7

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

Answer 7

a stronger desire for fame.

Question 8

Gountas, Gountas, Reeves, and Moran (2012) found that a stronger desire for fame was associated with

Answer 8

extrinsic motivations such as financial success, attractiveness, and social recognition

Question 9

Greenwood et al. (2013) found that higher levels of needing to belong were associated with

Answer 9

a greater desire for fame, as was higher levels of trait narcissism

Question 10

Narcissism is a personality trait that involves a sense of

Answer 10

self-aggrandisement, amongst other characteristics

Question 11

the context of personality theory, narcissism is regarded as a trait that

Answer 11

varies between individuals on a continuum

Question 12

approach of the DSM-5 is ________ , and an individual can be formally diagnosed as having “narcissistic personality disorder”.

Answer 12

categorical

Question 13

Those with a narcissistic personality disorder diagnosis would likely score at the upper end of

Answer 13

trait narcissism

Question 14

narcissism comes in two forms

Answer 14

overt narcissism (or grandiose) and covert (or vulnerable or hypersensitive narcissism)

Question 15

Covert narcissism is much like overt narcissism in that individuals high on this trait have a sense of

Answer 15

grandiosity

Question 16

individuals high on covert narcissism keep this grandiose view of themselves

Answer 16

well-hidden and can appear insecure on the surface

Question 17

one of the key differences between overt and covert narcissism is that overt narcissism correlates positively with

Answer 17

self-esteem

Question 18

covert narcissism correlates negatively with

Answer 18

self-esteem

Question 19

One way that we might expect narcissism to be linked with behaviour on social media is through posting

Answer 19

selfies

Question 20

one study reported that narcissism predicts both the intention to

Answer 20

post selfies, and the frequency of selfie-posting

Question 21

One American study specifically examined men, showing that narcissism predicted

Answer 21

both selfie-posting and selfie-editing on social media

Question 22

research in a Polish sample has found that while narcissism predicted selfie-posting in men, it was unrelated to

Answer 22

selfie-posting in women

Question 23

Sorokowska et al., 2016) found that selfie-posting was also predicted by the personality trait

Answer 23

extraversion, as well as by a measure of social exhibitionism

Question 24

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

Answer 24

higher narcissism predicted taking more selfies; however, this effect was self-reinforcing, such that increasing numbers of selfies appeared to raise narcissism levels