Identity lost and found: Self-concept clarity in social network site contexts

ABSTRACT

Social network sites (SNSs) allow young people to experiment with and present different aspects of themselves during important periods of self-concept development. Interestingly, whether SNSs have negative or positive effects on self-concept clarity (SCC) is inconclusive. We propose that SNS use may simultaneously produce negative and positive effects on SCC, depending on how people use it and the social connection quality created on-line. Specifically, the suppressing mediation model reveals that the direct effect of SNS use intensity on SCC is negative, whereas the indirect effects via perceived social support and self-esteem are positive, suggesting these variables may suppress the negative effect of SNS use on SCC. Our framework helps to explain how SNS contexts influence identity development in young people.

KEYWORDS:

• Social network site
• self-concept clarity
• identity
• self-esteem
• social support

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Zhonglin Wen for the helpful comments on the earlier draft of this work, and thank Dr. Jianling Ma for his helpful suggestions on data analyses. We also would like to thank the editor and three anonymous experts for their very constructive comments and feedback on this work.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In the present study we examine self-concept clarity among WeChat users in China. Research in cultural psychology indicates that self construals can differ on some dimensions between Westerners and Easterners (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). In terms of SCC, some research indicates that Canadians, for example, generally scored higher on SCC than participants in an Eastern sample (i.e., Japanese; Campbell et al., 1996). What we emphasize in this research is that empirical evidence has also validated a similar unidimensional factor structure of SCC using different cultural samples (Canadians & Japanese in Campbell et al., 1996; and Chinese in Wu & Watkins, 2009). Further, the clearer sense of self or the maturation of identity was related to better mental health and psychological adjustments in Eastern samples (Chinese) as well (Fang et al., 2012; S Wang et al., 2010).

2. Although there is debate on whether self-enhancement (i.e., the need to maintain positive self-views) is a pan-cultural phenomenon (for details see Heine, 2005; Sedikides et al., 2005), accumulated evidence has revealed that self-enhancement is a fundamental motive also for Easterners, but its manifestations can be tactical with a sensitivity to social context (e.g., social desirability) (Sedikides et al., 2015). For instance, on implicit association tests, Chinese and Japanese, like Westerners, have been found to automatically associate more positive traits with themselves than with others, suggesting a universal need for self-esteem (Cai et al., 2011; Yamaguchi et al., 2007; also see Yang et al., 2017).

3. Removing the 35 younger participants did not significantly influence our main results. Therefore, we kept them in the following analyses.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Science Planning Project of Shandong Province (21DJYJ06), the Youth Project of the 13th Five-Year Plan of Education Science in Shandong Province (2020QZD003), and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2019MC048).