Impression Management by Bryan Greer

Impression Management 2.0 The Relationship of Self-Esteem, Extraversion, Self-Efficacy, and Self-Presentation Within Social Networking Sites Nicole C. Krämer and Stephan Winter University Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Abstract. Social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and StudiVZ are popular means of communicating personality. Recent theoretical and empirical considerations of homepages and Web 2.0 platforms show that impression management is a major motive for actively participating in social networking sites. However, the factors that determine the specific form of self-presentation and the extent of self-disclosure on the Internet have not been analyzed. In an exploratory study, we investigated the relationship between self-reported (offline) personality traits and (online) self-presentation in social networking profiles. A survey among 58 users of the German Web 2.0 site, StudiVZ.net, and a content analysis of the respondents’ profiles showed that self-efficacy with regard to impression management is strongly related to the number of virtual friends, the level of profile detail, and the style of the personal photo. The results also indicate a slight influence of extraversion, whereas there was no significant effect for self-esteem. Keywords: Web 2.0, online impression management, self-esteem, self-efficacy, social networking sites

Introduction Nowadays anyone can appear in the media and “broadcast” himself or herself to the globalized world; the opportunities for ordinary people to present themselves, their pictures, their videos, or their ideas have grown dramatically in the past decade. By means of the World Wide Web, any user with minimal knowledge of Internet technology is able to reach a potentially huge audience. According to Dominick (1999), personal homepages turn average users, who are normally consumers of conventional media like TV, radio, or newspapers, into “producers of mass communication content.” In the past few years, this trend has become a widespread phenomenon with numerous different applications; Internet users write public blogs and publish private photos (for example on www.flickr.com) or videos (www.youtube.com). These “interactive” Internet sites with millions of users are referred to as “Web 2.0” applications (O’Reilly, 2005). A new, very popular aspect of this phenomenon is online self-presentation on websites like MySpace (www.myspace.com) and the student communities of Facebook (www.facebook.com) or StudiVZ (www.studivz.net). By means of these web communities or social networking sites, every user can present himself or herself in a profile with personal information and one or more photos (Valkenburg, Peter, & Schouten, 2006). People are encouraged to maintain or form relationships with Journal of Media Psychology 2008; Vol. 20(3):106–116 DOI 10.1027/1864-1105.20.3.106

other users by writing messages or adding other people as “friends” to their personal contact lists. Users can, therefore, search for people with similar interests or for potential partners, connect with friends or former classmates, and present attractive descriptions of themselves. Users of social networking sites have more control over their self-presentational behavior than in face-toface communication, which provides an ideal setting for precise impression management as described by Goffman (1959). In 1999, Dominick described the structurally similar personal homepages as new opportunities for carefully constructed self-presentation (see also Chandler, 1998). By creating online self-presentations, users have the opportunity to think about which aspects of their personalities should be presented or which photos convey the best images – they can manage their self-presentations more strategically than in face-to-face situations (Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs, 2006). Additionally users cannot tailor their self-presentations to the specific interaction partner since – in contrast to face-to-face interaction – they are addressing a broad audience. As a consequence, the person has to compromise with various selfpresentational goals, which might lead to an increased importance of stable personality traits as a predictor for self-presentation. Similarly Marcus, Machilek, and Schütz (2006) argue that personal websites can be seen as weak situations according to Mischel (1977) and are, thus, particularly prone to the expression of personality traits. Moreover it has been shown that these self-presen© 2008 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers

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tations are surprisingly accurate; users engage in authentic self-presentations and claim not to be interested in “playing with identities” (Buten, 1996; Machilek, Schütz, & Marcus, 2004). Gosling, Gaddis, and Vazire (2007) confirm these self-reported data by means of a person perception study regarding a Web 2.0 platform; the impressions based on reading Facebook profiles are similar to the way in which users are seen by close acquaintances. Against this background, our goal was to study the relationship between (offline) personality and the patterns of (online) self-description. What kind of information do people reveal in their online profiles? Is there a relationship between personality traits and the ways in which people present themselves, which user groups they join, and how many virtual friends they have? In an exploratory study, we conducted an online survey among users of StudiVZ, the most popular German Web 2.0 site, and related the results to a content analysis of the respondents’ profiles.

Studies on Web 2.0 and Online Self-Presentation Research on Web 2.0 platforms is still scarce. Nevertheless, the opportunity to present oneself online has been in place since the mid-1990s when personal homepages started to become popular. According to Chandler (1998), personal homepages are “online multi-media texts which address the question ’Who am I?’.” Most of the studies conducted in this realm have focused on the motives for providing homepages (Papacharissi, 2002; Jung, Youn, & McClung, 2007). On the whole, the studies suggest that one of the most important motives for hosting homepages is impression management and self-expression. Only a small number of studies on personal homepages have taken into account personality characteristics as a potential determinant for the specific form of self-presentation. Given the theoretical rationale on the potential differences between face-to-face and online self-presentation discussed above, for our exploratory study we decided to choose three stable personality traits that have been shown to influence impression management and self-presentation behaviors: self-esteem, extraversion, and self-efficacy with regard to impression management (see Marcus et al., 2006; Mielke, 1990; Schlenker, 1980).

Extraversion and Online Self-Presentation Numerous studies confirm a relationship between extraversion and online communication. For instance, Sheeks and Birchmeier (2007) showed that a preference for computermediated communication is connected to shyness. This is in line with findings that people with social anxieties have an increased need for control that can be satisfied more © 2008 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers

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easily in asynchronous communication (Hertel, Schroer, Batinic, Konradt, & Naumann, 2005). With regard to Web 2.0 platforms, it is more interesting to ask, however, whether extraversion determines the form of self-presentation. Here Marcus et al. (2006) demonstrated that it is the extraverted rather than the shy users who engage in more elaborate online self-presentations; extraverted people more frequently host weblogs within their homepages and use them to present aspects of their own lives or opinions on different topics. Given that the relationship between extraversion and Web 2.0 self-presentation is still unclear, we ask the first research question: – RQ1: Is the form of self-presentation in a Web 2.0 platform related to the personality aspect of extraversion?

Self-Esteem and Online Self-Presentation One of the most pervasive facts regarding self-esteem is that humans have a “need for self-esteem” (Schlenker, 1980, p. 88); it is vital to maintain and/or raise self-esteem (Schlenker, 1985; Steele, 1988). Given this, it can be expected that people will strive for positive self-presentations and will present themselves in a positive light, for example, by presenting large numbers of friends, by displaying celebrities, or by putting great effort into designing their profiles. Following Steele (1988), Leary (1995), and Schlenker (1980), it is also plausible to assume that people with low self-esteem will be even more eager to engage in activities that are likely to raise self-esteem. On the other hand, Schlenker (1980) states that the larger the audience, the more truthful is the self-presentation; in this situation, an excessively positive self-presentation can be riskier. This would suggest that people – and especially those with low self-esteem – will take care not to present themselves to a worldwide audience in exaggerated ways. In any case, Baumeister (1982) shows that, although people with high self-esteem strive to increase it further through elaborate self-presentations, people with low self-esteem prefer consistent self-presentations and do not engage in compensatory presentations (see also Swann, 1990). With regard to online impression management, Banczyk, Krämer, and Senokozlieva (2008) showed that MySpace users with high self-esteem use more words in describing themselves than users with low self-esteem. Furthermore they integrate more pictures and animations of celebrities into their profiles. On the other hand, neither Machilek et al. (2004) nor Marcus et al. (2006) identified differences between self-presentations of low and high self-esteem users on their personal homepages. Given the contradictory results and assumptions with regard to selfesteem, we ask the second research question: – RQ2: Does the form of self-presentation differ between users with high and low self-esteem? Journal of Media Psychology 2008; Vol. 20(3):106–116

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Self-Efficacy with Regard to Impression Management and Online Self-Presentation The efficacy of self-presentation in social situations has been identified as one of the determinants for successful impression management (Mielke, 1990; see Mummendey, 2006). The construct is based on Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy, which suggests that people will only be able to act successfully once they have experienced themselves as capable and in control. The stronger the self-efficacy, the higher are the goals and the conviction to reach these goals. As a consequence, self-efficacy with regard to self-presentation in social situations can be described as the expectation that people will be able to engage in successful selfpresentations. Here it will be asked whether this construct is vital not only in face-to-face communication but in transferability to online impression management: – RQ3: Is self-efficacy of self-presentation in social situations related to the specific form of online self-presentation?

discussion groups on various topics, and every membership is shown below the profile text (unless the user decides to “hide” certain groups). So far, more than a million different groups exist (StudiVZ, 2007) with topics varying from common interests, entertainment, and dating, to fun.

Sample and Procedure The study consisted of an online survey on personality traits and a content analysis of user profiles. By using the messaging function, 150 randomly selected StudiVZ members received an invitation with a short description of the study and a personal link. A total of 58 of the messaged members (50% men, 50% women/age: M = 22.98; SD = 2.03) completed the questionnaire. Following this, the public profiles of these 58 participants were saved, coded with regard to several aspects (see below), and related to the self-reported data.

Independent Measures

Method Selection of a Social Network StudiVZ (www.studivz.net) is a German Web 2.0 site, currently expanding to other European markets, with almost three million users (Schmidt, 2007). According to its name, which is an abbreviation of “Studierendenverzeichnis” [directory of students], its purpose is to be a student community. The site was launched in October of 2005 by two students and soon became one of the most frequently clickedon websites and Germany’s most famous Internet start-up. Since it is Germany’s largest social network and the profiles are highly standardized and comparable (as opposed to MySpace), we decided to investigate our research questions by conducting a survey among users of StudiVZ. The main element of StudiVZ is a personal profile, which usually contains a photo of the user and information like age, date of birth, hometown, favorite music, favorite films, favorite books, job/career, political orientation, and current relationship status. This profile is made “public” to the whole community unless the user changes this option. The members of StudiVZ are encouraged to communicate with other users by adding them to their own profiles as “friends” or writing (public or private) messages. When visiting another profile, the connection to this member is displayed (for instance, “You have five mutual friends”). The search function allows the user to find, for example, former classmates or people with the same interests. Furthermore, photo albums can be uploaded and shared with the community. Another important part of the online self-presentation in StudiVZ is the group list; every user can start (and join) Journal of Media Psychology 2008; Vol. 20(3):106–116

Extraversion was assessed using the NeoFFI scale (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Borkenau & Ostendorf, 1993), which consists of 12 items (e.g., “I like to have a lot of people around me” or “I really enjoy talking to people”) rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The reliability of the scale is .80. To measure self-esteem, Rosenberg’s scale (1979; Ferring & Filipp, 1996) was used. The scale includes 10 items such as “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself” or “I take a positive attitude toward myself.” The original reliability (rating from 1 to 4) is .72. Mielke’s questionnaire (1990) on efficacy of self-presentation assesses the expectation of being able to create a positive impression in social situations. It measures the degree to which people see themselves as competent in presenting certain images to others (the person’s attitude toward his or her impression management skills). The subscale of “striving for social approval” (reliability of .75) was used, which includes 12 items such as “In many situations I am able to stress positive aspects of my personality” or “I am convinced that I am able to amaze people around me.” The questionnaire scores for every personality trait were turned into new variables with three equally sized groups; the sample was split into low, medium, and high groups of extraversion (mean values of the questionnaire scores – low: M = 37.32, SD = 1.701; medium: M = 41.72, SD = 1.179; high: M = 47.33, SD = 3.120), self-esteem (low: M = 35.11, SD = 4.267; medium: M = 41.50, SD = 1.277; high: M = 46.21, SD = 1.619), and efficacy of self-presentation (low: M = 34.21, SD = 2.250; medium: M = 40.30, SD = 2.386; high: M = 46.47, SD = 2.736). By creating three categories, we hoped to reduce the information loss that occurs with a conventional median split. © 2008 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers

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Dependent Measures Given the exploratory nature of the study, we attempted to integrate as many aspects as possible during the content analysis. We, therefore, assessed the following quantitative variables: number of virtual friends in the personal contact list, number of groups, number of photos, number of completed fields, and number of words. Additionally we coded whether the user reveals his or her (potentially) real name, whether the user reveals his or her political orientation, and whether the user reveals his or her relationship status. Furthermore, the style of the profile text and the type of profile photo were assessed (see Figure 1). The categories are shown in Table 1. The coding was conducted by the second author and partly by an additional person, thus, allowing for the calculation of interrater reliability by means of Cohen’s κ. The agreement of coders was good to excellent and varied from .621 to 1.0 (see Table 1 & Figure 2). The discussion groups were categorized into the topics summarized in Table 2 (the examples are partly translated from German). For every user, we assessed the number of groups for each category. Correlations (Pearson) of the two coders were significant (except for the job group) and have a coefficient of .447 to 1.0 (see Table 2).

Results Descriptive Statistics According to the sample, the average StudiVZ user has 91.78 virtual friends (SD = 51.73), belongs to 28.12

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groups (SD = 20.25), shows 45.62 photos (SD = 69.11), writes a profile with 113.98 words (SD = 104.97), and completes 13.84 out of 22 potential profile fields (SD = 4.47). The most popular group categories were Entertainment (mean value: user has 4.68 groups in this category), Personal data (3.45), Geography (3.43), Hobbies and interests (3.24), and Social life and relationships (3.12). Usually the profile text was written in an informal style (48.3%). Almost every participant (98.3%) was registered with his or her (potentially) real name and presented a potentially real photo of himself or herself. In this photo, the user’s face was usually completely visible (68.4%) and the person was looking into the camera (77.8%). The most frequent facial expressions were “Posing” (51.8%) and “Serious (Passport style)” (25%). Most participants presented an ordinary color photo (75.4%) with a lot of background (59.6%). The results also indicate that StudiVZ users present information that is normally seen as private; 62.1% revealed their relationship status and 32.8% their political orientation.

RQ 1: Relationship Between Extraversion and Self-Presentation To investigate the relationship between extraversion and the online self-presentation in StudiVZ, we conducted a multivariate analysis of variance with extraversion as a fixed factor and the metric variables of the content analysis as dependent measures. The results show a significant effect on the variable, “Groups: StudiVZ,” F(2, 57) = 3.367; p = .042; partial η2 = .109; users with a medium extraversion score have the highest number of these groups in their Figure 1. Example pictures from StudiVZ/top (from left to right): “Serious” photo, Face only partly visible, Different style (black and white)/bottom: Making a face, Posing, Location – Area).

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Table 1. Categories for text and profile picture Category

Values

Cohen’s κ

Style of the profile text

– Objective (similar to CV, short descriptions)

0.742

– Informal (CV information is partly included, but the text is less formal and also contains a lot of private information) – Humorous (apparently wrong information that cannot be taken seriously) Style of the profile picture

– No picture

1.000

– Potentially real photo of the user (the following variables were only assessed if the picture belonged to this category) – Different picture (e.g., symbol, cartoon, celebrity picture) Face visibility

– No

1.000

– Completely – Partly Type of photo

– Normal style (realistic color picture)

Location

– Portrait (location hardly visible)

0.621

– Different style (black and white, altered colors, graphically edited) 0.855

– Party (picture shows user at a party, with a drink, with friends, or at a club) – Area (a lot of background is visible like a holiday or work background but not a party background) (Facial) expression

– Serious (similar to passport photograph)

0.728

– Action (picture shows person during a certain activity such as sports or working) – Posing (person strikes a pose, “model” style) – Making a face Looking into the camera

– Yes

1.000

– No

Figure 2. User profile on StudiVZ.

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Table 2. Categories of discussion groups and examples Category

Example

Pearson R

University

Economics students; University of Munich; Sick and tired of learning

.946

Personal data (Name, birthday, year/school)

My name is Michael; 9th of January is the best birthday; Class of 2006 – We are the champions

.964

Looks

Proud to be brunette; Club of curly hair; Blonde and blue eyes

.529

Geography (Hometown, Holidays . . .)

I love Düsseldorf; Friends of Barcelona; New York is awesome

.931

Job

Social workers – We will rescue this planet!; Journalism

.447

Entertainment (TV, pop music . . .)

The David Hasselhoff Foundation; Friends of electronic music; Fans of Sex and the City

.984

Art and Culture

I like Monet!; James Joyce; BACHrulez

1.0

(Active) Hobbies and interests

Badminton players Berlin; Let’s play RUGBY; Hunters

.928

Food and drinks

Red Wine Club; Last night McDonald’s saved my life; The daily salad

.890

Politics

Capitalism rules; We want universal peace

.522

Parties and events

Party Connection Frankfurt; My blackout was longer than your party!

.803

Social life and relationships

Excuse me, could you kiss me please?; Sexy single men; Just say: You’re cute, I want to sleep with you

.968

Nonsense

Emperors of the world, MSc.; I don’t want to be killed

.991

StudiVZ

My group list is longer than your list of friends; Addicted to StudiVZ

.984

Table 3. Mean values – effect of extraversion on dependent measures Extraversion

Self-efficacy

SD Number of friends

Groups: StudiVZ Low

Table 5. Mean values – Effect of efficacy of self-presentation on dependent measures Low

61.0000

38.63504

.2632

.56195

96.1500

57.61513

1.3889

2.52374

High

117.9474

41.64596

High

.3333

.57735

Total

91.7759

51.73314

Total

.6379

1.54123

Low

11.3158

4.64343

Medium

Number of completed fields

Table 4. Extraversion and type of photo Type of photo

Total

Ordinary style Different style

Number of words

Extraversion Low

Medium

High

Total

Observed

Expected

14.3

4.7

19.0

Residuals

3.7

–3.7

Observed

Expected

13.6

4.4

18.0

Residuals

–2.6

2.6

Observed

Expected

15.1

4.9

20.0

Residuals

–1.1

1.1

Observed

Expected

Groups: Parties and events

Groups: Nonsense

Medium

14.8500

3.37600

High

15.3158

4.42283

Total

13.8448

4.47136

Low

68.0000

43.19465

Medium

122.1500

67.05636

High

151.3684

156.53087

Total

113.9828

104.97426

Low

.1579

.50146

Medium

1.2000

1.64157

High

1.9474

2.39151

Total

1.1034

1.82276

Low

.8947

1.04853

Medium

3.0000

3.19539

High

3.2632

3.87072

Total

2.3966

3.10031

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Table 6. Self-efficacy and facial expression (photo) Facial expression Serious Self-efficacy

Low

Medium

High

Total

Total Action

Posing

Making a face

Observed

Expected

4.8

2.7

9.8

1.7

19.0

Residuals

4.3

–1.7

–.8

–1.7

Observed

Expected

4.5

2.6

9.3

1.6

18.0

Residuals

–.5

1.4

–2.3

1.4

Observed

Expected

4.8

2.7

9.8

1.7

19.0

Residuals

–3.8

3.2

Observed

Expected

14.0

8.0

29.0

5.0

56.0

Table 7. Self-efficacy and location (profile photo) Location Portrait Self-efficacy

Low

Medium

High

Total

Observed

Total Party 1

Area 8

Expected

5.3

2.3

11.3

Residuals

4.7

–1.3

–3.3

19 19.0

Observed

Expected

5.3

2.3

11.3

19.0

Residuals

–1.3

–.3

1.7

Observed

Expected

5.3

2.3

11.3

19.0

Residuals

–3.3

1.7

Observed

Expected

16.0

7.0

34.0

57.0

1.7

Table 8. Self-efficacy and style of profile text Style of profile text Objective Self-efficacy

Low

Observed Expected

Medium

High

Total

14 7.9

Total Informal 4

9.2

2.0

19.0

–1.0

Residuals

6.1

–5.2

Observed

Expected

8.3

Residuals

–4.3

Observed

Expected

7.9

Residuals

–1.9

Observed Expected

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Funny

9.7 4.3 10

2.1

20.0

–.1 3

9.2

2.0

19.0

1.0

24.0

28.0

6.0

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lists (although posthoc Scheffé tests were not significant) (see Table 3). For type of photo, the results show that higher degrees of extraversion encourage StudiVZ users to choose a photo in a “different style” (e.g., black and white or altered colors) rather than a realistic color picture (Fisher’s exact test: value = 6.496; p = .039; see Table 4). In sum, the results indicate a positive relationship between extraversion and a more “experimental” profile picture. However it should be noted that for most variables there were no significant results.

RQ 2: Relationship Between Self-Esteem and Self-Presentation For self-esteem the multivariate analysis of variance and the χ² test yielded no significant results. Self-esteem is, therefore, not related to the specific use of StudiVZ and the style of the profile.

RQ3: Relationship Between Self-Efficacy and Self-Presentation To test whether a high expectation of being able to create a positive impression (self-efficacy with regard to selfpresentation) affects the manner of self-presentation, an analysis of variance with regard to the content analysis variables was conducted. This showed significant effects of self-efficacy on the number of friends, F(2, 57) = 7.125; p = .002; partial η2 = .206, the number of completed fields, F(2, 57) = 5.255; p = .008; partial η2 = .160, the number of words, F(2, 57) = 3.342; p = .043; partial η2 = .108, and group membership in the categories of Parties and events, F(2, 57) = 5.322; p = .008; partial η2 = .162, and Nonsense, F(2, 57) = 3.663; p = .032; partial η2 = .118. As shown in Table 5, the number of friends increases with the degree of self-efficacy (difference in post hoc test between low and high groups: SE = 15.228; p = .002). The mean values of other measures also increase with the level of the independent measure. With regard to the number of fields, low and high groups (SE = 1.353; p = .017) as well as lowand medium (SE = 1.336; p = .037) differed in the post hoc test; for the number of words and party groups, the comparison of low and high yielded significant results (SE = 32.739; p = .047; SE = .551; p = .008). Only for the membership of Nonsense groups was there no significant difference between the groups in the post hoc test at the 5% level. The consideration of the categories concerning the style of the profile and the photo yielded significant effects of self-presentation efficacy on the profile picture’s facial expression (Fisher’s exact test: value = 13.025; p = .026), the location where the photo was shot (value = 9.145; p = .042), © 2008 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers

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and the style of the text (value = 12.947; p = .007). As presented in Table 6, Table 7, and Table 8, users with low expectations of creating positive impressions in social situations chose photos with serious facial expressions and without background (portrait), whereas users with moderate and high degrees of impression management self-efficacy tended to present “experimental” types (making a face, striking a pose) and party pictures. The style of text is mostly objective if the person has a weak feeling of selfefficacy; users with higher values tend to write text in an informal or humorous style. Altogether, it is apparent that self-efficacy influences the level of profile detail, the extent of the contact list, and the style of the profile picture.

Discussion With the present exploratory study, we aimed to answer the question of whether personality traits are related to the manner of self-presentation and self-disclosure within Web 2.0 platforms. The most obvious personality trait to focus on is extraversion and, indeed, previous studies point to a relationship between online communication and extraversion. Yet prior results are not unanimous in their findings. On the one hand, they show that introverted and shy people have a preference for online communication (Hertel et al., 2005; Sheeks & Birchmeier, 2007); on the other hand, they demonstrate that such people are not more likely to host homepages (Machilek et al., 2004; Marcus et al., 2006). Moreover, if introverts have homepages, they are more reserved with regard to self-presentations and display less information and fewer opinions (Marcus et al., 2006). These findings were only partly confirmed in our study; within the StudiVZ profiles, the extraverted members tended to present themselves in a less restrained manner since they chose less conservative pictures of themselves. For future research, it would be necessary to investigate whether – because of their selfpresentations – extraverts are actually more successful in building friendships within StudiVZ and other Web 2.0 platforms. This would lead to the potential insight that although introverts may prefer to communicate online, they are still less accomplished and successful than are extraverts. Given recent findings that MySpace users with high self-esteem use more words in describing themselves and integrate more pictures and animations of celebrities into their profiles (Banczyk et al., 2008), it would have been plausible to expect similar effects of self-esteem within our StudiVZ sample. Instead we did not find any relationship between self-esteem and self-presentation. This is in line with findings by Marcus et al. (2006), even though they used a different scale for the assessment of self-esteem (Schütz & Sellin, 2006). The discrepancy with the Journal of Media Psychology 2008; Vol. 20(3):106–116

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MySpace study cited above, however, is surprising – all the more so since the Rosenberg (1979) self-esteem scale and similar dependent variables with regard to self-presentation were used. Future research needs to clarify whether differences with regard to the specific social-network community (i.e., MySpace and StudiVZ) are responsible for the inconsistent results. In sum, the present study supported neither the notion that people with low self-esteem are more likely to engage in positive self-presentations (Schlenker, 1980) nor the assumption that people with low self-esteem present themselves less positively because of self-verification tendencies (Swann, 1990). Here future research might address whether, with regard to different individuals, both influences are present but on average cancel each other out. Furthermore, the assessment of qualitative aspects of self-presentation needs to be refined for future studies; by focusing on quantitative aspects such as the number of words, number of friends, or number of group memberships, we might have missed crucial differences (e.g., tone of self-descriptions). Unlike the general concept of self-esteem, the more specific aspect of self-efficacy with regard to self-presentation (Mielke, 1990) was strongly related to several aspects of online impression management. On the whole, people with high values in self-efficacy with regard to self-presentation displayed larger numbers of friends and gave more information in terms of completed fields and number of words. Moreover, the information given was presented in an informal style. Also they were more likely to present themselves as members of groups that belonged to the categories of “Parties and events” and “Nonsense.” Additionally the pictures they presented of themselves were less conservative and depicted them more frequently either as part of, for example, party scenes or while striking poses. Altogether the self-presentation is more elaborate and riskier. Although the results certainly warrant replication with a larger sample, they are plausible when considering the implications of the concept. Bandura (1997) defined self-efficacy as an optimistic belief about one’s own abilities and a feeling of competence and effectiveness with regard to completing a certain task. It also has a strong influence on behavior; only someone who thinks that he or she is capable of doing something will try to accomplish it. It can, therefore, be concluded that people who feel competent in presenting themselves will take the opportunity to do so in social networks. They are comfortable in taking risks by presenting themselves more informally and referring to themselves more elaborately. Apparently the self-efficacy within offline impression management situations (as was measured here) can be transferred to the area of online selfpresentation. In addition, it might even be asked whether the feeling of self-efficacy is more predictive for online self-presentation than for real-life behavior since the online presentation is more conscious and controlled than the automatic self-presentation in face-to-face interaction. With regard to implications for individuals and sociJournal of Media Psychology 2008; Vol. 20(3):106–116

ety, future studies need to analyze whether the differences in presentation style will also lead to differences in actual social success within the community, thus, confirming or disconfirming the rich-get-richer thesis (Kraut et al., 2002). In sum, we can conclude that self-efficacy, in particular, is related to the ways in which people present themselves in Web 2.0 platforms. With regard to both the research questions and methods of future studies, this indicates the importance of incorporating personality aspects more specific than extraversion and self-esteem. With regard to the phenomenon of social networking sites, the results show that social networks are really “social” and that users seem to be aware of communication and impression management (as Ellison et al., 2006, pointed out for online daters). As the Internet is a ubiquitous medium with a rising number of Web 2.0 users, the importance of the research questions on which we focused will only increase. The exploratory study presented here is but a first step in clarifying the factors that determine the way in which people present themselves on the Internet. With a view toward the implications of self-presentation on the World Wide Web for the individual as well as for society, research needs to be deepened so as to substantiate the presented results. Future studies should include more participants and further personality traits, expand the content analysis by incorporating more qualitative aspects and take other, international platforms into account. In addition, research needs to be broadened to other research topics such as backlash effects of the differing self-presentations on real-life experiences. Only after we understand – What the factors are that influence the self-presentation, – How people are perceived because of a specific self-presentation (Gosling et al., 2007), – How, as a consequence, they are addressed and treated, and – how these experiences reverberate in everyday life, will we be able to model the truly interactive nature of Web 2.0.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank Maj-Britt Isberner for her coding of the dependent variables. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

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Date of acceptance: January 11, 2008 Journal of Media Psychology 2008; Vol. 20(3):106–116

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Prof. Dr. Nicole Krämer, Dipl.Psych. (born 1972), completed her PhD thesis in 2001 on socio-emotional effects of nonverbal behavior. In her Habilitation at the University of Cologne, Germany (completed in 2006), she focused on the effects of embodied conversational agents. Since 2007 she is Professor of Social Psychology, Media, and Communication at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. Her research interests include social and emotional aspects of human-computer interaction and computer-mediated communication.

Nicole Krämer University Duisburg-Essen Social Psychology – Media and Communication Forsthausweg 2 D-47057 Duisburg Germany Tel. +49 203 379-2482 Fax +49 203 379-3670 E-mail Nicole.kraemer@uni-due.de

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Stephan Winter, born 1983, studied Applied Communication and Media Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, and received his masters degree in 2007. Since October 2007, he has worked as a trainee journalist for the German newspaper, Westdeutsche Zeitung, in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Stephan Winter University Duisburg-Essen Social Psychology – Media and Communication Forsthausweg 2 D-47057 Duisburg Germany Tel. +49 174 681-0162 Fax +49 203 379-3670 E-mail stwinter@gmx.net