Selfitis Behavior: Assessing the Italian Version of the Selfitis Behavior Scale and Its Mediating Role in the Relationship of Dark Traits with Social Media Addiction

Lucia Monacis, Mark D. Griffiths, Pierpaolo Limone, Maria Sinatra and Rocco Servidio
Additional contact information
Lucia Monacis: Department of Economics, Management and Territory, University of Foggia, 71121 Foggia, Italy
Mark D. Griffiths: Psychology Department, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG1 4FQ, UK
Pierpaolo Limone: Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, 71121 Foggia, Italy
Maria Sinatra: Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari, 70121 Bari, Italy
Rocco Servidio: Department of Cultures, Education and Society, University of Calabria, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende, Italy

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 16, 1-17

Abstract: Research on selfie-related behavior has recently flourished. The present study expands theoretical and empirical work on phenomenon by assessing the psychometric properties of the Selfitis Behavior Scale among an Italian sample and by examining its unexplored mediating role in the relationships between dark triad traits and social media addiction. A total of 490 participants (53.1% females) completed a self-report survey including socio-demographics, the Selfitis Behavior Scale (SBS), the Short Dark Triad Scale (SD3), and the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS). Results showed the SBS had a five-factor structure with good psychometrics properties in terms of reliability coefficients and measurement invariance across gender. In addition, findings from the path model supported the mediating role of selfitis behavior in the relationships of narcissism and psychopathy with social media addiction. Machiavellianism was found to be unrelated to selfitis behavior and social media addiction. The model shed light into the previous inconsistent findings on the associations between dark triad traits and social media addiction by taking into account the key role of selfitis behavior as an underlying mechanism. The findings may explain individual differences in personality traits associated with co-dependence (i.e., the combination of the dependence on self and others and social media addiction).

Keywords: selfitis behavior; social media addiction; Machiavellianism; narcissism; psychopathy; dark personality traits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/16/5738/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/16/5738/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:16:p:5738-:d:396314

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().