Social Desirability, Selfie Addiction and Physical Appearance in Young Adults

Sana Riaz (BS, 2014-2018)

Supervisor: Farah Malik, PhD

University: Institute of Applied Psychology, Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan

Corresponding Address: Department of Applied Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. Email: chairperson@appsy.pu.edu.pk, Phone: 92-42-9231245

Abstract:

The present research was conducted to investigate the relationship between social desirability, selfie addiction and physical appearance in young adults. The current study was also intended to investigate selfie addiction as a mediator between social desirability and physical appearance in young adults. The sample consisted of young adults (N = 200) was drawn from University of Lahore (UOL) and University of Management and Technology (UMT) with age range 18-35 (M = 22.02, SD = 2.04). The questionnaires for collecting data included Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR; Paulhus, 1991) to assess social desirability, Selfie Addiction Scale (Solanki, 2017) to measure selfie addiction and Physical Appearance Comparison Scale Revised (PACS-R; Schaefer & Thompson, 2013). Pearson product moment correlation revealed that social desirability is positively related with selfie addiction whereas social desirability is negatively related with physical appearance. Physical appearance was found to be positively related with selfie addiction. Moreover results of independent sample t-test revealed that scores on selfie addiction were higher in girls than boys, and scores on social desirability were higher in boys than girls. Mediation analysis revealed that selfie addiction was mediating the relationship between social desirability and physical appearance. The findings of the current study may provide important information to young adults, parents, counselors and therapists regarding selfie addiction.

Keywords: Social desirability, selfie addiction, physical appearance.

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