Narcissism and the Selfie: Investigating Millennial Narcissism on Instagram

Recent studies revealed a correlation between self-promoting images on social media and higher levels of narcissism. This research further examined the relationship between narcissism and use of social media by determining the proportion of selfies an individual posts on Instagram and narcissism among millennials. The proportion of pictures that were selfies was measured in two ways: in the subject's past 4-weeks of picture posting and in the last 30 pictures the subject posted. The standard Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) was used to measure the subject's level of narcissism. Correlation analyses revealed that no correlations were found between the NPI score and the proportion of selfies posted among the total subject pool, however, among subjects who do post selfies, there was a correlation approaching significance.