Women Post Photos On Facebook To Boost Self-Worth, Study Suggests

Are women using Facebook to feel better about themselves?

A new study suggests it might be so. University at Buffalo researcher Michael A. Stefanone and others found that not only do women share more photos on Facebook, but that they generally base their self-worth more strongly on their appearance. As a result, Stefanone believes that sharing photos on Facebook may be a way for women to try and boost their self-image.

"The results suggest persistent differences in the behavior of men and women that result from a cultural focus on female image and appearance," he said in a video interview.

Based on a survey of 311 college age participants, the study measured both how participants used Facebook, as well as the factors they based their self-esteem upon. While some based it on public contingencies like appearance and the approval of others, the remainder based it more upon private contingences, like family love, or personal virtue.

Women, as well as younger participants, tended to favor public contingencies, as well as to spend more time on Facebook and to share more photos. Generally, those basing self-worth on private contingencies spent less time online.

"The culture of celebrity... offers significantly more appearance-based rewards and penalties to women than to men," the study said.

Comments

[onlyahumanshell]

08:00 PM on 03/31/2011

I know quite a few women that live through their Facebook accounts. Rather weird. Where would they be without Facebook? What did women do before Facebook? I swear, Mark Zuckerberg should be awarded the "Kotex of the Year" for making women show their true colors.

[Dreamofflowers]

09:58 PM on 03/13/2011

And studies show that men use Facebook to connect with women... Men are more concerned with their next conquest then they are self worth. Men who use Facebook only occasionally are afraid they might be temped to be unfaithful to their spouses...(This is a parody of the ridiculous study above). But seriously has anyone done a study of how much cheating has gone on because of the advent of Facebook?

[onlyahumanshell]

08:02 PM on 03/31/2011

If by cheating you mean masturbation to hot Facebook pics of chicks, then I will agree that cheating occurs frequently cause of Facebook.

[termgirl]

09:28 PM on 04/09/2011

I know of one case where it facilitated it, but certainly didn't cause it to happen.
"Facebook made me do it," probably wouldn't fly.

[KeysE2S]

06:20 PM on 03/10/2011

I post photos to FB all the time. Photos of the weird and ridiculous stuff one sees every day on this planet if one is just paying attention.

[GEM-592]

01:03 AM on 03/10/2011

sure ... as if you really know why women do anything.

[kkrisanic]

08:00 PM on 03/09/2011

I completed a 2007 thesis at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism on a similar topic- impression management as a predictor of social networking site use. Good stuff, check it out: https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/5772/research.pdf?sequence=3

[Blues02]

06:44 PM on 03/09/2011

"Based on a survey of 311 college age participants"

Really? What a useless article.

[Greeniz810]

06:43 PM on 03/09/2011

Woman to women.....the "Duck Face" you do, it is not attractive at all!

http://tinyurl.com/4m9aa2j

LOL!

[Aimee Bellefleur Hogan]

09:16 PM on 03/09/2011

LOL! I agree! Quack, quack!

[KeysE2S]

06:20 PM on 03/10/2011

Yes.

[DrJaffe]

06:04 PM on 03/09/2011

Personally, my wife posts pictures all the time and has so for years. They used to be of her and her friends, then of us, and now of our beautiful child. I think that for her it's less about self-esteem and more about sharing details of her life that I wouldn't really consider as needing to be shared. Perhaps women are more public in their life-experience than men?

[LoneWanderer86]

05:08 PM on 03/09/2011

that's really true =) girls always do that!

[booker52]

04:33 PM on 03/09/2011

I post pictures to share with family and friends. Not that deep a reason.

[Aimee Bellefleur Hogan]

09:17 PM on 03/09/2011

Same here.

[gilroy0]

03:32 PM on 03/09/2011

This appears to be little more than the confusion-du-jour of correlation for causation.

[KeysE2S]

06:20 PM on 03/10/2011

This earned you a fan.

[MikeyJaii]

03:31 PM on 03/09/2011

Dumb article. Really? In general why would anyone post a picture of themselves? Really?

[CDL1]

03:25 PM on 03/09/2011

I wonder what that girl I went to Jr. H.S. with had for lunch today. Maybe I should long in to FB and check my news feed to find out. Blah!!

[CDL1]

03:22 PM on 03/09/2011

Ahhh, good old Facebook, what a great way to waste time.

[jennydevildoll]

03:21 PM on 03/09/2011

Can I simultaneously agree and disagree with this? FACT: I have known a few extremely narcissistic people who utilize Facebook, Flickr, what have you to do nothing but amass a collection of photos of themselves, and they've tended to be women for some reason. ALSO FACT: Of my Facebook friends, men, women, and trans people, I notice that they all tend to post a mix of photos of themselves, friends, family, partners, children, pets, and since I mostly know creatives, often pictures of artwork or performances. No one type of person does things more than others.

So while I wouldn't deny that there is certainly a personality that this does apply to, I wouldn't blanketly assume it applies to women moreso than anyone else.

[Allen Bouchard]

03:58 PM on 03/09/2011

This seems to be more about the author's opinion about women than any actual correlation in the data. "Women are obsessed about their image. A large number of women post pictures of themselves on the interwebs. Therefore women use the interwebs to feel better about how they look."

I don't normally like the "that's obivous" or other comments saying that a study is a waste of time, but this study seems to have some issues with its assumptions.