Self-Esteem and Facebook Usage: What’s the Connection?

• A 2012 Swedish study found a difference, though small, in self-esteem measures between regular and less frequent Facebook users. In the study 1,011 people (335 men and 676 women with an average age of 32.6) were surveyed. Those who used the site often scored lower in self-esteem than than the less frequent users. According to the researchers, “Results showed that Facebook usage had a significant negative relationship with self-esteem. In other words, the results indicated that users who spend more time on Facebook have lower self-esteem.” However, when control variables (gender, age, education, and income) were taken into account, the difference was insignificant.

• A study out of Utah Valley University also found a link between Facebook and self-esteem. In this study, 425 college students were surveyed about their Facebook habits. When students spent large amounts of time on the site and became Facebook friends with individuals they didn’t actually know personally, they were likely to rate others as having better lives or being happier.

• Despite the negative findings, it’s not all bad news when it comes to the relationship between Facebook usage and self-esteem. A Cornell University study looked at two groups: students in one group were allowed to view and update their Facebook profiles for three minutes, while those in the second group sat at an off computer with a mirror propped up so they could see their reflection. The students who viewed and updated their Facebook profiles for three minutes measured higher in self-esteem than those students who spent the same amount of time at an off computer with a mirror. It’s thought that editing their Facebook profiles allowed the study participants to focus on positive aspects of themselves, thus enhancing self-esteem.

Although most of us like to think that we know everything about ourselves, the study of human behavior reveals that we are often clueless about our abilities, skills, and intentions. Whether it’s believing that our recall of past events is without error, to thinking we know exactly what will make us happy in life, we are often mistaken.

During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.

Though modern schedules may make it difficult to divide one’s sleep into two parts, for those who find themselves awake in the middle of the night, it may be reassuring to know that this does not indicate a sleep disorder, but rather a normal aspect of human sleep patterns.

The Saturday Evening Post featured an article about happiness, specifically about research on happiness in older adults. Though it would seem that people with fewer years left in which to fulfill hopes and dreams would suffer from more depression than those in the prime of their lives, this isn’t the case at all, according to the article. Happiness seems to be greater for those 60 and older, possibly because they are better able to manage stress and cope with obstacles in their lives:

Over time people become more realistic about their expectations, more accepting about what they have or haven’t achieved, and more resilient when things don’t pan out…Older Americans worry less and are less sad and depressed than people in other age groups, and that trend rises into their 60s despite less robust physical health.

This article reminded me of a study I read about in the book On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind’s Hard-Wired Habits by Wray Herbert. Herbert relates research, conducted by psychologist Derek Isaacowitz, on the connection between gaze, mood, and motivation. Isaacowitz wanted to see how long people gazed at—or “fixated on”—images of happy, sad, angry, and fearful faces. (Gaze time was measured in milliseconds using machines.) He found that older people fixated less on the faces with unpleasant expressions. From this observation, it was speculated that “as people age, they tend to focus on goals that are attainable and to disengage from unrealistic goals, which can lead to failure and unhappiness” (p. 246). This inference substantiates the happiness/aging connection discussed in The Saturday Evening Post article.

Apparently older people avoid dwelling as much on negative, nonproductive thoughts and ideas. Perhaps this is their way of coping with the realization that their days on earth are not as plentiful in number as in the past. As it is explained in On Second Thought, “They [older people] may increasingly feel like they’re living on borrowed time, and so they pursue emotionally meaningful, uplifting experiences” (p. 246). No matter the explanation, there is consolation in knowing that growing older brings a psychological edge when it comes to peace of mind.

If you’re fascinated by the topic of memory, hop over to PsyBlog (one of my favorite psychology blogs), which has an article exploring 6 commonly held ideas about memory that are not supported by research:

Six Memory Myths
“Can flashbulb memories be distorted? Some of the most widespread beliefs about memory are plain wrong.”

The typical thought is that announcing a goal makes you accountable to others, thus making it more likely that you will succeed at reaching your goal or keeping your resolution. If you plan to exercise five days a week, wouldn’t it make sense to share your intention with others? Wouldn’t an announcement to friends and family about what you to intend to accomplish provide extra motivation? Well, not necessarily.

Research from 2009 by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer and colleagues has shown that the opposite may be true: Announcing your goals to others may lessen your desire to achieve them. It’s as if announcing the goal feels the same as actually achieving the goal (“a premature sense of completeness”), making it less likely that you’ll follow through on the intended behavior. So, keeping your goals and resolutions to yourself might be a better strategy for success.

This article gives a summary of Gollwitzer’s research: Talking the Talk

Want to know more? The video below features a brief talk from the Ted Conference that discusses research (some of it predating Gollwitzer’s experiments) on this theory of goal achievement:

Here’s a great quote to remember about the nature of happiness:

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity. -Carl Jung

I’m not sure what to make of this strange study. While I believe that sociable, outgoing people may have differences in their brain structures when compared to more solitary individuals, is sociability in real life equivalent to sociability on Facebook? Do people with broader social networks offline also have a large number of Facebook friends?

In the field of criminal investigation, detectives and law enforcement seek to accurately detect deception during interrogations of criminal suspects. Research in the field of psychology is aiding them by uncovering investigative tactics that may make it easier to tell if someone is telling the truth or merely spinning a yarn.

An article in Scientific American Mind (“The Burden of Lying”, Sept./Oct. 2011) discusses current research  that may help criminal investigators better spot a liar. Conducted by a social psychologist at the University of Portsmouth in England and published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, this new research highlights interrogation techniques that increase cognitive load. As the article points out, “lying is more cognitively demanding than telling the truth ….” Because the act of deception requires remembering one’s previously told lies, monitoring one’s body language, etc., it is a mentally taxing process that leads to cognitive overload. In the case of fabricating a story line, this increases the likelihood of contradictions and inconsistencies in an untruthful person’s narrative.

Here are the three deception-detecting techniques discussed in the article:

Have suspects tell their story in reverse.

Relating a story backwards can be difficult when telling the truth, but lying makes this even more cognitively demanding, possibly leading to inconsistencies in a suspect’s story.

Insist that suspects maintain eye contact while talking and answering questions.

When telling a story, people often stare off at a point in the distance for concentration and focus. Lying requires plenty of concentration, more so than telling the truth. Having suspects maintain eye contact may increase cognitive demands and make it difficult to tell a convincing lie.

Ask suspects to draw a picture.

In a research environment, when untruthful participants were asked to draw a picture of a place (like their office at a fictional occupation or the restaurant for a luncheon they didn’t attend), the drawings of the deceptive participants were less detailed than the drawings of those telling the truth. Also, the liars’ drawings were inconsistent with verbal descriptions of the places they were asked to depict.

Do you think you can spot a liar?

What is good for the gut is also good for the brain!

A recent study reports that probiotics (yes, the bacteria found in yogurt and considered beneficial to the intestines) may help decrease depression and anxiety. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted in mice fed with Lactobacillus rhamnosus JB-1, a probiotic bacterium. The mice fed the bacteria had “changes in the expression of receptors for the neurotransmitter GABA” and “showed significantly fewer stress, anxiety and depression-related behaviours” compared with the mice fed just broth. (GABA, or gamma aminobutyric acid, halts anxiety. Drugs like alcohol and anti-anxiety medications affect GABA.)

So, if you like yogurt, this is an excellent reason to continue eating it.

Read more about the study, as reported at ScienceDaily, here.