EFFECTS OF VIEWING OTHER'S SELF-PRESENTATION STRATEGIES AND RACE ON CHINESE FEMALE INSTAGRAM USER'S STATE SELF-ESTEEM AND SOURCE CHARACTERISTICS PERCEPTION

Abstract

Given the limited research regarding self-presentation and Instagram, and the lack of focus on the effects of viewing these curated content, the primary aim of this paper is to examine the effects of viewing an Instagrammer’s self-presentation strategy and race on the receiver’s state self-esteem and source characteristics (attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise) perception. Secondarily, this paper aims to bridge the disciplines of communications and psychology by investigating the novel links between source characteristics with social comparison, and state self-esteem. A 2 (race: same and different) x 3 (type of self-presentation strategy: ingratiation, enhancement and supplication) between-subjects online experiment was conducted on 210 Chinese female participants to investigate these aims. Results of the study demonstrate that participants who viewed the Instagrammer’s supplication strategy had the highest state self-esteem, followed by those who saw their ingratiation strategy, and lastly, individuals who were exposed to enhancement strategy. These effects occur through the three possible pathways of (1) source characteristics and social comparison, (2) source expertise only, and (3) social comparison only. In terms of the source characteristics, ingratiation strategy in general, led to the most positive perceptions. Furthermore, the effectiveness of enhancement strategy is surprisingly no better than the supplication strategy. Also, the cross-disciplinary findings highlight that source attractiveness and expertise negatively predicted social comparison direction, while source trustworthiness positively predicted it. None of the source characteristics except for source expertise predicted state self-esteem directly. Therefore, the suggestion is for marketers and individual Instagram users is to rely more on ingratiation strategy and not to overuse enhancement strategy. Lastly, race did not play a significant empirical role in this paper.