A recent study of Facebook, conducted in part by a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, suggests users unconsciously check their own profiles to boost their ego when feeling negatively about themselves.
Catalina Toma, an assistant professor of communication arts at UW-Madison who helped conduct the study, suggests Facebook might have the ability to fulfill some universal psychological needs.
In the study, participants received negative feedback after presenting a public speech. They were then invited to partake in one of five unrelated studies, one of which involved looking at their own Facebook profile.
Toma and Jeffrey Hancock, a communication professor at Cornell University who also helped conduct the study, applied the “self-affirmation theory” to social networks in their study. The theory explained that people have a need to seek out information that casts them in a positive light.
The study demonstrated that Facebook could be used for more than “gossip, narcissism or procrastination,” according to a statement released by the university. There are, instead, meaningful psychological benefits that give users a sense of value and self-worth, the statement said.
