Which aspects of narcissism are related to Social Networking Sites addiction? The role of self-enhancement and self-protection

Narcissism was found to be one of the essential personality-related risk factor of Social Networking Sites (SNS) addiction. However, most of the research neglected its heterogeneous nature. In this study, we focus on four aspects of narcissism (i.e., admirative narcissism, communal narcissism, rivalrous narcissism, and vulnerable narcissism), acknowledging that they might be associated with different underlying narcissistic motives (i.e., self-enhancement or self-protection) and realized in different domains (i.e., agency or communion). We tested whether four aspects of narcissism separately and additively contribute to SNS addiction using self-report measures of narcissism and SNS addiction in three cross-sectional studies (N = 1659; one students' sample and two general Polish samples). The results indicate that all four aspects of narcissism were positively related to SNS addiction. However, only rivalrous, communal, and vulnerable narcissism aspects were independent predictors of SNS addiction. We also conclude that SNSs might not be the optimal platform for gaining gratifications via solely agentic self-enhancement. Furthermore, SNS addiction may develop not only as a compensatory mechanism of interpersonal sensitivity and poor social relations in the relatively controllable SNS' environment (as indicated by vulnerable narcissism) but also maladaptive self-regulation via antagonism and hostility towards others (as indicated by rivalrous narcissism).