PSY481

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Push Notification Assignment #3
PSY481: Minds and Machines: Psychology in a Digital World (L01)
Prepared by:
Nurul Abyana Binte Saifullizam
UBID:50294310
Prepared for: Dr. Thomas Saltsman
Date: 26th November 2021
This assignment has been completed in accordance with assignment
guidelines and the UB Policy of Academic Integrity as stated in:
https://catalog.buffalo.edu/policies/integrity.html

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Table of Contents
Literature Review and Analysis 3
1.1 Overview of Research Article 3
Overview of the methodology 3
How did the researchers operationalize the IVs and DVs? 3
What did the participants do? 4
Overview of Results 5
Critical Analysis of Research Results 5
Limitations 5
Further Studies 6
What other questions do you have? 7
The Current Research 7
Overview and Hypothesis 7
Methods 9
Participants 9
Measures 10
Self-esteem (Dependent Measure) 10
Priming Comments of Participant’s Appearance (Independent Measure) 10
Procedure 11
Results 12
Discussion 13
Overview of Findings 13
Limitations 15
Implications 17
References 19
Figures 20
Appendices 21

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1. Literature Review and Analysis
1.1 Overview of Research Article
Past research has highlighted how selfies are an effective tool for self-presentation and how
individuals seek affirmation from others to strengthen their self-concept. This hones on the
idea of social comparison theory where individuals judge the direction of affirmation by
considering others’ opinion, driven by social standards. This research article expands on
this idea and measures the effect of selfies on self-esteem and social sensitivity, using
behavioral paradigms within the theme of social sensitivity and embodied cognition. The
two research questions are as follows; 1. How does taking and sharing selfies affect social
sensitivity? 2. How does taking and sharing selfies affect self-esteem?
1.1. Overview of the methodology
How did the researchers operationalize the IVs and DVs?
In this study, the independent variables were the type of photographed subject and the
sharing behavior whereas the dependent variable was degree of change or effect on social
sensitivity and self-esteem. The operational definitions for the above-mentioned
independent variables are photographing either a cup or a selfie of yourself (using your
own smartphones) and saving the taken photo in your phone or sharing it on social media.
As for the dependent variables, the researchers utilized indirect measurements. The
operational definitions of the dependent variables were the magnitude of change of reaction
time to a probe detection task (measuring social sensitivity) and magnitude of change in
the size of an individual's handwritten signatures (measuring self-esteem).

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The reaction time to the probe detection task reflects an individual’s level of interpersonal
sensitivity and social sensitivity. Past studies that utilized this method found that people
with a high level of social sensitivity tended to have a faster reaction time. The researchers
based their choice of measurement of self-esteem on the concept of embodied cognition in
relation to handwriting, and specifically focused on signature sizes. This method predicts
that people with lowered self-esteem will demonstrate a decrease in their signature size
before and after manipulation.
What did the participants do?
The study utilized a 2 x 2 between-subjects design (Photographed Subject [cup, selfie] x
Sharing Behavior [saving, posting]). Participants were blind to the actual purpose of the
study and were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. As part of the baseline
data collection for dependent variables, all participants had to sign a written consent form.
They then had to take a selfie of themselves or a photo of a cup using their own
smartphones, depending on the group they were assigned to, and were then instructed to
either save them into their phones or post them on social media. Following this task, each
participant had to sign a consent form again to allow the usage of their photos. At this point,
the necessary data for measurements of self-esteem has been collected. All participants
then had to undergo the probe detection task on a desktop, where their reaction response
time to three different focus points (eyes, nose, mouth) were recorded. Upon completion
of all these, participants were debriefed.

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1.2. Overview of Results
Based on the data analyses on social sensitivity and averaging across the three different
focus points tested, they found that the participants became more socially sensitive when
they posted their selfie on social media rather than when they only saved their selfies into
their phones. This was depicted through faster response time during the probe detection
task for those that posted their selfies on social media. As for self-esteem, they found that
the effect of sharing behavior was significant only in the selfie condition. The participants
signature size significantly decreased (demonstrating lowered self-esteem) when they
saved the photos instead of posting their selfies on social media.
1.3. Critical Analysis of Research Results
Limitations
A significant weakness highlighted in the study was that the participants were instructed to
take selfies and share these photos involuntarily. This raises a concern as it would not depict
or mirror the typical behavior, mood or environment related to taking a selfie and posting
it. This would result in incongruence of the intention behind taking a selfie or posting it
which might result in a possible difference in effects on self-esteem and social sensitivity.
From this point, another notable limitation that can be pointed out is the possibility that
perception of social evaluation or judgement when taking the photo itself could affect the
individual’s level of confidence when posing for the photo, which could ultimately affect
the perceived quality of the selfie itself. This raises the possibility of a many-to-one
relationship when it comes to deducing the impact of taking a selfie and posting it on social

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media on self-esteem. Having to take a photo in a controlled environment, in the vicinity
of others present (allowing upward or downward comparisons in terms of attractiveness,
clothes, etc.) might lead to increases or falls in self-esteem levels instead of solely due to
the action of taking a selfie itself. Related to this, the participants could also have already
had their own certain tendency in social style or gender differences before participating in
the experiments.
Another notable weakness would be that the sample is not representative across genders,
age, and cultures. The participants in this study were recruited via a specific university
online community. University students largely consist of people in their late teens to early
twenties. There was also an imbalance of female to male participants in this study. Hence,
the findings of this study would not be generalizable to males or others beyond the typical
age range of university students.
Further Studies
A logical follow up would be to extend this study to other cultures and compare between
them to identify how differences in cultures or attitudes towards taking selfies and social
media would affect changes in self-esteem and social sensitivity. It would be interesting to
find out how conservative countries that do not encourage promotion of self-concept would
impact an individual’s self-esteem and social sensitivity. To test this out, the study could
be replicated across different universities in different countries (that have differing cultures
and attitudes toward selfie-taking and social media) and compare the results from the study
across the different cultures.

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What other questions do you have?
Are there any other better ways to operationalize changes in self-esteem that do not involve
using direct measures like self-report measures?
How does the social comparison theory explain the differences in effects of saving the
photo into your phone as compared to posting it on social media?
2. The Current Research
2.1. Overview and Hypothesis
In a study by Shin et al. (2017), the researchers investigated how selfies can affect an
individual’s self concept through self-comparison. This study derived its perspectives from
two major categories: 1. Studies that investigated how personality traits are related to
selfies and 2. Studies that investigated how people socially perceive selfies and honed in
on the idea of social comparison theory where individuals judge the direction of affirmation
by considering others’ opinion, driven by social standards. The research article measures
the effect of selfies on self-esteem and social sensitivity, using behavioral paradigms within
the theme of social sensitivity and embodied cognition.
The study conducted by Shin et al. (2017) utilized a 2 x 2 between-subjects design
(Photographed Subject [cup, selfie] x Sharing Behavior [saving, posting]). Participants
were randomly assigned to either take a photograph of a cup or a selfie of themselves and
then save the taken photo into their phone or share it on social media. Each participant also
had to undergo a probe detection task (measuring social sensitivity) and a copy of their
handwritten signatures were collected before and after the photo taking task (measuring

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self-esteem). Focusing only on the results pertaining self-esteem, they found that the effect
of sharing behavior was significant only in the selfie condition. The participants displayed
a decrease in signature size across both sharing behaviours. However, the participants
signature size significantly decreased (demonstrating lowered self-esteem) when they
saved the photos instead of posting their selfies on social media. The researchers concluded
that this occurred because participants who posted their own selfie on social media engaged
in a self-promotional act and had the opportunity to choose which aspects of the photo they
would like to emphasize and allowed them to receive positive “feedback” in the form of
likes, thus positively affecting the participants’ level of self-esteem.
Building from this study, I propose a novel study investigating whether receiving either
positive or negative comments on an individual’s appearance from an outsider, prior to
taking a selfie) would result in higher degrees of changes in self-esteem among individuals
taking selfies. As evidenced by Shin et al. (2017), changes in self-esteem were more
prominent and significant in the group where participants saved the photos into their mobile
phones as opposed to posting them on social media. This study will focus specifically on
the impact of external perceptions of an individual’s outward appearance on their self-
esteem when taking a selfie and posting them on social media. The aim of the study is to
examine how much prior perceptions of an individual’s appearance by others (no prime,
positive prime or negative prime) would affect the individual’s self-esteem, in tandem with
the positive outcomes of posting selfies on social media (e.g. self-promotional act and
receiving positive feedback). Overall, I hypothesize that a negative prime would result in

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individuals displaying the most significant decrease in self-esteem followed by a no prime
and lastly by a positive prime.
To test this hypothesis, the current study will use a between subjects, three cell design to
test the relationship between type of prior feedback received from experimenter before
taking the selfie (independent variable) and magnitude of change in self-esteem levels (the
primary dependent variable). The study’s independent variable will contain three levels (no
comments, positive comments, negative comments), and the primary dependent variable
will be self-reported self-esteem levels measured by the Selfie Behavior and Body Image
on Social Networking Sites Scales.
2.2. Methods
Participants
300 participants will be recruited via universities online communities in Singapore. The
advertisement will call for participation in a study on user experience with taking selfies
and popular social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. The independent
variables and dependent variables will not be mentioned during the recruiting process. The
participants are expected to be students in their young adulthoods ranging around 18-35
years old with a distribution of 50% males and 50% females. As the study is being
conducted in Singapore, the race/ethnicities division would be as follows: 25% Chinese,
25% Malay, 25% Indian and 25% Others. The study will only accept participants that fall
within these criterias in order to minimize confounding factors like age and gender which
might result in many-to-one relationships. The participants are also expected to be familiar

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with the social media platforms (having used it for at least more than a year) in order to
ensure that all participants are aware and exposed to the impact of posting selfies on social
media (e.g. getting likes and comments).
Measures
Self-esteem (Dependent Measure)
As opposed to prior study conducted by Shin et al. (2017) which utilized an indirect method
in order to minimize the issue of self-reported measures, this study will be utilizing the
Selfie Behavior and Body Image on Social Networking Sites Scales (Veldhuis et al., 2018)
to measure self-esteem. Although such measures have been identified to lack reliability,
especially when participants are required to report their own characteristics in relation to
topics like self-esteem, it would still be of high value as it provides insight to what aspect
of self-esteem is affected. This method would provide more depth to the findings of the
study. Please refer to Appendix A for a preview of the questionnaire.
Priming Comments of Participant’s Appearance (Independent Measure)
Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three following conditions: Condition 1
(No prior comments by experimenter), Condition 2 (Small compliment by experimenter)
and Condition 3 (Negative remark by experimenter). All these comments will be made on
the basis of the participant’s outward appearance without pointing out specific features. In
Condition 2 which receives a positive prime, the participants will receive a small
compliment of “You look radiant!” whereas in Condition 3 receiving a negative prime, the

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participants will receive a negative remark of “You look tired.”. The positive prime is
intended to stimulate positive and uplifting feelings of the participants’s outward
appearance whereas the negative prime is intended to stimulate feelings of self doubt of
their appearance.
Procedure
The following procedure will be the same for all three conditions. Participants will enter a
room alone and complete the Selfie Behavior and Body Image on Social Networking Sites
Scales (Veldhuis et al., 2018) as part of baseline recordings of self-esteem. In order to
tackle a concern of the Shin et al. (2017) study, which was the possibility that perception
of social evaluation or judgement when taking the photo itself could affect the individual’s
level of confidence when posing for the photo, the environment whereby photo taking takes
place is altered in this study. Instead of taking photos in the presence of other participants
and experimenters, the participants would have the privacy of a private photo booth without
the presence of anyone else. After completing the questionnaire, the participants will be
directed to a photo booth where they will be instructed to take a few photos of different
objects with the camera on their mobile phones. All the photos are instructed to be saved
into their mobile gallery.
While taking photos of the set of assigned items, the experimenter will enter the room and
instruct the participants to take a selfie of themselves next. After giving the instruction, the
experimenter will leave the room. Before leaving, the experimenter will carry out the
respective independent variables. Depending on which condition the participants were

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randomly assigned to, they will receive different prior comments or none at all from the
experimenter. The experimenter immediately leaves after making the comment.
In their private photo booth, they will then have to take a selfie of themselves using their
own smartphones and are then instructed to post them on the social media of their choice
(either Instagram or Facebook). Following this task, each participant will then have to
complete the Selfie Behavior and Body Image on Social Networking Sites Scales (Veldhuis
et al., 2018) alone again. Please refer to Appendix A for a preview of the questionnaire. At
this point, the necessary data for measurements of self-esteem has been collected. Upon
completion of all these, participants were debriefed by the experimenter and were allowed
to leave.
2.3. Results
One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed significant variation in the participant’s
self-esteem levels across the study conditions, F(2, 297) = 16.29, p < .001. A post-hoc
Tukey test showed that the no prior comments condition (M = .01, SD = .93) differed
significantly from the prior small compliment condition (M = .38, SD = .93, p =.017 < .05)
and from the prior negative remark condition (M = -.39, SD = 1.00, p =.010 < .05). The
difference between the prior small compliment condition and prior negative remark
condition was also significant, p < .001.

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2.4. Discussion
Overview of Findings
To answer the question of how prior external perceptions of an individual’s outward
appearance affects the magnitude of change of an individual’s self-esteem when taking a
selfie and posting them on social media, in this study, I attempted to examine the “fall” or
“increase” of self-esteem after being exposed to the prior comments made by the
experimenters. Initially, I hypothesized that a negative prime would result in individuals
displaying the most significant decrease in self-esteem followed by a no prime and lastly
by a positive prime.
The findings of the study aligned with the hypotheses as we see from Table 1 that the
negative prime condition reflected means significantly below the average which implies a
significant drop in self esteem among participants. Following that, the positive prime
condition reflected the highest mean values which implies an increase in self-esteem.
Lastly, the no prime condition reflected a mean value very close to 0 which implies that
there was very little change in the levels of self-esteem among the participants . As the
findings from this study are aligned with previously-constructed hypotheses, it means that
having been exposed to negative external perceptions about one’s appearance before taking
a selfie and posting it on social media results in higher decreases in self-esteem levels in
the individual. As opposed to that, being exposed to positive perceptions prior to taking
selfies would result in a significantly lesser decrease in self-esteem levels or even result in
an increase in self-esteem levels from before.

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This study helps build upon previous research which was on the effects of selfies on self-
esteem and social sensitivity, based on two different sharing behaviors. From Shin et al.
(2017), we found that participants who saved their selfies in their phones instead of sharing
them on social media faced a more significant decrease in self-esteem levels from baseline
recordings. This was attributed to the likeliness that participants who posted their selfies
on social media engaged in a self-promotional act and had the opportunity to choose which
aspects of the photo they would like to emphasize and allowed them to receive positive
“feedback” in the form of likes, thus positively affecting the participants’ level of self-
esteem.
This novel study provides us with an insight on how a different mode of delivery of
“feedback” (e.g. provided in-person by strangers in this study as opposed to virtually
behind a screen in previous study) would affect the changes in self-esteem of a participant.
The results fall in line with the cognitive models of self-esteem, which identifies that self-
esteem is a composite of our self-judgements and attributes. An individual’s perceptions
of various abilities or attributes, particularly subjectively valuable or desired traits,
translates to their self-esteem levels (Saltsman, 2021). For instance, an individual who has
more positive judgments of their attributes like their outward appearance, would have
higher self-esteem.
As humans, we observe our abilities, traits, relationships, lives and experiences and
compare these with others to learn more about ourselves. Many of times social-media users
are driven by social standards and often judge the direction of affirmation by considering

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others’ opinion. (Shin et al., 2017). From the results of this study, we can now identify that
any form of feedback (positive or negative) of an individual’s outward appearance would
determine the direction of affirmation, and would then affect the level of self-esteem. From
Shin et al. (2021), we found that both saving the selfie and sharing it on social media results
in a fall in self-esteem in participants. A point to highlight is that with the findings of the
new research, we are able to deduce that a positive feedback of an individual’s attributes
could counteract the negative effects (fall in self-esteem) of one’s selfie sharing behavior.
Limitations
A significant limitation to highlight is that the method of measurement of self-esteem in
the study could be inappropriate for the nature of the study. Utilizing a self-report measure
might not be suitable as it might jeopardize reliability and validity of the results. In this
study, participants are instructed to complete the questionnaire measuring self-esteem
levels (refer to Appendix A) before being exposed to the manipulation and after having
completed posting the selfie on a social media platform. The ‘Selfie Behavior and Body
Image on Social Networking Sites Scales’ questionnaire includes a series of questions that
would require some thought and time and evaluates multiple aspects of the participant. This
questionnaire goes beyond the surface of measuring self-esteem at a specific period of time.
Therefore, while it could be beneficial for other self-esteem studies, it might not be for this
study as this study requires a method that could capture quick changes in self-esteem levels
at two intervals. Participants who fill up the questionnaire the first time might have just
repeated their answers from the first round to the second round of the same questionnaire.
Another important point to note is that it is unlikely that a mere 1-sentence comment on an
individual’s appearance could affect the individual’s level of self-esteem to such a degree

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that it alters their answers in such a period of time. Upon further consideration, it also
appears that this method of measurement is not suitable in this context as it might reveal
the purpose of the study which could result in participant reactivity.
Following the same line of reasoning from above, where it is unlikely that a mere comment
could affect the participant’s perception of themselves on the scale to a significant degree,
the reason why the results of this study appeared to be significant could be attributable to
the fact that the participants were aware that they were being measured on their self-esteem
levels, which could have then affected their responses in the second round.
Thirdly, there is also a possibility of a many-to-one relationship, whereby instead of the
impact of prior comments, that could have affected the participant’s responses in the
second round like the exposure to others’ posts on the social media platforms. The exposure
to others’ posts might result in upward or downward social comparisons which might have
affected the participant’s self-esteem levels (Saltsman, 2021). Midgley et al. (2020) found
that making more upward comparisons while viewing social media posts from others was
associated with lower state self-esteem and life satisfaction, and that this happened
regardless of the number of times the individual might have made downward comparisons
in the same sitting. Therefore, if the participant had happened to chance upon a friend’s
instagram post, which depicts that friend to be thriving in their life and made upward social
comparisons, it could result in a direct threat to their self-image, resulting in feelings of
insecurity, effectively leading to a lower self-esteem. Therefore, future research should
control these possibilities in order to eradicate the possibility of a many-to-one
relationship.

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Another notable limitation is that this study is only limited to university students in
Singapore. It is not representative of other age groups and cultures. Taking into account
that Singapore has a collectivistic culture, we could expect different results in an
individualistic culture like that of the United States.
Implications
In future studies, to address the first and second limitation, an indirect form of measurement
could be utilized to measure self-esteem levels, like the measurement of signature size (as
used in Shin et al. (2017)). A study by Zweigenhaft (1977) found that the size of an
individual’s signature corresponded to their level of self-esteem. A larger signature size
would imply a higher level of self-esteem and a smaller, lower. This method of
measurement is implicit and could be easily collected, and would not be as obvious. To
address the limitation of many-to-one relationships caused by social comparisons, future
studies could either provide a controlled social media environment where the posts are
highly unlikely to spark comparisons, or disallow the participant from scrolling through
their feeds upon posting their photos.
In this study, we have attempted to examine the “effects” of different forms of feedback
and the medium by which it is given. With regard to the findings of this study, it can be
utilized to help those that are struggling with low-self esteem by exposing them to more
positive remarks to act as external affirmations. Delving deeper into the concept of external
opinions having the power to affect the direction of affirmation imposed on an individual,
the findings from this study could imply that individuals who are more prone to be

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concerned about what others feel or say about them could be more susceptible to having
lower self-esteem. Further studies could investigate how different personality traits
(introversion vs extraversion) or Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) types could affect
the degree of change in self-esteem through differences in their responses to external
feedback. On top of this, the study could also be run through different universities in both
individualistic and collectivistic countries to test the implications of differing cultures on
the degree to which external feedback is important or relevant to an individual and how it
impacts one’s self esteem.

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3. References
Shin, Y., Kim, M., Im, C., & Chong, S. C. (2017). Selfie and self: The effect of selfies on self-
esteemand social sensitivity. Personality and Individual Differences, 111, 139–145.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.02.004
Midgley, C., Thai, S., Lockwood, P., Kovacheff, C., & Page-Gould, E. (2021). When every day
is a high school reunion: Social media comparisons and self-esteem. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 121(2), 285–307.
https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000336.supp (Supplemental)
Saltsman, T. (2021). Mind & Machines Lecture 3 [Lecture notes, PowerPoint slides].
Retrieved from UBLearns.
Veldhuis, J., Alleva, J. M., Bij de Vaate, A. J. D. (Nadia), Keijer, M., & Konijn, E. A. (2018).
Selfie Behavior and Body Image on Social Networking Sites Scales. PsycTESTS.
https://doi.org/10.1037/t69419-000
Zweigenhaft, R. L. (1977). Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 5(1), 177.
https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.1977.5.1.177

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3.1. Figures
Table 1: PSSP results
Figure 2: Graph of Results

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3.2. Appendices
Appendix A

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