The Psychological Consequences of Envying Influencers on Instagram

Jung Ah Lee, So Young Lee, Yuhosua Ryoo, Woo Jin Kim, Yongjun Sung

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study examines how being envious toward social media influencers (SMIs) relates to users' affective well-being. An online survey was conducted in which 305 U.S. participants viewed to 20 posts of an SMI and subsequently measured their affective well-being, envy, and inspiration toward the SMI, and self-esteem levels. The results revealed a direct negative relationship between envy and affective well-being, but a positive indirect effect through inspiration. Furthermore, individuals' self-esteem moderates the relationship such that the positive relationship between envy and affective well-being through inspiration is stronger among those with high levels of self-esteem. Moreover, inspiration varies between different influencer categories, that is, participants who viewed fitness influencers reported the greatest amount of inspiration, followed by fashion, beauty, and entertainment influencers.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)703-708
Number of pages6
JournalCyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking
Volume25
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2021S1A3A2A02090597).

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

Keywords

  • envy
  • inspiration
  • Instagram
  • self-esteem
  • social media influencers
  • well-being

PubMed: MeSH publication types

  • Journal Article

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