The phone vibrates, the screen lights up, the post is out there. A photo chosen from twelve almost identical ones, a phrase cleaned up just enough, perhaps a personal detail dropped with a natural air. From that moment the usual tiny theater of social media begins: those who watch, those who like, those who comment, those who move on pretending to have a life. Inside that seemingly trivial gesture, however, something more interesting can slip in than the simple need for approval. For some people with traits of narcissism on social media, the post seems to start already accompanied by a certainty: it will be liked, it will attract, it will have an effect.
Research published in 2026 followed a group of 154 participants for ten days with a daily diary method: every day the people involved talked about their most recent post, how positive or negative it was, how much they had tried to build a good impression and what social effects they thought they had achieved. Closeness to others, attention received, maintenance of existing relationships, possibility of opening new relationships. All very everyday, therefore very revealing. The material collected suggests that, in narcissism, the post itself often matters less and the way in which the person publishing it imagines it will be read is much more important.
Caution is needed here immediately, without a white coat hanging on the door. The study concerns narcissistic traits in the general population, present in different degrees, outside the scope of the clinical diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. Translated into everyday life: we talk about trends, styles, expectations, ways of being in online relationships. The feed, in this sense, becomes a kind of bathroom mirror with good light. He gives you something back, but he always does it with a slightly cunning angle.
The post as a mirror
Social media offers a very convenient terrain for those seeking attention and admiration. They allow you to communicate with many people, choose what to show, cut out the bad shot, publish the most flattering photo, wait for an almost immediate reaction in the form of likes, comments, replies, views. The package is perfect for those who like to feel looked at in the right way. There is also another detail: those with strong narcissistic traits often tend to prefer large and light social networks, more extensive than intimate. Lots of contacts, many opportunities for first impact, less effort from a deep relationship, the one that requires presence, listening, continuity, and unfortunately no Valencia filter.
The distinction used in the study is based on the model of narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry. The first side concerns the attempt to stand up on the table in the virtual room and be seen at your best: charm, confidence, brilliant image, desire to appear special. The second takes a rougher path: devaluing others, perceiving them as rivals, moving in a more defensive and hostile way. The model distinguishes these two dimensions because they can be together, but they bring very different social consequences.
This difference weighs heavily when entering the feed. People with higher levels of narcissistic admiration, in the research, tended to post more positive content and to more intentionally construct a favorable presentation of themselves. In short, they showed the bright version: the one that knows how to choose the good side, the brilliant tone, the fragment of life pleasant enough to be shared without seeming too desperately studied. Narcissistic rivalry instead followed the opposite direction: less positive content, less investment in building a good impression, a harsher posture towards the social environment.
The most interesting part comes after publication. Those who showed more narcissistic admiration thought their posts helped start new relationships. The curious thing is that this expectation seemed to depend little on the actual effort put into making a good impression. Even when conscious effort was limited, the belief in producing a positive effect on others remained. As if the implicit reasoning was: I like myself, so something will pass anyway. A kind of personal perfume sprayed on the post, even when the post just has a random caption and decent lighting.
Who expects applause
Narcissistic admiration works like this: it seeks confirmation and often anticipates it. Even before anyone responds, the desired effect seems to have already been taken into account. The post becomes a small showcase of the self, a dress rehearsal of charm. Those who publish it imagine that they can be interesting, attractive, brilliant, capable of opening social doors. In some cases it can even actually happen, at least in the first contacts. Previous research has often associated this dimension with more favorable initial impressions: the brilliant narcissism, the seductive one, the one who enters the room and manages to be looked at for a while.
Narcissistic rivalry, on the other hand, brings a different air to the post. People with this trait tended to expect worse consequences: the contents published could damage the possibility of starting new relationships and even burden existing relationships. Here too, the most subtle fact concerns the gap between content and interpretation. These negative expectations seemed to emerge no matter how much effort was made to present oneself well. The problem, then, shifts from the photo or phrase to the lens through which the person views their effect on others.
It is a small step only in appearance. We are used to thinking of social media as the realm of strategy: I publish this to appear that way, I write that to get that reaction, I delete a story because few people saw it. The study suggests a more uncomfortable scene. Sometimes the expectation comes before the strategy. A person convinced of being liked reads their post as potentially winning. A more hostile or suspicious person may imagine a cold, negative, repelling outcome. In the middle there is the content, which should be the protagonist and instead risks being an extra.
The head before the feed
Narcissism on social media, seen from this angle, is less about selfie vanity and more about the way in which everyone enters the digital square with a ready-made prediction. Narcissistic admiration says: they will notice me. Narcissistic rivalry says: it will be bad, they will read me badly, they will reject me. They are two different movements, almost opposite, yet they start from the same need to regulate one’s value through the gaze of others.
An important limitation remains: the research measured participants’ perceptions, therefore what they thought they had obtained from their posts. He measured the subjective impression, rather than the actual reaction of the public. This detail changes a lot. A person may believe they have made an impression and only received three distracted likes from colleagues on a coffee break. Another may imagine coldness and instead have published something perfectly normal, received by others with the same bland attention that we reserve for the seventh sunset of the week.
Here a broader theme comes into play: on social media there is often a gap between the effect we believe we are producing and the one we actually leave on others. Previous studies on Facebook, for example, have shown that people with low self-esteem considered the platform a safer place to open up, but they tended to share less positive and more negative content, resulting in less favorable social reactions from those who read it. Even there, the promise of the medium seemed simple: I can finally express myself. The practical result became more distorted: I expose myself, but others perceive me worse.
The same thing can happen with excess constructed positivity. People look at overly polished posts with a certain distrust. Life always shown well, always bright, always “centered”, in the long run resembles a hotel room: clean, fragrant, without real traces. Sometimes we feel closer to those who publish something less staid, more ordinary, more human. A messy table, a half-successful day, a sentence without makeup. The perfect feed can attract an eye. The crooked detail often holds back.
A like is not enough
The study also helps to reduce a very convenient caricature: that of the social narcissist as a monolithic character, always confident, always vain, always ready to look at himself in the front camera. The psychological reality is more jagged. Admiration and rivalry can coexist, alternate, produce different effects in relationships. One part seeks applause, another fears confrontation. One part wants to shine, another perceives rivals everywhere. The post, at that point, becomes only the visible point of an internal movement much older than the telephone.
This also applies to those who observe. Faced with a very brilliant post we can think of a confident, resolved person, full of life. Faced with a harsher post we can read aggression, distance, heaviness. In both cases we see a fragment, often chosen, often filtered, often written at a specific moment of the day. Social media compress people into surfaces. Then we do the rest, with a speed that would make a medieval court pale.
The key word, then, remains expectation. Whoever publishes brings to the post an idea of himself and a prediction about others. Those who watch bring their own prejudices, their own tiredness, their own hunger for comparison, their own irritation from the digital mail queue. Narcissism on social media slips right there, in the space between what is shown and what one imagines causing.
This is why the results should be read without turning them into diagnoses from Instagram comments. Saying that a person takes great care of their posts, seeks attention or expects positive reactions means describing a behavior, not opening a clinical file. The research, however, puts a useful lens on a now normal habit: we publish something and immediately build a story about the reaction of others. We tell ourselves that we were liked, that we were ignored, that someone understood, that someone judged us. Often, meanwhile, the others were just waiting for the bus.
The feed continues to scroll. The post remains there, polite, among cats, holidays, indignations, plates of pasta, sunsets and life announcements. Whoever published it may still look at it, check the reactions, look for a signal. A like arrives, then another. For some it is a caress. For someone else a test. For still others, just a thumbs up given with a potato-smeared finger.
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