things about its users' romantic lives. It
knows when they're falling in love, and
it knows when they're falling out of
love. But what it sees in between may
have a lot to do with the self-esteem of
the individuals doing the falling: New
research from Albright College found
that people whose confidence is more
closely tied to the strength of their
romantic relationship—or those with
higher levels of relationship-contingent
self-esteem, in psych-speak—are more
likely to use the social networking site
to broadcast their happiness.
Logically, it makes sense that
relationship-contingent self-esteem, or
RCSE, which has previously been
linked to lower overall self-esteem and
higher social anxiety, could lead
someone to seek validation by
systematically "liking" each of their
partner's status updates or insisting on
making things Facebook official.
Notably, although Seidman's previous
research found that individuals who
overdo it with personal information on
Facebook just want to belong, the same
pattern didn't apply to couples in this
newest study. Relationship-contingent
self-esteem didn't necessarily mean the
relationship itself was lacking; in fact,
the same people who posted couple-y
items more frequently also tended to be
more satisfied with their partners than
those who did not.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.