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Paper Rik Pieters accepted for publication in Psychological Science

Published: 29th April 2021 Last updated: 27th November 2021

The paper by Rik Pieters on “Gender Gaps in Deceptive Self-Presentation on Social Media Platforms Vary with Gender Equality: A Multinational Investigation,” co-authored by Dasha Kolesnyk (University of Twente) and Martijn de Jong (Erasmus University), has been accepted for publication in Psychological Science.

Abstract

Deceptive self-presentation (DSP) on social media platforms appears to be common. However, its prevalence and determinants are still largely unknown, partly because admitting such behavior is socially sensitive and hard to study. The authors investigated DSP from the perspective of mating theories in two key domains: physical attractiveness and personal achievement. A truth-telling technique was used to measure DSP in a survey among 12,257 individuals (51% female) across 25 countries. As hypothesized, men and women reported more DSP in the domain traditionally most relevant for their gender in a mating context (females about physical attractiveness and males about personal achievement). However and contrary to lay beliefs (N = 790), we found larger rather than smaller gender differences in DSP in countries with higher gender equality, due to fewer gender-atypical relative to gender-typical DSP in countries with higher gender equality. Higher gender equality was also associated with less DSP for men and women worldwide. Thus, increased gender equality conditions on the (super)national level may allow traditional, ingrained gender differences to express themselves more.

 

Academic profile Rik Pieters