Psychology poster assignment

Social Inclusion and Self-Esteem on TikTok

Cameron Banks

Saint Leo University, Saint Leo, Florida

Background

People all over the world use TikTok and other forms of social media to connect and learn just from the touch of the screen. This has allowed for others to feel a sense of social cohesion, especially those addicted the applications (Wang, Yang, and Zhang, 2021). However, as a generation has grown up using the social network sites (SNS), adverse effects on their self-esteem have been studied and examined and these children and young adults (Savira, Rifai, and Wahyunengsih, 2022). The negative relationship between social inclusion and self-esteem regarding TikTok use is understudied, and thus the purpose of this study is to explore this relationship.

Method

Participants

A power analysis was performed using G*Power software to determine the suitable sample size. With a sample size of N=102, effect size of f2 = .25, a standard level of significance of α = 0.05, and power level set at 80% was confirmed to be the most appropriate.

Instruments

Participants will respond to Rosenberg’s (1979) Self-Esteem Scale (RSE), a demographics questionnaire, and Russel’s (1996) UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS) which measure self-esteem and the loneliness of the participant, respectively.

Rosenberg’s (1979) Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) was developed to review for self-esteem and has been used for a variety of groups. The RSE uses a Guttman scale, so Low self-esteem responses are designated as “disagree” and “strongly disagree” for questions 1,3,4,7,10, while for questions 2,5,6,8,9 “agree” and “strongly agree” will be used.

Russel’s (1996) UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS) is a self-reported questionnaire designed to measure a participant’s social isolation along with their subjective feelings of loneliness. Responses are on a 5-point scale. The scale has the following responses: 1 – Never, 2 – Rarely, 3 – Sometimes, 4 – Often.

Possible Results

The descriptive statistics will be calculated which includes mean, standard deviation, skew, kurtosis, median, first quartile and third quartile and shown in Table 1. The Cronbach’s Alpha will then calculated to determine reliability. Additionally, a two-way ANOVA test will be run to determine if TikTok influences self-esteem and social inclusion.

Pearson’s r Correlation will be calculated to determine the association between Social Inclusion and Self-Esteem. Rank based inverse normal transformation will be used to minimize Type 1 and Type 2 errors. Table 2 will show the sufficient evidence indicating a strong, negative correlation between self-esteem and social inclusion after TikTok usage (r=_____).

Possible Outcome #1: Self-esteem and social inclusion are negatively correlated after TikTok usage. The proposed explanation would suggest that as an individual uses TikTok, they feel more socially included, however, as this continues, their self-esteem declines. This could be due to individuals comparing TikTok content creators lives to their own.

Possible Outcome #2: Self-esteem and social inclusion positively correlated after TikTok usage. The proposed explanation would suggest that as an individual uses TikTok, they feel more socially included along with an increase in self-esteem. This could be due to individuals feeling included socially and thus feeling better about themselves for the same reason.

Hypothesis

From the above literature, it can be hypothesized that there will be a negative correlation between social inclusion and self-esteem after using TikTok. The current study will expand the existing literature on the correlation between social inclusion and self-esteem after using TikTok by drawing evidence from various studies to generate more nuanced evidence. The success of this research can signify a critical need to develop interventions to regulate the use of TikTok, specifically among children and teenagers.

References:

Savira, R., Rifai, M., & Wahyunengsih, W. (2022). Correlation between TikTok use and teenagers’ self esteem. Indonesian Journal of Learning Studies, 2(1), 19-24.

Wang, Q., Yang, M., & Zhang, W. (2021). Accessing the influence of perceived value on social attachment: developing country perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 760774.

Discussion & Future Research

One possible limitation to this study would be the sample size. Because this study will be held online, demographics could not be controlled to include diversity. This was established out of convenience and thus this study could not be generalized. Additionally, another limitation is that the study is inherently self-reported by the participants, and thus, the responses to the surveys could be biased.

Previous research has show that as one uses social media, their self esteem declines. This study expands on the concept by including social inclusion suggesting that there could be a happy medium in regards to social media usage. Future studies should include a larger sample size and be held in person with a researcher monitoring and confirming TikTok usage.