Online Impression Management: Personality Traits and Concerns for Secondary Goals as Predictors of Self‐Presentation Tactics on Facebook

This study investigates the utility of personality traits and secondary goals as predictors of self‐presentation tactics employed by Facebook users. A structural equation model of self‐presentation tactics on Facebook was proposed and tested. Although fit of the initial model was good, the final model, eliminating three paths and adding two others, yielded a significantly better fitting model. Findings show that personality traits predicted concern for secondary goals (N = 477) and that secondary goals predicted the use of various self‐presentation tactics used on Facebook. Results indicated that these personality traits and secondary goals are both theoretically and empirically sound components for the conceptualization of online impression management.