“Your profile is so rad”: Self-presentation strategies in Turkish adolescents

Abstract

Social networking sites like Facebook are popular and ever-expanding, especially among adolescents in Turkey. The study of 406 adolescents aged 14 to 18 (M_age = 15.61, SD = 1.16) provides novel insights into how adolescents from Turkey within a specific cultural framework, display certain kinds of self-presentation strategies. Using the Revised Self-Presentation Scale (RSPS; Lee et al., 1999) when coding adolescents’ profiles for strategies and information, we found that exemplification is the most utilized strategy followed by the ingratiation strategy. Self-report results differed from coded behavioral strategy use for intimidation and self-promotion, where there were higher levels of intimidation strategy than self-reported; for the self-promotion strategy, self-reported levels were higher than coded behavioral use. Particular strategy usage also predicted the sharing of types of information and the number of network friends.