Psychometric evaluation of the Serbian adaptation of the Presentation of Online Self Scale (POSS) and further construct validation

The Presentation of Self Scale (POSS) was designed to measure four aspects of online self-presentation behaviour: Ideal self, Multiple selves, Consistent self, and Online presentation preference. Very few scales have been developed to measure online-self presentation attitudes and behaviour in Serbia. Thus, there is a need to validate a Serbian language version of the POSS to support further investigation of an increasingly ubiquitous aspect of the daily lives of Serbian people. This study aimed to examine psychometric properties of the POSS in the Serbian context i.e., its reliability, factor validity, and construct validity. The study was conducted on a sample of 360 adults. The four-factor model was confirmed, and it is invariant across genders. The Ideal self, Multiple selves, and Online presentation preference scales converge and show a similar pattern of relationships with validity variables, with Ideal self and Multiple selves showing high profile similarity. These three scales are associated with less sensitivity to the expressive behaviour of others, greater fear of negative evaluation, social media addiction, anxiety, lower self-esteem, and less loneliness. On the other hand, the Consistent self-scale is generally unrelated to the other POSS scales and correlates with better sensitivity to the expressive behaviours of others, less fear of negative evaluation, but greater loneliness. The POSS proved to be useful for examining self-presentation behaviours in the Serbian cultural context. The study revealed two main self-presentational patterns: one that is inauthentic and facilitated by the features of online communication and the other that is authentic and related to better social sensitivity.