Keep it perfect or keep it real? The influence of descriptive norms on adolescents’ expression of multiple selves in Instagram Stories

Image-based social media platforms like Instagram offer adolescents fertile ground for expressing multiple selves. On Instagram, adolescents are also confronted with the social norms of their peers' self-presentation. Based on an experimental vignette study with Instagram users aged 14 to 16 in Germany (N = 454), we investigated how the descriptive norms of staged self-presentation—“Keep it perfect”—and authentic self-presentation—“Keep it real”—influence adolescents' expression of the actual, ideal, and hidden selves in Instagram Stories. Additionally, we tested whether adolescents' personal norms for presenting themselves authentically on Instagram, their self-concept clarity, gender, and the visibility of the Instagram Story moderate the influence of descriptive norms on the expression of selves. We found no effects of exposure to the staged or authentic self-presentation norm on the expression of multiple selves and no moderating effects. However, additional analyses showed that the personal norm to present oneself authentically on Instagram and self-concept clarity had a direct effect on the expression of multiple selves. We discuss potential reasons why the descriptive norms and moderators had no effect and derive theoretical and practical implications from the results.