Differences between individualist and collectivist cultures in emotional Facebook usage: relationship with empathy,...

Adolescents are one of the groups who most use social networks in an emotional way, to express their own emotions and to empathize with the emotions of others. Although personality factors; namely, empathy, self-esteem, and narcissism appear to play an important role in this usage, the contribution of cultural variables has yet to be examined. The aim of this study is to examine cross-cultural variations in Facebook usage and the relationship of those variations with empathy, self-esteem and narcissistic personality factors.

Using a sample of 479 Spanish adolescents (220 females) and 405 Thai adolescents (224 females), the Use of Facebook Questionnaire was applied, and empathy, self-esteem and narcissism personality traits were measured.

Findings suggested variations between Thai and Spanish samples at the intra- and inter-cultural level. The Thai sample had higher scores in Affective Empathy but lower scores in Cognitive Empathy, used Facebook more, and engaged in more emotional and empathic expression when using Facebook. Also, results also show interesting differences related with the interaction between gender and country.

We discuss the results in relation to Hofstede’s criteria about the differences between Eastern and Western societies. We highlight the need for longitudinal studies about this topic.