Submitted for your approval: a cross-cultural study of attachment anxiety, contingencies of self-worth and selfie-related behaviour

In this study, we examine the social and psychological motives for a set of strategic selfie-related behaviour including the manipulation and sharing digital images of oneself, captured by oneself. We argue that attachment anxiety stemming from provider relationships at a young age explains development of self-worth based on approval from others. The proposed mediation model demonstrates that approval-based self-worth then predicts selfie-related behaviour. Given the cross-cultural nature of our data, we conducted multi-group comparisons using nationality as a grouping variable. Path analysis results from culturally distinct samples of Singaporean (N = 236) and American participants (N = 336) revealed that approval-based self-worth mediated the relationship between attachment anxiety and selfie capturing frequency. The model explained more variance in American participants’ selfie-related behaviour. Attachment anxiety predicted composition editing and subject editing, but only for Americans. Implications for future research are discussed in evolving technological and cross-cultural contexts.