Gender roles on social networking sites: investigating reciprocal relationships between Dutch adolescents' hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity and sexy online self-presentations

• Published in: Journal of children and media 2017-04, Vol.11 (2), p.147-166
• Main Authors: van Oosten, Johanna M. F., Vandenbosch, Laura, Peter, Jochen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Facebook; Gender; Instagram; media effects; Sex roles; Snapchat; Social networks; Social research; Studies; Teenagers; youth
• ISSN: 1748-2798; 1748-2801
• DOI: 10.1080/17482798.2017.1304970

Previous research has suggested that adolescents play out stereotypical gender roles in their self-presentations in social media. However, longitudinal research on the relationships between (sexy) online self-presentation and adolescents' gender role orientation is lacking. The present study investigated whether endorsing a stereotypical gender role orientation (i.e., hypermasculinity for boys, hyperfemininity for girls) predisposes adolescents to engage in sexy self-presentation or to look at others' sexy self-presentations in social media. In addition, we investigated whether engaging in sexy self-presentation and looking at others' sexy self-presentation predicted an increased hypergender orientation over time. Using a three-wave short-term longitudinal panel survey among 1467 Dutch adolescents with six-month time intervals between waves, we found that adolescents' hypergender orientation predicted more frequent sexy self-presentation and exposure to others' sexy self-presentations in social media. Hypergender orientations were not predicted by these online behaviors and no gender differences were found.