Shyness, self-esteem, and loneliness as causes of FA: The moderating effect of low self-control

TL;DR: In this article, the impacts of shyness, self-esteem and loneliness on Facebook addiction by considering their interrelations were examined and the moderating effect of low self-control on the relationship between Facebook addiction and individuals' performance was also examined.

Abstract: This study examined the impacts of shyness, self-esteem and loneliness on Facebook addiction by considering their inter-relations. Furthermore, the moderating effect of low self-control on the relationship between Facebook addiction and individuals’ performance was also examined. Data were collected via an online survey from 348 Malaysians and were analysed using the partial least squares technique. The results showed that shyness has both a direct effect and an indirect effect through loneliness on Facebook addiction. Although self-esteem has no direct effect on Facebook addiction, it has an indirect effect through loneliness. The results also confirmed that low self-control negatively moderates the relationship between Facebook addiction and individuals’ performance. The findings of the study contribute to knowledge on the impacts of social and psychological problem, including shyness, self-esteem and loneliness, on Facebook addiction. In addition, this study is the first attempt to investigate the moderating effect of personal characteristics, including low self-control, on the relationship between Facebook addiction and performance. The results could benefit psychologists, managers, and school counsellors in helping to prevent Facebook addiction and control its effect on individuals’ performance by developing prevention and intervention programs.

Summary

1. Introduction

• Using social network sites (SNSs) is considered as a core component of the daily tasks for many users worldwide (Foroughi et al., 2019a) .
• As such, in this study, high self-control was proposed as a potential personality characteristic that may offset the impact of FA on individuals' performance.
• This group of researchers believe that due to Facebook's interactive dynamics and the corresponding possibilities to satisfy social and psychological needs, Facebook users might be particularly at risk of becoming addicted.
• The second group of studies introduces users' personality and psychological problems as drivers of FA.

2.1. Facebook Addiction

• Behavioural addiction could be considered as a disorder in the form of (1) behaviour that intends to create pleasure and to alleviate stress and pain, and (2) failure to regulate behaviour in spite of significant pernicious outcomes (Shaffer, 1996) .
• Salience refers to the importance of a particular activity in one's life and the extent to which an activity dominates behaviours and thinking (e.g., paying full attention to Facebook use in daily conduct, emotion, and cognition).
• Previous studies on behavioural addiction considered low self-control as a mediator to explain the relationship between psychological problems (i.e., shyness, loneliness, and selfesteem) and behavioural addiction (i.e., smartphone addiction and Internet addiction).
• According to studies in the field of psychology, there are inter-relationships among these three psychological problems which have been ignored in research on FA.
• Testing the impacts of shyness and loneliness without considering the interrelationships between them may cause bias in estimating the importance of shyness in shaping FA.

2.2. Shyness, self-esteem, and loneliness effects

• Low self-esteem causes these people to blame themselves for failures in their social interactions or for reducing their social contact, which they believe ultimately leads to their loneliness (Perlman & Peplau, 1981) .
• These findings imply that shy people and those with low selfesteem are more willing to use Facebook, since they do not experience any face-to-face interactions online as they do in their real life interactions (Ebeling-Witte et al., 2007) .
• Shyness has a positive (a) direct and (b) indirect effect through loneliness on FA.

2.3 FA and low self-control interactive effects

• Over the past few years, studies have shown that employees' and students' excessive usage of Facebook have negatively affected their overall performances and productivity (Canales et al., 2009; Karpinski & Duberstein, 2009) .
• Those who have high self-control may have better ability to manage their time and control their intensive use of Facebook.
• Bandura's reciprocal determinism model in SCT consists of a triad of cognitive, behavioural, and environmental factors, which interactively affect each other.
• According to Bandura (1991), individuals' cognitive self-control over addictive can change how using Facebook interferes with other tasks , which in turn can affect their performance.
• Low self-control moderates negatively the impacts of FA on individuals' performance.

3.1. Sample and procedure

• To test their proposed hypotheses, shown in Fig. 1 , a questionnaire was presented via the online survey tool Google Forms, which participants accessed via a link posted on Facebook groups which have Malaysian members.
• Fourteen participants had to be excluded, either due to missing data or because the respondents were not Malaysian.
• The majority of the respondents declared that they had used Facebook for more than four years (89.4%), followed by two to four years (8.3%), and less than two years (2.3%).

3.2.2. Loneliness

• Most research on loneliness has been based on the UCLA loneliness scale (Russell, 1996) .
• Due to the discriminant validity issue between this scale and self-esteem, the items used to measure loneliness in the present study were adapted from Jong-Gieveld and Kamphuis's (1985) scale, consisting of eleven items such as "I wish I had a really close friend" and "There are enough people that I feel close to" [reverse coded).

3.2.3. Shyness

• Shyness was measured using a thirteen-item scale known as the revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale (Cheek, 1983) .
• Participants were provided with a five-point Likert-type scale and were asked to indicate the extent of their agreement, from 1 = "strongly disagree" to 5 = "strongly agree") for each item, such as "I feel tense when I'm with people I don't know well" and ''I have no doubts about my social competence" [reverse coded].

3.2.4. Low Self-esteem

• Low self-esteem was measured using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (Rosenberg, 1965) .
• The scale consisted of ten items, five of which were positively and five negatively worded, for assessing the global self-esteem (e.g., "I feel that I have a number of good qualities" [reverse coded] and "I wish I could have more respect for myself").
• The items are rated on a five-point Likert scale from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree".

3.2.5 Self-control

• The Grasmick et al. (1993) scale was used to measure self-control.
• Grasmick et al. (1993) used a four-point Likert scale; however, in the present study, a five-point Likert scale was used for each item, where 1 = "strongly disagree" and 5 = "strongly agree".

3.2.6 Performance

• The items measuring performance were adapted from Ali-Hassan et al. (1998) .
• The scale consisted of four items (e.g., "I fulfil all responsibilities required by my work tasks").
• The items are rated on a five-point Likert scale from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree".

3.4. Data analysis

• PLS was chosen due to the prediction-oriented character of the current research, which aims to evaluate how well the exogenous constructs can predict the endogenous variables.
• Moreover, estimation of complex models is often impossible with CB-SEM (Hair et al., 2017) .
• The model in the current research consists of a higher-order construct (FA), a moderator (self-control), and two mediators (self-esteem and loneliness).
• The reliability and validity of the measures were determined using this method before identifying the relationships within the model.

4.1 Measurement model

• To assess the convergent validity, factor loading, average variance extracted (AVE) and composite reliability (CR) were evaluated (Hair et al., 2017) .
• FA and low self-control are second-order constructs.
• As Table 1 displays, the CRs of all first-order and second-order variables indicated scores higher than 0.7 with factor loadings above 0.4.
• These results demonstrated satisfactory convergent validity (Hair et al., 2017) .
• As Henseler et al. (2015) suggested, discriminant validity was examined through the heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT).

4.2 Structural model

• The proportion of variance explained was used to determine the accuracy of the model's predictions.
• The bootstrapping analysis demonstrated that shyness had a positive indirect effect (= 0.152; p<0.01) on FA through loneliness with a t-value of 2.874.
• As such, all the hypotheses from H1 to H7 were supported except for H5a.
• The product indicator approach was employed to create the interaction of low selfcontrol and FA (Hair et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2019) .

5. Discussion

• The present study builds on their understanding of the role of shyness, self-esteem, and loneliness in FA.
• This consistency confirms that FA is essentially similar to other behavioural addictions such as mobile phone addiction and Internet addiction.
• This suggests that shy people and those with low self-esteem are likely to use Facebook to reduce their sense of loneliness by connecting with others online rather than attempting to connect with the same individuals in face-to-face settings.
• The impacts of FA on individuals' performance and the moderating effect of low self-control were also investigated.
• The findings show that loneliness mediates the impacts of both shyness and self-esteem on FA.

6. Conclusion

• FA has become a reality; with the increasing number of Facebook users and with the extended amount of usage time, this negative phenomenon may spread even more rapidly.
• With the aim of preventing this phenomenon and mitigating its negative effect on individuals' performance, this study investigated the impacts of psychological problems on FA and the role of self-control in offsetting the impacts of FA on individuals' performance.
• The authors findings highlighted that shyness had both a direct effect and an indirect effect through loneliness on FA.
• The first limitation is concerned with self-reported data, which can be affected by social desirability effects (Fischer & Fick, 1993) .
• The second limitation of the present study is concerned with its design.

Figures

Fig. 1. Model with related hypotheses

Fig. 2. Interaction effect of low self-control and Facebook addiction on performance

Table 3 Path coefficients and hypotheses Testing

Table 1 Measurement model evaluation

Table 2 Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT)

Full text

Edith Cowan University Edith Cowan University
Research Online Research Online
Research outputs 2014 to 2021
2021
Shyness, self-esteem, and loneliness as causes of FA: The Shyness, self-esteem, and loneliness as causes of FA: The
moderating effect of low self-control moderating effect of low self-control
Mohammad Iranmanesh
Edith Cowan University
Behzad Foroughi
Davoud Nikbin
Sunghyup Sean Hyun
Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworkspost2013
Part of the Psychology Commons, and the Science and Technology Studies Commons
10.1007/s12144-019-00465-w
This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Current Psychology. The =nal
authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00465-w
Iranmanesh, M., Foroughi, B., Nikbin, D., & Hyun, S. S. (2021). Shyness, self-esteem, and loneliness as causes of FA:
The moderating effect of low self-control.
Current Psychology, 40
(11), 5358-5369. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s12144-019-00465-w
This Journal Article is posted at Research Online.
https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworkspost2013/9811

1
Shyness, Self-Esteem, and Loneliness as Causes of FA: The Moderating Effect of Low
Self-Control
Mohammad Iranmanesh
a
, Behzad Foroughi
b
, Davoud Nikbin
c
, Sunghyup Sean Hyun
d
a
School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA 6027, Australia
b
Graduate School of Business, Universiti Sains Malaysia, USM, 11800 Penang, Malaysia
c
Faculty of Business, Sohar University, 311 Sohar, Oman 4 School of Tourism
d
Hanyang University, 17 Haengdang-dong, Seongdonggu Seoul 133-791, Republic of Korea
Abstract
This study examined the impacts of shyness, self-esteem and loneliness on Facebook
addiction by considering their inter-relations. Furthermore, the moderating effect of low self-
control on the relationship between Facebook addiction and individuals’ performance was
also examined. Data were collected via an online survey from 348 Malaysians and were
analysed using the partial least squares technique. The results showed that shyness has both a
direct effect and an indirect effect through loneliness on Facebook addiction. Although self-
esteem has no direct effect on Facebook addiction, it has an indirect effect through loneliness.
The results also confirmed that low self-control negatively moderates the relationship
between Facebook addiction and individuals’ performance. The findings of the study
contribute to knowledge on the impacts of social and psychological problem, including
shyness, self-esteem and loneliness, on Facebook addiction. In addition, this study is the first
attempt to investigate the moderating effect of personal characteristics, including low self-
control, on the relationship between Facebook addiction and performance. The results could
benefit psychologists, managers, and school counsellors in helping to prevent Facebook
addiction and control its effect on individuals’ performance by developing prevention and
intervention programs.
Keywords: Facebook Addiction; Shyness; Self-Esteem; Loneliness; Low Self-Control
1. Introduction
Using social network sites (SNSs) is considered as a core component of the daily tasks
for many users worldwide (Foroughi et al., 2019a). Recently, Facebook has emerged as the
most popular SNS, with 2.2 billion monthly active users (Statista, 2018). Meanwhile, some
studies have highlighted the negative consequence of using Facebook, especially in terms of
privacy (Pemoek et al., 2009; Special & Li-Barber, 2012), and most recently addiction

2
(Blachino & Przepiorka, 2018; Foroughi et al., 2019a; Masur et al., 2014). As such, Facebook
addiction (FA) has received considerable attention among researchers. Previous studies have
shown that FA has a harmful effect on students’ and employees’ performance (Moqbel &
Kock, 2018), subjective happiness (Satici & Uysal, 2015; Uysal et al., 2013), subjective
vitality (Satici & Uysal, 2015), health (Moqbel & Kock, 2018), and life satisfaction (Błachnio
et al., 2016a; Foroughi et al., 2019a; Satici & Uysal, 2015). Among these harmful outcomes,
the negative effect of FA on performance has been strongly evidenced in the literature. If we
accept it as a fact that FA has a negative effect on performance, the next question arises: How
can we minimize the negative effect of FA on individuals’ performance? According to the
literature, individuals with high self-control have the ability to concentrate on their tasks and
are less affected by job distractors such as Facebook (Liu et al., 2017; Eisenberg et al., 2004).
Furthermore, psychological studies of performance have consistently reported a negative
relationship between low self-control and performance (Martinez-Pons & Shaham, 1995;
Tangey et al., 2018). As such, in this study, high self-control was proposed as a potential
personality characteristic that may offset the impact of FA on individuals’ performance. This
study contributes to the emerging body of knowledge about outcomes of FA by testing the
moderating effect of self-control and proposing it as a personality characteristic that may
diminish the negative effect of FA on individuals’ performance.
Identifying the drivers of FA has been one key area of investigation. The first group of
studies pertains to the relationships between social and psychological needs and FA. For
instance, Foroughi et al. (2019a) found that using Facebook to gratify recognition and
entertainment needs will lead to FA. According to Masur et al. (2014), gaining competence
(the ability to work efficiently and the desire to achieve something meaningful), satisfying
the desire for autonomy (no external pressures and having volition), and satisfying the need
for relatedness (feelings of closeness and being connected to others) contribute to FA. This
group of researchers believe that due to Facebook’s interactive dynamics and the
corresponding possibilities to satisfy social and psychological needs, Facebook users might
be particularly at risk of becoming addicted. The second group of studies introduces users’
personality and psychological problems as drivers of FA. The ‘Big Five’ model consists of
personality factors with a high level of predictability; however, previous studies reveal that
only a very small amount of the variance in FA could be predicted through these factors
(Błachnio et al., 2016a, 2017; Hong et al., 2014). This can probably be explained by the fact
that the Big Five factors are too general to accurately predict a particular behaviour.
Therefore, it would be better to use narrower and more precise personality traits such as

3
shyness, self-esteem, and loneliness in order to examine FA. Much of the previous research
on the importance of these personality traits has investigated their impacts without
considering the inter-relations of these traits. For example, Błachnio and Przepiorka (2019)
tested the direct effects of self-esteem and loneliness on FA without testing the indirect effect
of self-esteem on FA through loneliness. Zhao et al. (2012) showed that these three variables
are inter-related. Disregarding the inter-relation of loneliness, self-esteem, and shyness will
create bias in the findings. To overcome the limitations of previous studies, the present
research tests the joint impact of loneliness, self-esteem, and shyness on FA by considering
their inter-relations. The findings extend the literature by illustrating a more accurate picture
of their impacts on FA.
2. Literature review and conceptual development
2.1. Facebook Addiction
Behavioural addiction could be considered as a disorder in the form of (1) behaviour that
intends to create pleasure and to alleviate stress and pain, and (2) failure to regulate
behaviour in spite of significant pernicious outcomes (Shaffer, 1996). In behavioural
addictions, the reward is usually the behaviour itself in gambling or using SNSs. FA is the
most recent type of behavioural addiction. Its symptoms are similar to the symptoms of
addiction to other types of behaviours or substances (Echeburua & de Corral, 2010). To be
more specific, FA symptoms include salience, modifying mood, withdrawal, tolerance,
relapse, and conflicts (Griffiths, 2005). Salience refers to the importance of a particular
activity in one’s life and the extent to which an activity dominates behaviours and thinking
(e.g., paying full attention to Facebook use in daily conduct, emotion, and cognition). Mood
modification is the extent to which an activity leads to a favourable change in emotional
states and improves mood (e.g., using Facebook brings numerous beneficial changes in the
state emotion). Tolerance and withdrawal are, respectively, the extent to which increasing
amounts of an activity are required to remain satisfied (e.g., increasing Facebook usage over
time) and the unpleasant feelings that occur when the activity is discontinued (e.g., showing
unpleasant emotional and physical symptoms if Facebook usage is restricted or blocked).
Conflict refers to the extent to which an activity causes conflict in relationships, in
work/education and in other activities (e.g., using Facebook negatively affects job or family
relations). Relapse is a tendency to quickly revert to earlier patterns of activity after a period
of abstinence (e.g., a quick return to excessive use of Facebook after being away from it for a
long time) (Andreassen et al., 2012; Griffiths et al., 2014; Douglas et al., 2008).

4
Previous studies on FA have highlighted a number of important topics such as
measurement of FA (Andreassen et al., 2012), the link between Facebook use and FA (Hong
et al., 2014; Serenko & Turel, 2015), outcomes of FA (Satici & Uysal, 2015; Błachnio et al.,
2016a, Foroughi et al., 2019a), psychological reasons for negative outcomes of FA (Moqbel
& Kock, 2018; Satici, 2018), the potential causes of FA, including social and psychological
needs (Balakrishnan & Shamim, 2013; Foroughi et al., 2019a; Masur et al., 2014), and
personality and psychological problems (Tang et al., 2016; Błachnio et al., 2017; Błachnio &
Przepiorka, 2018). Although these efforts have expanded our understanding of FA from
various angles, research on the interactive effect of personal characteristics and FA on
individuals’ performance is relatively underdeveloped. Therefore, testing the moderating
effect of low self-control is an attempt to fill this gap in the literature (Figure 1).
Previous studies on behavioural addiction considered low self-control as a mediator to
explain the relationship between psychological problems (i.e., shyness, loneliness, and self-
esteem) and behavioural addiction (i.e., smartphone addiction and Internet addiction). For
instance, Mei et al. (2015) found that both self-esteem and well-being were associated with
Internet addiction via the mediating effect of low self-control. In another study, Özdemir et
al. (2014) showed that depression and loneliness have indirect effects on Internet addiction
through low self-control. Han et al. (2017) also found that low self-control mediates the
impacts of shyness and anxiety on smartphone addiction. According to these studies, low
self-control is one of the causes of addictive behaviours. However, the findings of these
studies demonstrate that although psychological problems have indirect effects on addictive
behaviours through low-self-control, self-control is not able to fully explain these
relationships. For example, according to the findings of Ozdemir et al. (2014), loneliness has
both a direct effect and an indirect effect through self-control on Internet addiction.
Furthermore, Chan et al. (2012), drawing on Uses and Gratifications theory (U&G), proposed
recognition needs, information needs, social needs, and entertainment needs as drivers of FA.
As such, as psychological problems are not the only drivers of FA and low self-control
cannot fully explain the impacts of psychological problems on FA, there is no guarantee that
individuals with high self-control will not become addicted to Facebook. Self-control is
defined as “the ability to interrupt undesired behavioural tendencies” (Tangney et al., 2004;
p. 275). Individuals with high self-control have also shown better performance in comparison
to those with low self-control (Shoda et al., 1990). Accordingly, this study proposed self-
control as an ability that enables addicted Facebook users to interrupt their undesired

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions in "Shyness, self-esteem, and loneliness as causes of fa: the moderating effect of low self-control" ?

This study examined the impacts of shyness, self-esteem and loneliness on Facebook addiction by considering their inter-relations. Furthermore, the moderating effect of low selfcontrol on the relationship between Facebook addiction and individuals ’ performance was also examined. The findings of the study contribute to knowledge on the impacts of social and psychological problem, including shyness, self-esteem and loneliness, on Facebook addiction. In addition, this study is the first attempt to investigate the moderating effect of personal characteristics, including low selfcontrol, on the relationship between Facebook addiction and performance. 

Q2. What are the future works mentioned in the paper "Shyness, self-esteem, and loneliness as causes of fa: the moderating effect of low self-control" ?

It is strongly recommended that future studies that collect data through other types of respondents ( e. g., friends, parents ) should draw on more objective measuring scales. Therefore, longitudinal designs are recommended for future studies to examine the direction of observed effects and causal assumptions. 

Q3. What causes shy people to blame themselves for failures in their social interactions?

Low self-esteem causes these people to blame themselves for failures in their social interactions or for reducing their social contact, which they believe ultimately leads to their loneliness (Perlman & Peplau, 1981). 

Q4. What is the effect of a low self-control on performance?

Immediate gratification is an important characteristic of individuals with low self-control (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990); these individuals are more likely to do whatever brings them pleasure in the short term, even at the cost of some distant goal, and consequently FA has a more harmful effect on their performance in comparison to individuals with high self-control. 

Q5. What is the effect of self-control training on performance?

Self-control training can improve self-awareness and self-monitoring (Alberts et al., 2011; Wan & Sternthal, 2008) and effectively strengthen self-control. 

Q6. What is the effect of the FA on the performance of Facebook addicted users?

it is expected that FA has less effect on the performance of Facebook addicted users with high self-control in comparison to those with low self-control. 

Q7. What is the effect of social media on shy people?

Song et al. (2014) suggested that for shy people and for those with low social support, Facebook can be a place of compensation for their social problems. 

Q8. What is the main reason why shy people avoid social interactions?

They usually avoid social interactions in order to alleviate their stress and pain as well as to prevent negative consequences, which are often reflected in their loneliness. 

Q9. What are the main reasons why shy people choose Facebook?

Since shyness, low self-esteem, and sense of loneliness are the factors that preventpeople from engaging in face-to-face social interactions (Nelson et al., 2008; Cheek & Melchior, 1990; Sergin, 1996), people with such personality traits are more likely to choose Facebook as a remedy to solve these problems and feel more connected. 

Q10. What is the main reason why shy individuals use Facebook?

As such, they use Facebook as an alternative to face-to-face interaction to connect with others, which gradually leads to addiction. 

Q11. What is the relationship between Facebook addiction and performance?

Moqbel and Kock (2018) found that greater addiction to Facebook increases work distraction and decreases positive emotions, and consequently leads to lower performance. 

Q12. What is the effect of shyness and self-esteem on performance?

The indirect effect indicates that shy individuals and those who have low self-esteem may find it difficult to fulfil their social needs in a real-world context and consequently have a sense of loneliness and turn to Facebook, as they are more comfortable interacting online rather than face-to-face. 

Q13. What were the R2 values of self-esteem, loneliness, and performance?

In the present study, the R2 values of self-esteem, loneliness, FA, and performance were 0.259, 0.541, 0.208, and 0.105, respectively. 

Q14. What is the implication of social cognitive predictors of academic persistence and performance in engineering?

Social cognitive predictors of academic persistence and performance in engineering: Applicability across gender and race/ethnicity. 

Q15. What is the reason for the negative effect of FA on performance?

Regardless of the reason for this relationship, this study found that low self-control negatively moderates the relationship between FA and performance. 

Q16. What is the effect of self-control on the performance of Facebook addicted users?

it could be concluded that self-control could enable Facebook addicted users to give priority to their tasks, to control their tendency to check Facebook during work or study time and to concentrate on their tasks. 

Q17. What is the effect of FA on performance?

As such, by accepting FA as a fact, to help Facebook addicted individuals to overcome the negative impact of FA on their performance, their self-control should be strengthened.