Personality in the Digital Age: Dark Traits, Self-Esteem, and Online Shopping Addiction among College Teachers

Abstract

Online shopping is a ubiquitous aspect of the modern way of life and to certain people, the behavior may become addictive and the personality type will be a determinant. This paper examines the associations that exist between dark personality factors, self-esteem, and online shopping addiction among college teachers. In particular, it was theorized that the notion of narcissism would be positively correlated with the self-esteem, whereas psychopathy would be connected with the increased rates of online shopping addiction. The correlational research design was used and 204 college teachers across Lahore were sampled using purposive sampling. The respondents took the Short Dark Triad Scale (Jones and Paulhus, 2013), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965), and the Online Shopping Addiction Scale (Zhao et al., 2017), as well as a demographic survey. The relationships between the variables were considered using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and regression analyses. Findings showed that there was a high positive correlation between narcissism and self-esteem thus showing self-enhancing nature of narcissistic individuals. Interestingly, psychopathy also demonstrated a strong negative correlation with online shopping addiction, in the domains of withdrawal, relapse and conflict. There was also gender variation as male teachers registered high percentages of self-esteem as opposed to females. The findings illuminate the psychological processes that explain online shopping behavior of educators and offer useful information to educators, policymakers, and mental health professionals to detect and address personality-related weaknesses in academic settings.