Abstract:
With the acceleration of communication and access to information, individuals
have begun to date via social networking sites. Although online dating has spread
among university students recently, studies on this topic are very limited. The
present study aimed to investigate the effects of the Dark Triad personality
traits (i.e., Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism) on using Social
Networking Sites (SNS) to find partners and face-to-face meeting/dating after
flirting via the internet (i.e., face-to-face dating with a partner met via SNS).
Furthermore, it was also aimed to identify the mediating roles of risk-taking and
impulsivity in the relationships mentioned above. Data were collected from 358
University students (223 females and 135 males) who volunteered to complete
the survey packages. The data was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling
(SEM). The age of the participants ranged between 18 and 49 (M = 22.67, SD
= 2.83). The results revealed that narcissism was linked to using SNS to find
partners, and impulsivity fully mediated the relationships of Machiavellianism
with using SNS to find partners. In addition, the links of psychopathy with using
SNS to find partners were partially mediated by impulsivity, with risk-taking
fully mediating the effects of psychopathy and narcissism on face-to-face dating
with a partner met via SNS. The present research revealed that impulsivity and
risk-taking were the common attitudes underlying the links of psychopathy and
narcissism with dating someone met via SNS. For individuals who score high
on Machiavellianism, a low level of impulsivity is a protective factor; whereas
a high level of impulsivity is a triggering factor that leads those with high
psychopathy scores to search for partners via SNS. Contrary to expectations,
narcissism was not directly associated with face-to-face dating a partner who was
met via SNS. This finding may be related to the unidimensional measurement of
narcissism, since grandiose narcissism is more likely to be positively associated
with this risky and confident behavior, whereas vulnerable narcissism is less
likely to have such an association
