Open Access

ARTICLE

Social desirability response bias confounds the effect of gender on social media addiction

Lihua Zuo^1,2,#, Jian Mao^2,#,*

1 Mental Health and Counseling Center, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang, 524088, China
2 Department of Psychology/Research Center of Adolescent Psychology and Behavior, School of Education, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, 510006, China

* Corresponding Author: Jian Mao. Email:
# Zuo and Mao contributed equally to this paper

Journal of Psychology in Africa 2025, 35(2), 241-247. https://doi.org/10.32604/jpa.2025.065765

Received 16 September 2024; Accepted 21 February 2025; Issue published 30 June 2025

Abstract

This study examined how social desirability responses confound the relationship between gender and social media addiction. A total of 496 college student social media users (females = 310, 62.5%, mean age = 20.15, SD = 1.26) completed an online questionnaire on Social Media Addiction and Social Desirability. Mediation analysis revealed that females were at higher risk for social media addiction. On the other hand, the indirect effect of gender on social media addiction via social desirability is associated with lower social media addiction, which suggests that social desirability had a suppression effect on social media addiction associated with gender. ANOVA results showed that females reported higher social media addiction scores than males in the low social desirability group; in the high group, gender differences were insignificant. This study’s unique contribution is to suggest that females are at higher risk than males for developing addictive social media behaviors. Based on this finding, student social media safety interventions should be gender sensitive to the social desirability effect on females who may hide their true addiction as a result.

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Keywords

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