Two faces of narcissism on SNS: The distinct effects of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism on SNS privacy control

•We approach narcissism in two constructs – vulnerable and grandiose narcissism.•Vulnerable narcissism has significant influence on SNS users' privacy control.•Grandiose narcissism has no influence on SNS user's privacy control.•Such distinct effects were found when controlling other personality predictors.

This study suggests narcissism as an important psychological factor that predicts one’s behavioral intention to control information privacy on SNS. Particularly, we approach narcissism as a two-dimensional construct—vulnerable and grandiose narcissism—to provide a better understanding of the role of narcissism in SNS usage. As one of the first studies to apply a two-dimensional approach to narcissism in computer-mediated communication, our results show that vulnerable narcissism has a significant positive effect on behavioral intention to control privacy on SNS, while grandiose narcissism has no effect. This effect was found when considering other personality traits, including self-esteem, computer anxiety, and concern for information privacy. The results indicate that unidimensional approaches to narcissism cannot solely predict SNS behaviors, and the construct of narcissism should be broken down into two orthogonal constructs.