The Effect Of Passive Receptivity To Romantic Information On Intimacy Satisfaction:A Moderated Mediation Model

Social networking sites are ubiquitous in people’s lives,and the distinction between social networking site use,such as posting information and self-exposure,is called active social networking site use,as opposed to passive social networking site use,which refers to behavior that does not involve interaction but only browsing to receive information.Few studies have examined the effects of the type of romantic messages in passive social networking site use.Romantic messages are important in the development of intimate relationships,and such admirable "love" messages are more likely to receive individual attention than neutral messages.Due to the influence of positive presentation preferences,individuals may perceive that other people’s boyfriends/girlfriends are better than their own,triggering a social comparison tendency that leads to lower intimacy satisfaction.According to self-difference theory,individuals with high authenticity levels are able to form a unity between their ideal and real selves,have a clear self-understanding,and communicate their authentic selfexperience in intimate relationships,which helps to improve the quality of intimate relationships.High and low levels of authenticity may influence the possible negative effects of social comparison tendencies.Therefore,this study examines the relationship between passive acceptance of romantic information and intimacy satisfaction and the mediating role of social comparison tendencies,while exploring the moderating role of authenticity in the model.First,Study 1 used questionnaires to survey 504 college students who were in a relationship,and the results of the study were as follows:(1)social comparison tendency mediated the relationship between passive acceptance of romantic information and intimacy satisfaction;(2)authenticity moderated the relationship between passive acceptance of romantic information and social comparison tendency;(3)authenticity negatively predicted social comparison tendency and authenticity played a moderating role in the relationship between passive acceptance of romantic information and social comparison tendency.(3)authenticity negatively predicts social comparison tendency and the moderating role of authenticity in the passive acceptance of romantic information and social comparison tendency is significant.Second,Study 2 used an experimental approach to investigate the effects of different authenticity individuals on intimacy satisfaction in a social comparison scenario.The pre-experiment ensured the validity of the experimental material by conducting primary and re-evaluation of romantic information.Subjects were also recruited to test the validity of the recall writing task as a social comparison manipulation.The formal experiment used a one-way between-subjects design,with the independent variable being high and low levels of authenticity and the dependent variable being the Intimacy Satisfaction Scale score.The results of the study were as follows: individuals with high levels of authenticity had significantly higher levels of intimacy satisfaction than those with low levels of authenticity.In summary,it is concluded that passive acceptance of romantic information can lead to low intimacy satisfaction through social comparison tendencies,which play a mediating role.Authenticity has a moderating effect between passive receptivity to romantic information and social comparison tendency,with the degree of passive receptivity to romantic information enhancing social comparison tendency at low levels of authenticity and the degree of passive receptivity to romantic information not having a significant effect on social comparison tendency at high levels of authenticity.