ENVY, SOCIAL COMPARISON, AND IMPOSTOR SYNDROME AMONG LINKEDIN USERS IN INDIA

Abstract

LinkedIn changes the way young adults project career identities which may invoke social comparison, envy and impostor syndrome. The paper explored the relationship between social comparison, benign and malicious envy, and impostor syndrome on 104 Indian users (20–25) with variations in gender and time spent on the platform. The quantitative, cross-sectional, correlational design was adopted where the data were analysed using Pearson correlation and t-tests in the purposive sampling. Findings indicated that there was a significant positive correlation between social comparison and both types of envy, as well as the impostor syndrome. Notably, time spent on LinkedIn did not have any significant association, and gender differences were only observed to be significant in malicious envy. Finally, the analysis indicates that psychological experiences on professional sites are based on evaluative reactions and not the frequency of use, which provides a clue about the emotional influence of online visibility on young Indians.