Intrapersonal conflicts of bloggers: psychological perspective

Abstract

Aim. The aim of the study was to establish depth and substantive characteristics of intrapersonal conflicts of bloggers. Internal conflicts were analyzed at the levels of individual typological characteristics, self-conception, and value orientation of personality.

Research methodology. The study was based on the method of content analysis and psychodiagnostic tests. 100 respondents (50 respondents who have blogs and 50 respondents who do not have blogs) were examined with Sobczyk’s individual typological questionnaire, Stephenson’s Q sorting, Budassi’s scale of self-assessment, Leary’s interpersonal diagnosis of personality, Fantalova’s value / accessibility correlation in different life spheres. Mann-Whitney test and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient were applied for statistical data processing.

Research results. The results of the survey support the hypothesis regarding the special character of the intra-personal conflicts of bloggers in comparison with those people who do not have blogs and use the Internet less often. In fact, conflicts between real self and virtual self are characteristic of bloggers. Most of the tension is the result of contradiction of ideas about their personal social and communicative competence and the opposition of coping strategies “acceptance of struggle – avoidance of struggle”.

Conclusions. There are different views on how the Internet influences psychological wellbeing. Social networks allow bloggers to present themselves in a certain desired light, to create some image, to stress their unique features, to attract attention to those character properties which are not manifested in real life as desired.