Does Desire Thinking Mediate the Influence of In-Group Identity as an Instagram User on Components of Problematic Instagram Use?

Desire-based thinking is associated with the magnitude and severity of problematic social media use. One’s ingroup identity has also been shown to be related to problematic behaviour including excessive social media use. Recent work showed that different factors predicted either compulsivity or withdrawal-based aspects of problematic Instagram. For compulsivity symptoms, negative metacognitions and the verbal perseveration component of desire thinking (i.e., persistent repetition of self-talk about the need to achieve a desired goal) were essential. In contrast, for withdrawal symptoms identity centrality (and no other dimensions of identity) and imaginal prefiguration (i.e., thoughts related to the mental images of a desired target or of its context for consumption) were the only predictors. The current study extended this work by testing whether the direct effects of components of ingroup identity as an Instagram user (N = 200) on increasing problematic use was also accounted for indirectly as a function of increasing desire-based thoughts as an active mediator, and whether these effects differed as a function of desire thinking component (i.e., imaginal prefiguration and verbal perseveration). Results showed that for overall problematic Instagram use desire thinking and the imaginal prefiguration component were found to fully mediate the influence of one ingroup self-investment aspect of identity, namely centrality i.e., chronicity of being an Instagram ingroup member for one’s experienced identity. Total desire thinking was also shown to fully mediate the effects of identity centrality only for that component of problematic Instagram use that reflected compulsivity-type symptoms and to be a partial mediator for withdrawal-type symptoms. Imaginal prefiguration and verbal perseveration desire thinking components were both shown to partially mediate the effect of identity centrality on withdrawal symptoms and but not show any mediating influence for compulsivity. These results reemphasise the primary significance of identity centrality (and ingroup self-investment processes) in accounting for variability in problematic Instagram use but also detail the importance of desire thinking factors as mediating its expression.