Goal-Oriented Online Self-Presentations: The Development and Validation of the GO-SP Scales and Their Links with Authenticity, Audience Size, and Platform Choices.

Although adolescents’ self-presentations on social media are widely recognized as strategic and goal-oriented behaviors, the motivational processes underlying these behaviors are often empirically overlooked. Moreover, conceptually coherent and validated instruments to assess the diverse motivational goals guiding adolescents’ self-presentation are lacking. Addressing this gap, the current study developed and validated four new scales to measure adolescents’ goal-oriented online self-presentations (GO-SPs) among adolescents, grounded in Schwartz’s basic human values theory. Based upon cognitive interviews (nstudy1 = 7) and two cross-sectional studies (nstudy2 = 278; nstudy3 = 535), a scale for self-enhancement GO-SP’s, self-transcendence GO-SP’s, openness-to-change GO-SP’s, and conservation GO-SP’s was developed. Structural validity, construct validity, and metric measurement invariance across age, gender, and country (Belgium, France, Slovenia) were established for all scales. Additionally, the study provides descriptive insights into the average levels of subjective authenticity, preferred platform choices, preferred audience size, and demographic variations for each GO-SP scale. These validated instruments offer a robust foundation for future research into the motivational nature and potential self-effects of adolescents’ online self-presentations.