Social Psychology Research

Abstract Introduction: Today, the practice of tattooing or piercing has become a widely popular activity, especially among young people, all over the world, yet it has received little research or attention in Iran. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between self-esteem and five main personality factors with the mediating role of social networking on people with tattoo/piercing. Method: This research adopted a descriptive correlational design. The study population consisted of all individuals with tattoos residing in Shiraz, from whom 183 participants were selected through convenience sampling from February 2021 to October 2022. The research tools included the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (1967), the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) Short Form (1985), and the Social Networks and Media Questionnaire (Jahanbani, 2018). For data analysis, the Partial Least Squares (PLS) approach for Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using SmartPLS software was utilized. Results: The results showed that there was no significant relationship between Self-Esteem and the Five Main Factors of Personality, even when Social Media was considered as a mediator (P<0.05). These results were confirmed by the value of the path coefficients and the goodness-of-fit index. Conclusion: This result indicates that with the widespread use of social media among people of various characteristics today, this type of connection does not play a significant role in the relationship between self-esteem and different dimensions of personality, especially in the community of individuals with tattoos. This finding suggests that while social media use is prevalent, it is not as influential in shaping these relationships as other factors might be.