Development and Validation of a Scale for Social Exhibitionism in the Internet (SEXI)

Socially exhibitionistic behavior in virtual environments has been a scarcely researched issue, despite its increasing relevance in modern societies. Although many theoretical approaches have been suggested, there is a lack of empirical work on this construct. One possible reason for this deficit is the absence of an appropriate instrument for the measurement. In order to measure socially exhibitionistic
behavior, a 15-item-scale and a corresponding shortened 8-item version was developed. An explorative factor analysis yielded the expected one-factor solution. Discriminant validity was investigated by analyzing the correlation structure between the new scale and several other measures of personality (Study 1). This was followed by an extensive validation study to investigate both discriminant and convergent validity (Study 2) and a quasi-experimental study comprising extreme prototypes of socially exhibitionistic behavior (Study 3). The findings strongly suggest that the new scale is an appropriate instrument for the measurement of socially exhibitionistic behavior in virtual environments.