Wilkins, Krumrei-Mancuso, and Rouse | Positive Psychology Traits and Social Media social intelligence was the only positive psychology trait to significantly predict levels of social media engagement (β = .38, p < .001). Exploratory Analyses We also conducted exploratory Pearson (r) correla tions between all of the positive psychology traits of the VIA and Social Media Engagement scale as shown in Table 3. Due to this study being unique in exploring positive psychology traits in relation to social media, we would like to supplement our hypothesis-guided analysis with correlates for other positive psychology traits. Seven positive psychology traits were statistically significant at the .01 level (2-tailed): love (r = .22, p < .01), curiosity (r = .23, p < .01), forgiveness (r = .26, p < .01), humor (r = .30, p < .01), kindness (r = .24, p < .01), social intelligence (r = .38, p < .01), and zest (r = .26, p < .01). Two positive psychology traits were also significant at the .05 level: gratitude (r = .21, p < .05) and leadership (r = .20, p < .05). The remaining 15 traits, including appreciation of beauty (r = .12, p = .17) and creativity (r = .10, p = .23) were not statistically significant. Of all correla tions, social intelligence had the highest correlation with social media engagement (r = .38, p < .01). Discussion Our study sought to determine whether a relation ship exists between particular positive psychology traits and social media engagement. We hypoth esized that appreciation of beauty and excellence, creativity, and social intelligence would predict higher levels of social media engagement. Our hypotheses were partially supported. Our hypothesis-guided analyses indicated that age and gender were correlated with social media engagement, demonstrating that younger individuals and that women experienced higher levels of social media engagement than men. However, it is important to note that most indi viduals in this study identified as women (65.7 %) and were first-year students (54.3 %). Positive psychology traits accounted for a small, additional 13% of the variance in social media engagement, after accounting for age and gender. Only one of our predicted positive psychology traits was significantly correlated with social media engage ment. Neither creativity nor appreciation of beauty yielded statistical significance, but social intelligence yielded the highest statistical signifi cance among all 24 positive psychology traits. This indicates that individuals who scored higher on social intelligence were more likely to have more likes, comments, and followers on their Instagram account, and implies that those who are socially aware can garner social media engagement. This may also imply that social intelligence may be one of the best predictors of social media engagement on Instagram. Due to the fact that most personality related analyses on social media have included the Big Five model, our study brings about a new perspective by examining the relationship between positive psychology traits and social media engagement. However, to supplement the hypothesis-driven analyses, we presented the correlates for other strengths, which might generate future hypothesisdriven analyses for others. To our surprise, the TABLE 3 Correlations Between Positive Psychology Traits and Social Media Engagement Positive Psychology Traits Correlation with social media engagement (Pearson r) Sig. (2-tailed) Appreciation of beauty and excellence .12 .17 Creativity .10 .23 Social intelligence .38** <.001 Bravery .08 .36 Love .22** .009 Prudence −.06 .50 Teamwork .14 .10 Creativity .10 .23 Curiosity .23** .007 Fairness .11 .20 Forgiveness .26** .002 Gratitude .25 .01 Hope .12 .16 Humor .26 .002 Perseverance .02 .87 Judgement .01 .89 Kindness .24** .005 Leadership * ** .20 .01 Love of learning −.08 .38 Humility * −.05 .55 Perspective .13 .13 Self-regulation .03 .70 Spirituality .10 .20 SUMMER 2021 Zest .26 .002 PSI CHI JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH ** Note. * p < .05. ** p < .01. COPYRIGHT 2021 BY PSI CHI, THE INTERNATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY IN PSYCHOLOGY (VOL. 26, NO. 2/ISSN 2325-7342) 225