A new study published in Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice has found that maladaptive daydreaming is moderately linked to problematic social media use and hypersexual behaviour, with narcissistic personality traits acting as a potential bridge between these behaviours. Researchers Alessia Renzi and Rachele Mariani of Sapienza University of Rome, alongside Filippo Maria Nimbi of eCampus Telematics University, set out to explore how these intense daydreaming episodes relate to compulsive digital and sexual behaviours.
Maladaptive daydreaming is not yet an official psychiatric diagnosis, but it shares features with behavioural addictions and obsessive‑compulsive and dissociative tendencies. People who experience it tend to construct vivid, sensory‑rich imagined worlds and maintain a dual awareness that keeps them anchored to reality, while hours slip by.
To probe links with social media and sexual fantasy, the team also examined narcissism as a possible connecting mechanism. Narcissism here refers to a self‑esteem regulation strategy that can be grandiose or vulnerable. Grandiose narcissists stage an entitlement‑based self‑view, while vulnerable narcissists are highly sensitive to criticism and rely on imagination to shield themselves from shame.
Online recruitment drew 559 adults, average age 27, 68 per cent of whom were women, with respondents mainly from European countries such as Italy, Greece, Turkey and Spain. Nearly a third—about 29 per cent—scored above the clinical threshold for maladaptive daydreaming.
Participants completed several standardised questionnaires. One measured the frequency and intensity of maladaptive daydreaming, another assessed signs of social media addiction, and a third screened for hypersexual behaviour. A final set of questions evaluated grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic traits, including whether participants used sexual fantasies to avoid difficult problems—a function that mirrors daydreaming in the study’s view.
The results showed that higher levels of maladaptive daydreaming were moderately associated with both social media addiction and hypersexual behaviour, and that those reporting more intense daydreaming also tended to score higher on narcissistic measures.
Statistical analysis indicated that narcissism partially mediated the connections between maladaptive daydreaming and the two behaviours. In other words, narcissistic traits help explain why daydreaming and these compulsive patterns tend to appear together. Across the models, the three variables accounted for roughly 20 to 24 per cent of the variance in maladaptive daydreaming scores.
Patterns differed by type of narcissism: grandiose narcissistic traits were more strongly linked to hypersexual behaviour, while vulnerable traits showed a closer association with problematic social media use. The researchers note that younger participants tended to report more severe symptoms across all categories.
However, the researchers caution that the study’s cross‑sectional, online design limits causal conclusions. Self‑report data and an English‑language survey may also introduce biases, and the sample’s heavy female tilt may not fully capture how these dynamics unfold in men.
Despite these caveats, the findings point to self‑esteem regulation as a common thread in behavioural addictions. The authors suggest that interventions addressing frustration, shame and real‑world relationship‑building could help prevent overlapping compulsive habits, with therapies addressing underlying narcissistic vulnerabilities potentially more effective than simply trying to curb the surface behaviours.
The study, titled Maladaptive Daydreaming, Hypersexuality, and Social Media Use: Testing Narcissism as a Mediator in a Young Adult Online Sample, was conducted by Alessia Renzi, Filippo Maria Nimbi and Rachele Mariani.
