Nowadays, people use social media to communicate with others and as a tool for gaining social validation which allow others to acknowledge their desired identity. Drawing from symbolic self-completion theory, individuals perform self-symbolizing and seek social validation through the number of likes. This study investigates users with Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism and Narcissism) are more engage in which types of like seeking behaviors (normative vs. deceptive) and how users perceived their degree of relationship between Dark Triad traits and like seeking behaviors based on their motive of use (high vs. low Surveillance). 408 respondents are collected through MTurk, then using CFA and SEM to analyze the hypotheses development. The finding demonstrate that Machiavellianism traits have both like seeking behavior, the degree of their deceptive like seeking behavior is higher than normative like seeking behavior, and the relationship between Machiavellianism and deceptive like seeking behavior is strengthened (weakened) when users have high (low) surveillance motive. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

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