Sad-fishing: Understanding a maladaptive social media behavior in college students.

We investigated psychological factors that might predispose individuals to sad-fish or exaggerate their emotional state online to generate sympathy. : Participants ( = 347) were collegiate social media users from a large university in the Southcentral United States. Participants completed an anonymous online survey and were categorized as sad-fishers or non-sad-fishers. Groups were compared on attachment style and levels of interpersonal and online social support. Sad-fishers trended toward anxious attachment. Groups did not differ on perceived interpersonal or online social support. Anxious attachment was significantly negatively associated with interpersonal support. Sad-fishing may not be triggered by an acute perceived lack of social support, but rather, may be more strongly related to the persistent trait of anxious attachment. This is a starting-point for understanding the relatively new phenomenon of sad-fishing and may aid in discerning how best to clinically intervene with those who sad-fish.