Personality Traits and Use of Social Media

Personality Traits and Social Media Use

Social Media has provided a new space for people to interact with each other. Researchers are interested in how personality traits might explain individual differences in how people behave on social media. Most research has been based on the Big Five Framework, while others also look into other traits such as narcissism.

The Big Five Model and Social Media Use

Extroversion:

Based on large-scale surveys, extroversion overall has been consistently linked to increase use of social media. For example, extroverts show increase use of social networking sites, instant messaging, video chats, and a higher possibility of posting political content (Correa, Bachmann, Kinsley, & Homero, 2013). According to Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010), extroverts tend to have more friends on social media (e.g. Facebook). Interestingly, extroverts actually show a smaller amount of personal information on Facebook than introverts, suggesting that extroverts rely more on their social skills to make connections (Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010). Across 20 countries from all over the world, Zuniga, Diehl, Huber, and Liu (2017) found that extroversion was consistently linked to information and social uses of social media, once again confirming that when someone feels comfortable talking to others in the real world, they would be also be more likely to do the same thing online. Therefore, they would use social medial more frequently in general to consume news and to make connections with others. In contrast, Nihan and Burcu (2013) did not find such link between extroversion and social media use, which could have been related to how the sample was selected.

Conscientiousness:

According to Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010), higher conscientious people have more friends on Facebook and upload fewer pictures than those who are not as conscientious. Similarly, Zuniga et al. (2017) and Nihan and Burcu (2013) found that conscientiousness to be a positive predictor of the use of social media.

Agreeableness:

According to Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010), highly agreeable people do not have more Facebook friends. However, such speculation needs to be further investigated, as highly agreeable individuals are more likely to sympathize with others and take extra time to comfort others, which would lead them to have more friends both in real life and an online space. In addition, a U-shaped correlation was found between agreeableness and the number of pictures and the amount of contact information they put on Facebook. Across cultures, Zuniga et al. (2017) found that agreeableness is a positive predictor of various types of social media use. Specifically, it more reliably predicts informational uses of social media, but less so for social interaction, which could have explained why agreeable individuals do not have more Facebook friends.

Neuroticism:

Consistently, emotional stability has been found a negative predictor of use of social networking sites (Correa et al., 2013), as highly neurotic individuals tend to rely more on such sites. The more emotionally stable one is, the less political content one posts on social media. According to Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010), contrary to individuals who are highly conscientious, neurotic individuals tend to share more personal information on Facebook (e.g. posting pictures of oneself) and send fewer private messages. Interestingly, there was a U-shaped correlation between neuroticism and the amount of basic information individuals post on Facebook. Specifically, individuals who were either least or most neurotic shared more information compared to those who were moderately neurotic. However, this did not necessarily mean that the least and most neurotic individuals had the motive behind their information sharing behavior. Researchers speculated that the emotionally stable individuals might be posting the information for self-actualization, while neurotic individuals did it for self-assurance (Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010). Slightly contradicting results were obtained by Zuniga et al. (2017) who found that emotionally stable people tend to use social media for all purposes less frequently.

Openness to experience:

Like extroversion and agreeableness, openness to experiences has also been found to be a positive predictor of frequency of social media use (Correa et al., 2013.; Nihan & Burcu, 2013). Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010) found that individuals who were more open to experiences used more features from the personal information section, suggesting that they are more likely to be communicative and expressive on social media. Across cultures, besides finding that individuals who are open to experiences use social media more often, it was found that these individuals showed less use of social media for news and relational uses (Zuniga et al., 2017). Additionally, people who are more open to new experiences spend more time using social media, which could be used for exploring new content and ideas. Also, they tend not to use information for public affairs or political reasons, which could have explained previous findings that showed mixed relationship between openness to experience and information seeking on social media (Zuniga et al., 2017)

Narcissism and Social Media Use

Narcissism involves self-promoting behaviors to gain approval and attention. Given that social media serves an ideal platform for narcissistic behavior, it seems natural to hypothesize that narcissistic individuals would show more use of social media. Buffardi and Campbell (2008) investigated how narcissism might be related to their behaviors on social media. It was found that narcissism level was predictive of more social activity online as well as more creation of self-promoting content. The study also revealed that others’ perception of one’s narcissism was mainly based on the number of social interactions, as well as how self-promoting and attractive the person appears to be in profile photos.

Likewise, Mehdizadeh (2010) examined how narcissism might be manifested on Facebook. Similar to what Buffardi and Campbell (2008) found, narcissism was significantly correlated with the frequency of Facebook log-in per day, time spent on Facebook per session, as well as one’s self-promoting behavior via the Main Photo, View Photos, Status Updates, etc. Interestingly, the content in the “About Me section was not correlated with narcissism, revealing the possibility that narcissistic individuals were trying not to be outwardly narcissistic, which could be socially undesirable. Mehdizadeh (2010) was also interested in whether there were any gender differences on such narcissistic behaviors. Results revealed that men and women did differ on their self-promotional content. Men were more self-promotional in the About Me section, but less in the Main Photos than women, which could be indicative of the socialization of gender roles.

Carpenter (2012) focused more the on the socially disruptive aspect of narcissism and further specified narcissistic behavior into grandiose exhibitionism (GE) and entitlement exhibition (EE), which would be linked to two distinctive patterns of behavior on social media. Results showed that those who engage in GE would engage in self-promoting behaviors through status updates, photos, and acquiring more friends. Meanwhile, EE was more linked to anti-social behaviors on social media such as arguing against negative comments towards oneself as well as seeking more support than one provides.

References

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