When it comes to discussion of the personality traits, it is necessary to underline the most evident of them, namely, conscientiousness, neuroticism, benevolence, extraversion as well as openness to experience (Hughes, Rowe, Batey " Lee, 2012). Neuroticism refers to the measure of emotional control, which focuses on the tendency to feel depressed, anxious, or sad. Extraversion refers to the degree of being talkative, adventurous, and sociable. Additionally, those high on openness to experience are usually curious about new encounters, and they appreciate imagination, adventure, and art (Hughes et al., 2012). On the other hand, agreeableness refers to how friendly people are by focusing on their kindness, generosity, warmth, helpfulness, and trust. Last, conscientiousness is the ability to act dutifully and remain self-disciplined. Several authors have considered the relationship between users’ personalities and their experience of using different social media; the study outcomes gave ground to varying conclusions (Özgüven " Mucan, 2013; Stronge et al., 2015; Amichai-Hamburger, Wainapel " Fox, 2002; Hughes et al., 2012; Van de Ven, Bogaert, Serlie, Brandt " Denissen, 2017; Amichai-Hamburger " Vinitzky, 2010). It is worth noting that social networks’ popularity among people around the globe may sufficiently help in defining numerous psychological and social issues, as the number of users and the diversity of the profiles provides quite consistent sampling for research. Differences in methodological approaches were the main reason why some studies made findings that contradicted others. Future research should address observed methodological differences to provide a generalizable position on this issue.
Association between Personality Traits and Activity in Social Networks
Hughes et al. (2012) carried out a study to identify traits reflected in the informational and social use of Twitter and Facebook. They found that only two personality characteristics, which are neuroticism and sociability, correlated with Facebook social use. Individuals, who are high in neuroticism and more socially-oriented, tend to connect with others through Facebook. Sociability and neuroticism, however, are not reflected on Twitter (Hughes et al., 2012). At the same time, Sharma and Jaswal (2015) found that neuroticism had a negative relationship with Facebook usage. Highly neurotic people limit their interaction levels within social networks. Also, they usually have few friends on Facebook (Sharma " Jaswal, 2015). Hughes et al. (2012) noted that Facebook information was correlated to sociability, openness, neuroticism and extraversion. The findings also showed that using Twitter to obtain information has a positive correlation with the need for cognition and conscientiousness and negative correlation with extraversion, sociability and neuroticism (Hughes et al., 2012). Even though Hughes et al. (2012) did not come to any conclusion relating to agreeableness and Facebook use, earlier research by Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010) had noted that agreeableness affected people’s behavior on Facebook. Moreover, later research by Sharma and Jaswal (2015) revealed a positive correlation between agreeableness and Facebook use among females.
Özgüven and Mucan (2013) sought to establish how the use of social media related to users’ personalities. Their findings indicated that there was a weak connection between the use of social networks and extraversion. It is important to note that heir results differed significantly from those of Hughes et al. (2012), who had found that Facebook use had no connection with extraversion as well as using Twitter. On the other hand, Sharma and Jaswal (2015) found that such trait had a positive correlation with Facebook usage. They noted that extroverts were more willing to share personal information about their whereabouts and respond to people’s comments compared to introverts. According to Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010), there is a possibility to identify an individual as an extrovert depending on the number of friends they have on Facebook. Therefore, extraversion is associated with some Facebook aspects such as the size of an individual’s friends’ number (Stronge et al., 2015).
Moreover, Özgüven and Mucan (2013) found that an individual’s social media use reflected the degree of their conscientiousness. Their position partially supports the research of Hughes et al. (2012), who stated that there was no correlation between Facebook usage for social purposes and three big personality characteristics, which include conscientiousness, openness to new experience and extraversion. However, Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010) made contradictory findings, which indicated that people’s readiness to experiences determines the number of Facebook features they use. Hughes et al. (2012) also found that the use of Twitter for socializing has a significant correlation with openness, sociability and conscientiousness. Amichai-Hamburger et al. (2002) noted that personality traits influence the way people use social media to a great extent. They argued that extroverts enjoy face-to-face communication while introverts choose online communication most of the time. At this point, it is important to note that inconsistencies in findings could be linked to varying levels of focus when conducting the studies. Whereas some studies have focused on social media in general, others have focused on specific aspects of a particular social media platform such as Facebook and Twitter (Hughes et al., 2012; Özgüven " Mucan, 2013).
Additionally, the purpose of social media use appears to be a major determinant of whether a trait correlates with a certain platform. Using some professional platforms such as LinkedIn for purposes of recruiting employees shows that potential employers can infer extraversion from an individual’s LinkedIn profile and not the other for major personality traits (Van de Ven et al., 2017). Stoughton, Thomson and Meade (2013) carried out a study to determine whether an individual’s traits could be inferred based on their posts. They noted that social media posts relating to an individual’s drug use are a manifestation of high levels of extraversion. There is a high possibility that individuals who post images or other information on their Facebook walls showing them abusing drugs or alcohol are extroverts. Stoughton et al. (2013) got inconclusive results on whether people’s conscientiousness could be inferred from their social media posts.
Conclusion and Future Research
Studies on whether personality traits can be reflected in people’s social media use have provided inconsistent results. Some of the studies have arrived at conclusions that conflict with the findings of other studies. Three major reasons could explain the observed inconsistencies. First, most of the studies discussed above used small sample sizes which influenced their conclusions. Second, study findings appear to be inconsistent because researchers used varying personality facets. Third, some of the studies relied on participants’ self-reports instead of using more objective criteria. Future research should use a large sample size and focus on narrow variable facets of social media sites. Last, future research should eliminate weaknesses of previous studies such as relying on responses from participants and using students as the only participants.
References
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Van de Ven, N., Bogaert, A., Serlie, A., Brandt, M. J., " Denissen, J. J. A. (2017). Personality perception based on LinkedIn profiles. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 32(6), 418-429. DOI: 10.1108/JMP-07-2016-0220.
