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Personality traits and self-presentation at Facebook
Personality and Individual Differences 69 (2014) 162–167
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Personality traits and self-presentation at Facebook q Eunsun Lee a, Jungsun Ahn b, Yeo Jung Kim c,⇑ a
School of Advertising and Public Relations, Hongik University, F410, 2639 Sejong-ro, Jochiwon-eup, Sejong, Republic of Korea School of Advertising and Public Relations, Hongik University, F407, 2639 Sejong-ro, Jochiwon-eup, Sejong, Republic of Korea c School of Advertising and Public Relations, Hongik University, F513, 2639 Sejong-ro, Jochiwon-eup, Sejong, Republic of Korea b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 30 October 2013 Received in revised form 16 May 2014 Accepted 17 May 2014
Keywords: Personality Extraversion Openness to experience Neuroticism, narcissism Social networking site (SNS) Facebook Self-presentation Like, Comment, Share
a b s t r a c t The current study explores the relationship between personality traits and self-presentation at Facebook. An online survey of Facebook users was conducted. The results suggest that extraversion was positively related to self-presentation both on Wall and at News Feed. Extraverts uploaded photos and updated status more frequently, and had more friends displayed on Wall than introverts. Besides, extraverts clicked Like, wrote Comment and clicked Share at News Feed more frequently than introverts. Moreover, narcissists with high rivalry frequently updated their Status on Wall. In addition, neuroticism and conscientiousness were negatively related to writing Comment at News Feed. Lastly, openness to experience was negatively related to clicking Share at News Feed. The results and implications are discussed in conjunction with previous research. Suggestions for future research are provided. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Facebook (FB) is an online venue where the users not only socialize with one another (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; boyd & Ellison, 2008), but also construct and manage their identities via self-presentation (Zhao, Grasmuck, & Martin, 2008; Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012). FB allows the users to manage their self-presentation by uploading pictures, updating status, and displaying friends (Kleck, Reese, Behnken, & Sundar, 2007; Zhao et al., 2008; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Mehdizadeh, 2010; Gosling, Augustine, Vazire, Holtzman, & Gaddis, 2011; Ong et al., 2011). A considerable amount of research has examined the association between self-presentation at FB and personality traits (e.g., Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Moore & McElroy, 2012; Ross et al., 2009). However, most FB research to date has focused on self-presentational information displayed on Wall (Zhao et al., 2008; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Mehdizadeh, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Ong et al., 2011; Moore & McElroy, 2012). The current study goes beyond this and suggests that FB users can also present who they
⁄ This work was supported by the Hongik University new faculty research support fund. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 10 5531 4130. E-mail address: [email protected] (Y.J. Kim). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.05.020 0191-8869/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
are by using Like, Comment and Share buttons provided at News Feed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between personality traits and self-presentation at FB, both via the information displayed on Wall and the behaviors at News Feed.
2. Literature review 2.1. Self-presentation at FB FB offers two venues where the users can strategically manage their self-presentation: Wall and News Feed. First, Wall is where FB users display, edit and manage self-presentational information including profiles, photos, and connections for others to see. boyd (2009) suggested that the ‘‘profile can be seen as a form of digital body where individuals must write themselves into being’’ (p. 131). In an extensive content analysis of FB user profiles, Nosko, Wood, and Molema (2010) identified 97 items that people might disclose in detail. FB users generally present quite accurate descriptions of themselves at their profiles (Back et al., 2010). The other venue, News Feed, is the first page that the users see as they log into FB. Since News Feed displays friends’ FB activities such as status updates, photos and video uploads, links, application activities and likes, the users spent most of FB time at this page (Lipsman, Mudd, Rich, & Bruich, 2012). Also, a user’s News Feed
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is open to his/her friends, who can view the people that are connected to the user and their activities. Furthermore, News Feed offers Like, Comment, and Share buttons, which appear on every post at FB News Feed. Introduced in 2004, Like is a quick and easy way to share content with a click. It signals the user’s appreciation for the content and support for the person who posted it. It is also the fastest way to distribute the content at FB. Comment, on the other hand, allows for a dynamic expression of thoughts and feelings in response to a posting. There are no restrictions as to what is said in Comment. Most recently introduced is the Retweet-style Share button. It is a relatively high effort response to a posting, which may include personalizing the titles and thumbnails of the links for added visibility. Despite the differences, these three buttons are all used for responding to and sharing contents posted at News Feed. Furthermore, the use of these buttons is displayed both on the user’s and friends’ News Feeds. Therefore, the use of Like, Comment, and Share can be viewed, tracked, and trigger a response from friends. In this process, the user can manage self-presentation, signaling the user’s likes and dislikes, close and distant friends, expertise, interests, political views and so on. Therefore, we consider Like, Comment and Share buttons as self-presentational buttons and use of Like, Comment and Share buttons as self-presentational behaviors that help manage FB users’ identity at FB. Wall and News Feed differ mainly in two ways. First, the information on Wall can be said self-oriented whereas the information at News Feed is other-oriented. FB users post and manage their own information on Wall to promote themselves. At News Feed, in contrast, the users are provided with their friends’ information, which can trigger the users’ reactions as self-presentational behaviors. Another difference between Wall and News Feed concerns interactivity of the communication. The communication on Wall is typically one-way as the users display self-presentational information for others to see. On the other hand, the communication at News Feed is two-ways as the users give feedback to others using Like, Comments, and Share. In short, ‘‘I’’ manage the Wall, and ‘‘We’’ maintain the News Feed via social interactions. Given these differences, both Wall and News Feed are worthy to investigate to understand self-presentation at FB.
2.2. Research on self-presentation and personality Before the time of FB, personal websites provided an arena for individuals to express their personalities and to create and experiment with multiple identities (Marcus, Machilek, & Schütz, 2006). FB makes it easier to create and maintain such online presence than ever before. Accordingly, a considerable amount of research has examined the association between self-presentational information at FB Wall and personality (e.g., Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Moore & McElroy, 2012; Ross et al., 2009). In the current study, we investigate how personality traits are related to both self-presentational information on Wall (the frequency of photo uploads, the frequency of status updates, the number of friends) and self-presentational behaviors (utilization of Like, Comment and Share buttons) at News Feed. As a broad classification of personality trait, the big five factors of personality has been repeatedly adopted in FB research (Ross et al., 2009; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Ryan & Xenos, 2011; Moore & McElroy, 2012; Ljepava, Orr, Locke, & Ross, 2013; Seidman, 2013). The model includes extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness. Narcissism is another personality trait that appears highly related to self-presentation on SNS (Buffardi & Campbell,
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2008; Bergman, Fearrington, Davenport, & Bergman, 2011; Ong et al., 2011; Carpenter, 2012; Wang, Jackson, Zhang, & Su, 2012). Thus, the current study considers a total of six personality traits in order to investigate the relationship between self-presentation at FB and personality. 3. Hypotheses 3.1. Extraversion Extraversion describes the extent to which an individual feels comfortable engaging in direct social interactions with others (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Individuals high in extraversion are dominant, expressive, talkative and sociable. Extraversion is known as the personality factor highly related to FB usage (Ross et al., 2009; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Ryan & Xenos, 2011). Ross et al. (2009) found a positive relationship between extraversion and using SNS for communication. Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010) suggested that extroverts had a greater number of friends than introverts. Gosling et al. (2011) suggested that extraverts seek out virtual social contacts and were more engaged in online social experience than introverts. Based on these previous studies, we hypothesized: Hypothesis 1. Extraversion will be positively associated with the self-presentational information on Wall and self-presentational behavior at News Feed.
3.2. Neuroticism Neuroticism refers to the lack of emotional stability and tendency to experience psychological distress (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Neurotics would thus feel more comfortable with information on Wall than information at Newsfeed since they can control the former whereas the latter is out of their hands. Indeed, Ross et al. (2009) found that the highly neurotic FB users chose the Wall as their favorite FB component while less neurotic users selected photos. Photos often contain emotional states and the geographical location they were taken, which the users cannot control. Therefore, the users high in neuroticism may find photos threatening. Thus, we expect the following: Hypothesis 2. Neuroticism will be positively associated with the self-presentational information on Wall. However, due to a lack of control, we expect a negative relationship between neuroticism and self-presentation behavior at News Feed.
3.3. Agreeableness Agreeableness represents the tendency to be sympathetic, courteous, flexible, kind, trusting and forgiving (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Compared to extraversion, less research has been conducted with regard to agreeableness and FB use (Moore & McElroy, 2012). Moore and McElroy (2012) showed that agreeable users were more likely to post Wall contents about themselves than less agreeable users. Wang et al. (2012) found that agreeableness was positively related to making comments on SNS. They argued that since agreeable users were friendly, warm and sympathetic, they should be more likely to post friendly and positive comments to other users’ posts. Likewise, FB users high in agreeableness may show their emotional support to others via self-presentational behaviors at News Feed. Thus, we propose:
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Hypothesis 3. Agreeableness will be positively associated with self-presentational information on Wall, and self-presentational behavior at News Feed.
3.4. Openness to experience Openness to experience, also known as intellect/imagination, represents an individual’s curiosity, open-mindedness, and willingness to explore new ideas (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Previous studies show that openness is positively related to the FB use as an alternative method of communication (Ross et al., 2009) and the number of features for the personal information (AmichaiHamburger & Vinitzky, 2010). However, FB launched almost a decade ago in 2004, FB has become a relatively mainstream communication tool for college students (Ross et al., 2009) and is no longer new experience (Wang et al., 2012). As a variety of new social networking services have launched, such as Instagram, Tumblr, FB may not be perceived as new to college students. As such, some recent FB research has found no relationship between openness to experience and FB use (Moore & McElroy, 2012; Wang et al. 2012). Based on these previous studies, we propose: Hypothesis 4. Openness to experience will not be associated with self-presentational information on Wall and self-presentational behavior at News Feed.
3.5. Conscientiousness Conscientiousness represents the tendency to be reliable, responsible, organized and self-disciplined (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Conscientiousness has been shown to be negatively related to the use of the Internet because those in high consciousness are dutiful and responsible in their tasks thus avoid distractions. As expected, conscientiousness was negatively associated with uploading photos (Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Ryan & Xenos, 2011) and time spent on Wall (Moore & McElroy, 2012). Likewise, we expect that those high in conscientiousness use FB less than others, which results in barely clicking Like and hardly writing Comment on friends’ postings. Thus, we expect the following:
friends in the spotlight instead of themselves. This leads to our final hypothesis: Hypothesis 6. Narcissism will be positively associated with selfpresentational information on Wall. However, there will be a negative relationship between narcissism and self-presentational behavior at News Feed.
4. Method 4.1. Sample and procedure College students participated in an online survey in exchange for extra credits. The respondents were all FB users. After eliminating incomplete responses, the sample size was 236. Among them, 108 was male (45.8%) and 128 female (54.2%). The mean age of the respondents was 20.6 years old (SD = 2.03). About 80% of the respondents have used FB for more than a year. About 83% reported having one hundred or more friends. More than a half (56.5%) spent less than an hour on FB daily while about ten percent spent two hours or more. 4.2. Measures The online survey questionnaire measured the big five factors of personality traits, narcissism, self-presentational information on Wall, self-presentational behaviors at News Feed, general FB usage, and demographic variables. The big five personality traits were measured with the mini-IPIP scales (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird, & Lucas, 2006) and narcissism was measured with NARQ (Back et al., 2013). Reliabilities for personality traits were all acceptable ranging from a = .66 to a = .84 (see Table 1). As for dependent variables, self-presentational information on Wall was operationalized in three ways: the frequency of uploading Photos, the frequency of updating Status, and the number of Friends. Similarly, self-presentational behaviors at News Feed was operationalized in terms of the frequency of clicking Like, the frequency of writing Comment, and the frequency of clicking Share on seven-point Likert-type scales. Finally, general FB usage (FB experience, time spent daily, etc.) and demographic data (gender, age, etc.) were collected. 5. Results
Hypothesis 5. Conscientiousness will be negatively associated with self-presentational information on Wall and self-presentational behavior at News Feed.
3.6. Narcissism Narcissism refers to ‘‘a personality trait reflecting a grandiose and inflated self-concept (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008, p. 1304). Narcissists are exhibitionistic, attention-seeking, and aggressively concerned about their physical appearances (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008; Bergman et al., 2011; Ong et al., 2011; Carpenter, 2012). Since narcissists are usually unable or unwilling to form connections requiring emotional investments, they prefer relational benefits from ‘‘weak tie’’ to ‘‘strong tie’’ connections. To narcissists, having many FB friends is an easy way to demonstrate their popularity and importance (Bergman et al., 2011). Narcissism is also positively related to uploading photos and updating status (Ong et al., 2011) and preference for these features (Ryan & Xenos, 2011). In sum, highly narcissistic individuals want to get the attention and be in the spotlight. Therefore, those high in narcissism may be reluctant to use Like, Comments, or Share, which give emotional support to their friends and, more importantly, place the
Mean and standard deviations along with a correlation matrix were shown in Table 1. First, we ran hierarchical multiple regression analyses with selfpresentational information on Wall (the frequency of uploading Photos, the frequency of updating Status, and the number of Friends, as dependent variables, with two sets of independent variables entered in each of two Blocks. Block 1 controlled for gender, FB experience (Moore & McElroy, 2012). Following this, the six personality traits were entered as in Block 2. Their betas and significant levels are reported as Models 2 in Table 2. Overall, the six personality traits helped better explain the variance in self-presentational information on Wall. With the addition of these variables, Models 2 explained 31% of the variance in the frequency of uploading Photos, 32% of the frequency of updating Status, and 31% of the variance in the number of Fiends respectively, all significant increases from Model 1. Therefore, the six personality traits together did help predict self-presentational information on Wall. Extraversion, in particular, was a significant predictor of the frequency of uploading Photos, the frequency of updating Status, and the number of Friends. As expected, extraverts tended to upload photos and update their status more frequently, and have more
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E. Lee et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 69 (2014) 162–167 Table 1 Zero-order correlation and descriptive statistics (N = 236).
1. Gender 2. FB experience 3. Extraversion (a = .73) 4. Neuroticism (a = .68) 5. Agreeableness (a = .67) 6. Openness (a = .72) 7. Conscientiousness (a = .71) 8. Narcissism (a = .84) 9. Photo uploads 10. Status updates 11. Number of friends 12. Like 13. Comment 14. Share * ** ***
Mean SD
1
2
.46 3.20 3.31 3.49 3.74 3.78 3.08 3.30 .55 .52 .81 .69 .64 .49
1 .081 .011 .147⁄ .045 .016 .244⁄⁄ .048 .045 .032 .006 .132⁄ .078 .023
1 .243⁄⁄ .203⁄⁄ .289⁄⁄ .017 .013 .122 .538⁄⁄ .522⁄⁄ .507⁄⁄ .527⁄⁄ .593⁄⁄ .345⁄⁄
.50 1.50 .76 .83 .70 .69 .80 .60 .20 .20 .18 .18 .18 .18
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
1 .029 .409⁄⁄ .112 .078 .226⁄⁄ .311⁄⁄ .322⁄⁄ .373⁄⁄ .284⁄⁄ .405⁄⁄ .228⁄⁄
1 .073 1 .146⁄ .102 .024 .020 .316⁄⁄ .052 .075 .204⁄⁄ .061 .143⁄ .082 .238⁄⁄ .025 .140⁄ .019 .251⁄ .049 .084
1 .014 .115 .054 .077 .041 .071 .008 .149⁄
1 .087 1 .054 .171⁄ 1 .006 .210⁄⁄ .735⁄⁄ 1 .019 .088 .449⁄⁄ .422⁄⁄ 1 .064 .012 .515⁄⁄ .489⁄⁄ .439⁄⁄ 1 .132⁄ .153⁄ .579⁄⁄ .570⁄⁄ .524⁄⁄ .792⁄⁄ 1 .043 .079 .406⁄⁄ .336⁄⁄ .257⁄⁄ .492⁄⁄ .458⁄⁄ 1
Statistically significant at p < .05. Statistically significant at p < .01. Statistically significant at p < .001.
Table 2 Self-presentational Information on Wall. Photo uploads Model1 Control Gender FB experience Personality Extraversion Neuroticism Agreeableness Openness Conscientiousness Nar)Admiration Nar)Rivalry R2 Adjusted R2 F DF DR2 * ** ***
.003 .542⁄⁄⁄
.294 .288 47.266
Status updates Model2 .007 .506⁄⁄⁄ .152⁄ .037 .009 .065 .079 .078 .031 .340 .313 12.594 2.192 .046
Model1 .073 .535⁄⁄⁄
.285 .279 45.520
Number of friends Model2 .054 .482⁄⁄⁄ .219⁄⁄ .048 .064 .049 .018 .004 .148⁄ .352 .326 13.350 3.257 .067
Model1 .033 .514⁄⁄⁄
.262 .256 40.541
Model2 .035 .465⁄⁄⁄ .260⁄⁄⁄ .040 .021 .011 .017 .022 .096 .334 .307 12.328 3.410 .072
Statistically significant at p < .05. Statistically significant at p < .01. Statistically significant at p < .001.
Table 3 Self-presentational Behaviors at News Feed. Like Model1 Control Gender FB experience Personality Extraversion Neuroticism Agreeableness Openness Conscientiousness Nar) Admiration Nar) Rivalry R2 Adjusted R2 F DF DR2 * ** ***
.096 .530⁄⁄⁄
.297 .291 47.583
Statistically significant at p < .05. Statistically significant at p < .01. Statistically significant at p < .001.
Comment Model2 .102 .517⁄⁄⁄ .213⁄⁄ .038 .080 .058 .018 .036 .037 .342 .315 12.585 2.114 .045
Model1 .039 .040
.359 .354 63.100
Share Model2 .595⁄⁄⁄ .561⁄⁄⁄ .218⁄⁄⁄ .143⁄ .002 .011 .124⁄ .076 .021 .463 .441 20.892 6.018 .104
Model1 .000 .339⁄⁄⁄
.115 .107 14.684
Model2 .007 .313⁄⁄⁄ .167⁄ .023 .068 .143⁄ .030 .054 .020 .164 .130 4.779 1.840 .049
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friends than introverts. In addition, narcissistic rivalry was positively related to the frequency of updating Status. The more narcissistic the FB user, the more frequently she or he updated status. In addition, we ran hierarchical multiple regression analyses with self-presentational behaviors at News Feed (the frequency of clicking Like, the frequency of writing Comment, and the frequency of clicking Share) as dependent variables, with two sets of independent variables entered in each of two Blocks. Block 1 controlled for gender, FB experience (Moore & McElroy, 2012). Following this, the six personality traits were entered as independent variables in Block 2. Their betas and significant levels are reported as Models 2 in Table 3. Some of the personality traits appeared to predict self-presentational behavior at FB News Feed. With the addition of these personality traits, Models 2 explained 34% of the frequency of clicking Like, 46% of the frequency of writing Comments, and the frequency of clicking Share respectively, all significant increases from Model 1. Thus, it can be said with some confidence that the six personality traits together significantly contribute to self-presentational behavior at News Feed. More specifically, extraversion was a significant predictor of clicking Like, writing Comments and clicking Share. In contrast, neuroticism and conscientiousness were negative predictors of writing Comments. In addition, openness to new experience was a negative predictor of clicking Share.
scales, represents the extent to which an individual has vivid imaginations and the ability to understand abstract ideas (Donnellan et al., 2006). The act of clicking Share on other’s postings may represent a multitude of personality traits depending on what the content is about. Unfortunately, the current study did not qualitatively investigate the target contents of sharing. Further research is needed in order to interpret this negative relationship between openness to experience and the frequency of Share. Finally, narcissism was positively related to updating Status. Updating Status can be seen as an act of drawing attention to themselves. Status updates not only announce how the user is doing, but also trigger others to click Like and to write Comments in reply. Thus, frequently updating Status may represent the needs to be in the spotlight and the center of conversations among FB friends. Our finding is consistent with Carpenter’s (2012) finding that grandiose exhibitionism was related to updating Status. Overall, the current study expands the extant literature by shedding light into the previously overlooked self-presentational behavior at News Feed. It appears that the personality traits contribute not only to the self-presentational information on Wall but also self-presentational behavior at News Feed. Extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness as well as open to experience appeared to be related to the use of Like, Comment, and Share.
6. Discussion
7. Limitations & suggestions for future research
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality and self-presentation at FB. Specifically, the current study examined how the big five factors and narcissism relate to self-presentational information at FB Wall and self-presentational behaviors at News Feed. The results indicate that the six personality traits helped better explaining self-presentation at FB to some extent. Among the six personality traits examined, extraversion was most relevant to self-presentational information on Wall as well as self-presentational behavior at News Feed. Consistent with the previous studies (Ross et al., 2009; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Ryan & Xenos, 2011), extraverts uploaded photos and updated status more frequently, and displayed more friends at FB. In addition, the current study found that extraverts also engaged in self-presentational behavior such as clicking Like, writing Comments and clicking Share more frequently than introverts at News Feed. Thus, extraverts seem to actively engage in self-presentation not only on Wall but also at News Feed. These results are consistent with Ryan and Xenos’ findings (2012) indicating that extroverts use more communicative features of FB. Secondly, neuroticism was negatively associated with self-presentational behaviors at News Feed. As expected, those high in neuroticism appeared to write Comments less frequently than those low in neuroticism. As suggested in the previous research (Ross et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2012; Seidman, 2013), neurotics seem to use FB passively. Those high in neuroticism may be reluctant to engage in self-presentational behavior at News Feed because its lack of control triggers discomfort and anxiety to them. Third, conscientiousness was negatively associated with the frequency of writing Comment. Similar to Ryan and Xenos (2011) finding, which showed that conscientiousness was negatively related to time spent on SNS, we found that conscientious individuals less frequently wrote comments on friends’ postings. Fourth, openness to experience was negatively related to clicking Share. Openness to new experience, measured by the mini-IPIP
As in any research, the current study bears some limitations that the readers should keep in mind. Firstly, the sample used in this study was drawn from a single college in South Korea, which undermines the generalizability of the findings. Although college students represent the majority of FB users in South Korea, the sample certainly does not represent all FB users. Secondly, FB is in a very unique position with South Korea. This country has had its own domestic SNS, Cyword, which prevailed before losing their users to FB. Nonetheless, Koreans now have become FB enthusiasts. In 2013, there are at least 6.5 millions of FB users in South Korea with the annual growth rate of 14.3%. By 2017, FB users are expected to account for 69.5% of the total SNSs users in South Korea (eMarketer, 2013). Thus, South Korean may offer a unique insight to understanding the FB behavior of recent adopters. Lastly, the current study’s findings were not all in the line with our predictions. Although our predictions were based on the precious research, some of the results were not clear-cut. Notwithstanding these limitations, this study is one of the first studies exploring the use of Like, Comment, and Share at News Feed. Although the use of these three features is conceptualized together as self-presentational behavior in the current study, it will be interesting and worthwhile to investigate the qualitative differences among them. For example, previous research shows that photos get the most Likes while texts generate more Comments (Kapin, 2012) and that Like was often used in response to relationship-oriented words such as ‘‘participation’’ and ‘‘fan’’ while Comment to event-oriented words such as ‘‘lottery’’ and ‘‘promotion’’ (Lee & Lim, 2012). Furthermore, a fruitful area for future research should be analyzing the diversity of postings and the tone of comments by characteristics (e.g., informative vs. entertaining) and valences (supportive vs. provocative). A natural extension of the current study would be investigating other self-presentational features, such as Tag, Reading (other’s posting), and Liking (own positing) at News Feed. These features are fairly new; their characteristics and relationship with personality will be a practical research topic as FB users increasingly adopt them.
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Personality traits and self-presentation at Facebook q Eunsun Lee a, Jungsun Ahn b, Yeo Jung Kim c,⇑ a
School of Advertising and Public Relations, Hongik University, F410, 2639 Sejong-ro, Jochiwon-eup, Sejong, Republic of Korea School of Advertising and Public Relations, Hongik University, F407, 2639 Sejong-ro, Jochiwon-eup, Sejong, Republic of Korea c School of Advertising and Public Relations, Hongik University, F513, 2639 Sejong-ro, Jochiwon-eup, Sejong, Republic of Korea b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 30 October 2013 Received in revised form 16 May 2014 Accepted 17 May 2014
Keywords: Personality Extraversion Openness to experience Neuroticism, narcissism Social networking site (SNS) Facebook Self-presentation Like, Comment, Share
a b s t r a c t The current study explores the relationship between personality traits and self-presentation at Facebook. An online survey of Facebook users was conducted. The results suggest that extraversion was positively related to self-presentation both on Wall and at News Feed. Extraverts uploaded photos and updated status more frequently, and had more friends displayed on Wall than introverts. Besides, extraverts clicked Like, wrote Comment and clicked Share at News Feed more frequently than introverts. Moreover, narcissists with high rivalry frequently updated their Status on Wall. In addition, neuroticism and conscientiousness were negatively related to writing Comment at News Feed. Lastly, openness to experience was negatively related to clicking Share at News Feed. The results and implications are discussed in conjunction with previous research. Suggestions for future research are provided. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Facebook (FB) is an online venue where the users not only socialize with one another (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; boyd & Ellison, 2008), but also construct and manage their identities via self-presentation (Zhao, Grasmuck, & Martin, 2008; Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012). FB allows the users to manage their self-presentation by uploading pictures, updating status, and displaying friends (Kleck, Reese, Behnken, & Sundar, 2007; Zhao et al., 2008; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Mehdizadeh, 2010; Gosling, Augustine, Vazire, Holtzman, & Gaddis, 2011; Ong et al., 2011). A considerable amount of research has examined the association between self-presentation at FB and personality traits (e.g., Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Moore & McElroy, 2012; Ross et al., 2009). However, most FB research to date has focused on self-presentational information displayed on Wall (Zhao et al., 2008; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Mehdizadeh, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Ong et al., 2011; Moore & McElroy, 2012). The current study goes beyond this and suggests that FB users can also present who they
⁄ This work was supported by the Hongik University new faculty research support fund. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 10 5531 4130. E-mail address: [email protected] (Y.J. Kim). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.05.020 0191-8869/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
are by using Like, Comment and Share buttons provided at News Feed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between personality traits and self-presentation at FB, both via the information displayed on Wall and the behaviors at News Feed.
2. Literature review 2.1. Self-presentation at FB FB offers two venues where the users can strategically manage their self-presentation: Wall and News Feed. First, Wall is where FB users display, edit and manage self-presentational information including profiles, photos, and connections for others to see. boyd (2009) suggested that the ‘‘profile can be seen as a form of digital body where individuals must write themselves into being’’ (p. 131). In an extensive content analysis of FB user profiles, Nosko, Wood, and Molema (2010) identified 97 items that people might disclose in detail. FB users generally present quite accurate descriptions of themselves at their profiles (Back et al., 2010). The other venue, News Feed, is the first page that the users see as they log into FB. Since News Feed displays friends’ FB activities such as status updates, photos and video uploads, links, application activities and likes, the users spent most of FB time at this page (Lipsman, Mudd, Rich, & Bruich, 2012). Also, a user’s News Feed
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is open to his/her friends, who can view the people that are connected to the user and their activities. Furthermore, News Feed offers Like, Comment, and Share buttons, which appear on every post at FB News Feed. Introduced in 2004, Like is a quick and easy way to share content with a click. It signals the user’s appreciation for the content and support for the person who posted it. It is also the fastest way to distribute the content at FB. Comment, on the other hand, allows for a dynamic expression of thoughts and feelings in response to a posting. There are no restrictions as to what is said in Comment. Most recently introduced is the Retweet-style Share button. It is a relatively high effort response to a posting, which may include personalizing the titles and thumbnails of the links for added visibility. Despite the differences, these three buttons are all used for responding to and sharing contents posted at News Feed. Furthermore, the use of these buttons is displayed both on the user’s and friends’ News Feeds. Therefore, the use of Like, Comment, and Share can be viewed, tracked, and trigger a response from friends. In this process, the user can manage self-presentation, signaling the user’s likes and dislikes, close and distant friends, expertise, interests, political views and so on. Therefore, we consider Like, Comment and Share buttons as self-presentational buttons and use of Like, Comment and Share buttons as self-presentational behaviors that help manage FB users’ identity at FB. Wall and News Feed differ mainly in two ways. First, the information on Wall can be said self-oriented whereas the information at News Feed is other-oriented. FB users post and manage their own information on Wall to promote themselves. At News Feed, in contrast, the users are provided with their friends’ information, which can trigger the users’ reactions as self-presentational behaviors. Another difference between Wall and News Feed concerns interactivity of the communication. The communication on Wall is typically one-way as the users display self-presentational information for others to see. On the other hand, the communication at News Feed is two-ways as the users give feedback to others using Like, Comments, and Share. In short, ‘‘I’’ manage the Wall, and ‘‘We’’ maintain the News Feed via social interactions. Given these differences, both Wall and News Feed are worthy to investigate to understand self-presentation at FB.
2.2. Research on self-presentation and personality Before the time of FB, personal websites provided an arena for individuals to express their personalities and to create and experiment with multiple identities (Marcus, Machilek, & Schütz, 2006). FB makes it easier to create and maintain such online presence than ever before. Accordingly, a considerable amount of research has examined the association between self-presentational information at FB Wall and personality (e.g., Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Moore & McElroy, 2012; Ross et al., 2009). In the current study, we investigate how personality traits are related to both self-presentational information on Wall (the frequency of photo uploads, the frequency of status updates, the number of friends) and self-presentational behaviors (utilization of Like, Comment and Share buttons) at News Feed. As a broad classification of personality trait, the big five factors of personality has been repeatedly adopted in FB research (Ross et al., 2009; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Ryan & Xenos, 2011; Moore & McElroy, 2012; Ljepava, Orr, Locke, & Ross, 2013; Seidman, 2013). The model includes extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness. Narcissism is another personality trait that appears highly related to self-presentation on SNS (Buffardi & Campbell,
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2008; Bergman, Fearrington, Davenport, & Bergman, 2011; Ong et al., 2011; Carpenter, 2012; Wang, Jackson, Zhang, & Su, 2012). Thus, the current study considers a total of six personality traits in order to investigate the relationship between self-presentation at FB and personality. 3. Hypotheses 3.1. Extraversion Extraversion describes the extent to which an individual feels comfortable engaging in direct social interactions with others (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Individuals high in extraversion are dominant, expressive, talkative and sociable. Extraversion is known as the personality factor highly related to FB usage (Ross et al., 2009; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Ryan & Xenos, 2011). Ross et al. (2009) found a positive relationship between extraversion and using SNS for communication. Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010) suggested that extroverts had a greater number of friends than introverts. Gosling et al. (2011) suggested that extraverts seek out virtual social contacts and were more engaged in online social experience than introverts. Based on these previous studies, we hypothesized: Hypothesis 1. Extraversion will be positively associated with the self-presentational information on Wall and self-presentational behavior at News Feed.
3.2. Neuroticism Neuroticism refers to the lack of emotional stability and tendency to experience psychological distress (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Neurotics would thus feel more comfortable with information on Wall than information at Newsfeed since they can control the former whereas the latter is out of their hands. Indeed, Ross et al. (2009) found that the highly neurotic FB users chose the Wall as their favorite FB component while less neurotic users selected photos. Photos often contain emotional states and the geographical location they were taken, which the users cannot control. Therefore, the users high in neuroticism may find photos threatening. Thus, we expect the following: Hypothesis 2. Neuroticism will be positively associated with the self-presentational information on Wall. However, due to a lack of control, we expect a negative relationship between neuroticism and self-presentation behavior at News Feed.
3.3. Agreeableness Agreeableness represents the tendency to be sympathetic, courteous, flexible, kind, trusting and forgiving (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Compared to extraversion, less research has been conducted with regard to agreeableness and FB use (Moore & McElroy, 2012). Moore and McElroy (2012) showed that agreeable users were more likely to post Wall contents about themselves than less agreeable users. Wang et al. (2012) found that agreeableness was positively related to making comments on SNS. They argued that since agreeable users were friendly, warm and sympathetic, they should be more likely to post friendly and positive comments to other users’ posts. Likewise, FB users high in agreeableness may show their emotional support to others via self-presentational behaviors at News Feed. Thus, we propose:
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Hypothesis 3. Agreeableness will be positively associated with self-presentational information on Wall, and self-presentational behavior at News Feed.
3.4. Openness to experience Openness to experience, also known as intellect/imagination, represents an individual’s curiosity, open-mindedness, and willingness to explore new ideas (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Previous studies show that openness is positively related to the FB use as an alternative method of communication (Ross et al., 2009) and the number of features for the personal information (AmichaiHamburger & Vinitzky, 2010). However, FB launched almost a decade ago in 2004, FB has become a relatively mainstream communication tool for college students (Ross et al., 2009) and is no longer new experience (Wang et al., 2012). As a variety of new social networking services have launched, such as Instagram, Tumblr, FB may not be perceived as new to college students. As such, some recent FB research has found no relationship between openness to experience and FB use (Moore & McElroy, 2012; Wang et al. 2012). Based on these previous studies, we propose: Hypothesis 4. Openness to experience will not be associated with self-presentational information on Wall and self-presentational behavior at News Feed.
3.5. Conscientiousness Conscientiousness represents the tendency to be reliable, responsible, organized and self-disciplined (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Conscientiousness has been shown to be negatively related to the use of the Internet because those in high consciousness are dutiful and responsible in their tasks thus avoid distractions. As expected, conscientiousness was negatively associated with uploading photos (Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Ryan & Xenos, 2011) and time spent on Wall (Moore & McElroy, 2012). Likewise, we expect that those high in conscientiousness use FB less than others, which results in barely clicking Like and hardly writing Comment on friends’ postings. Thus, we expect the following:
friends in the spotlight instead of themselves. This leads to our final hypothesis: Hypothesis 6. Narcissism will be positively associated with selfpresentational information on Wall. However, there will be a negative relationship between narcissism and self-presentational behavior at News Feed.
4. Method 4.1. Sample and procedure College students participated in an online survey in exchange for extra credits. The respondents were all FB users. After eliminating incomplete responses, the sample size was 236. Among them, 108 was male (45.8%) and 128 female (54.2%). The mean age of the respondents was 20.6 years old (SD = 2.03). About 80% of the respondents have used FB for more than a year. About 83% reported having one hundred or more friends. More than a half (56.5%) spent less than an hour on FB daily while about ten percent spent two hours or more. 4.2. Measures The online survey questionnaire measured the big five factors of personality traits, narcissism, self-presentational information on Wall, self-presentational behaviors at News Feed, general FB usage, and demographic variables. The big five personality traits were measured with the mini-IPIP scales (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird, & Lucas, 2006) and narcissism was measured with NARQ (Back et al., 2013). Reliabilities for personality traits were all acceptable ranging from a = .66 to a = .84 (see Table 1). As for dependent variables, self-presentational information on Wall was operationalized in three ways: the frequency of uploading Photos, the frequency of updating Status, and the number of Friends. Similarly, self-presentational behaviors at News Feed was operationalized in terms of the frequency of clicking Like, the frequency of writing Comment, and the frequency of clicking Share on seven-point Likert-type scales. Finally, general FB usage (FB experience, time spent daily, etc.) and demographic data (gender, age, etc.) were collected. 5. Results
Hypothesis 5. Conscientiousness will be negatively associated with self-presentational information on Wall and self-presentational behavior at News Feed.
3.6. Narcissism Narcissism refers to ‘‘a personality trait reflecting a grandiose and inflated self-concept (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008, p. 1304). Narcissists are exhibitionistic, attention-seeking, and aggressively concerned about their physical appearances (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008; Bergman et al., 2011; Ong et al., 2011; Carpenter, 2012). Since narcissists are usually unable or unwilling to form connections requiring emotional investments, they prefer relational benefits from ‘‘weak tie’’ to ‘‘strong tie’’ connections. To narcissists, having many FB friends is an easy way to demonstrate their popularity and importance (Bergman et al., 2011). Narcissism is also positively related to uploading photos and updating status (Ong et al., 2011) and preference for these features (Ryan & Xenos, 2011). In sum, highly narcissistic individuals want to get the attention and be in the spotlight. Therefore, those high in narcissism may be reluctant to use Like, Comments, or Share, which give emotional support to their friends and, more importantly, place the
Mean and standard deviations along with a correlation matrix were shown in Table 1. First, we ran hierarchical multiple regression analyses with selfpresentational information on Wall (the frequency of uploading Photos, the frequency of updating Status, and the number of Friends, as dependent variables, with two sets of independent variables entered in each of two Blocks. Block 1 controlled for gender, FB experience (Moore & McElroy, 2012). Following this, the six personality traits were entered as in Block 2. Their betas and significant levels are reported as Models 2 in Table 2. Overall, the six personality traits helped better explain the variance in self-presentational information on Wall. With the addition of these variables, Models 2 explained 31% of the variance in the frequency of uploading Photos, 32% of the frequency of updating Status, and 31% of the variance in the number of Fiends respectively, all significant increases from Model 1. Therefore, the six personality traits together did help predict self-presentational information on Wall. Extraversion, in particular, was a significant predictor of the frequency of uploading Photos, the frequency of updating Status, and the number of Friends. As expected, extraverts tended to upload photos and update their status more frequently, and have more
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E. Lee et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 69 (2014) 162–167 Table 1 Zero-order correlation and descriptive statistics (N = 236).
1. Gender 2. FB experience 3. Extraversion (a = .73) 4. Neuroticism (a = .68) 5. Agreeableness (a = .67) 6. Openness (a = .72) 7. Conscientiousness (a = .71) 8. Narcissism (a = .84) 9. Photo uploads 10. Status updates 11. Number of friends 12. Like 13. Comment 14. Share * ** ***
Mean SD
1
2
.46 3.20 3.31 3.49 3.74 3.78 3.08 3.30 .55 .52 .81 .69 .64 .49
1 .081 .011 .147⁄ .045 .016 .244⁄⁄ .048 .045 .032 .006 .132⁄ .078 .023
1 .243⁄⁄ .203⁄⁄ .289⁄⁄ .017 .013 .122 .538⁄⁄ .522⁄⁄ .507⁄⁄ .527⁄⁄ .593⁄⁄ .345⁄⁄
.50 1.50 .76 .83 .70 .69 .80 .60 .20 .20 .18 .18 .18 .18
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
1 .029 .409⁄⁄ .112 .078 .226⁄⁄ .311⁄⁄ .322⁄⁄ .373⁄⁄ .284⁄⁄ .405⁄⁄ .228⁄⁄
1 .073 1 .146⁄ .102 .024 .020 .316⁄⁄ .052 .075 .204⁄⁄ .061 .143⁄ .082 .238⁄⁄ .025 .140⁄ .019 .251⁄ .049 .084
1 .014 .115 .054 .077 .041 .071 .008 .149⁄
1 .087 1 .054 .171⁄ 1 .006 .210⁄⁄ .735⁄⁄ 1 .019 .088 .449⁄⁄ .422⁄⁄ 1 .064 .012 .515⁄⁄ .489⁄⁄ .439⁄⁄ 1 .132⁄ .153⁄ .579⁄⁄ .570⁄⁄ .524⁄⁄ .792⁄⁄ 1 .043 .079 .406⁄⁄ .336⁄⁄ .257⁄⁄ .492⁄⁄ .458⁄⁄ 1
Statistically significant at p < .05. Statistically significant at p < .01. Statistically significant at p < .001.
Table 2 Self-presentational Information on Wall. Photo uploads Model1 Control Gender FB experience Personality Extraversion Neuroticism Agreeableness Openness Conscientiousness Nar)Admiration Nar)Rivalry R2 Adjusted R2 F DF DR2 * ** ***
.003 .542⁄⁄⁄
.294 .288 47.266
Status updates Model2 .007 .506⁄⁄⁄ .152⁄ .037 .009 .065 .079 .078 .031 .340 .313 12.594 2.192 .046
Model1 .073 .535⁄⁄⁄
.285 .279 45.520
Number of friends Model2 .054 .482⁄⁄⁄ .219⁄⁄ .048 .064 .049 .018 .004 .148⁄ .352 .326 13.350 3.257 .067
Model1 .033 .514⁄⁄⁄
.262 .256 40.541
Model2 .035 .465⁄⁄⁄ .260⁄⁄⁄ .040 .021 .011 .017 .022 .096 .334 .307 12.328 3.410 .072
Statistically significant at p < .05. Statistically significant at p < .01. Statistically significant at p < .001.
Table 3 Self-presentational Behaviors at News Feed. Like Model1 Control Gender FB experience Personality Extraversion Neuroticism Agreeableness Openness Conscientiousness Nar) Admiration Nar) Rivalry R2 Adjusted R2 F DF DR2 * ** ***
.096 .530⁄⁄⁄
.297 .291 47.583
Statistically significant at p < .05. Statistically significant at p < .01. Statistically significant at p < .001.
Comment Model2 .102 .517⁄⁄⁄ .213⁄⁄ .038 .080 .058 .018 .036 .037 .342 .315 12.585 2.114 .045
Model1 .039 .040
.359 .354 63.100
Share Model2 .595⁄⁄⁄ .561⁄⁄⁄ .218⁄⁄⁄ .143⁄ .002 .011 .124⁄ .076 .021 .463 .441 20.892 6.018 .104
Model1 .000 .339⁄⁄⁄
.115 .107 14.684
Model2 .007 .313⁄⁄⁄ .167⁄ .023 .068 .143⁄ .030 .054 .020 .164 .130 4.779 1.840 .049
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friends than introverts. In addition, narcissistic rivalry was positively related to the frequency of updating Status. The more narcissistic the FB user, the more frequently she or he updated status. In addition, we ran hierarchical multiple regression analyses with self-presentational behaviors at News Feed (the frequency of clicking Like, the frequency of writing Comment, and the frequency of clicking Share) as dependent variables, with two sets of independent variables entered in each of two Blocks. Block 1 controlled for gender, FB experience (Moore & McElroy, 2012). Following this, the six personality traits were entered as independent variables in Block 2. Their betas and significant levels are reported as Models 2 in Table 3. Some of the personality traits appeared to predict self-presentational behavior at FB News Feed. With the addition of these personality traits, Models 2 explained 34% of the frequency of clicking Like, 46% of the frequency of writing Comments, and the frequency of clicking Share respectively, all significant increases from Model 1. Thus, it can be said with some confidence that the six personality traits together significantly contribute to self-presentational behavior at News Feed. More specifically, extraversion was a significant predictor of clicking Like, writing Comments and clicking Share. In contrast, neuroticism and conscientiousness were negative predictors of writing Comments. In addition, openness to new experience was a negative predictor of clicking Share.
scales, represents the extent to which an individual has vivid imaginations and the ability to understand abstract ideas (Donnellan et al., 2006). The act of clicking Share on other’s postings may represent a multitude of personality traits depending on what the content is about. Unfortunately, the current study did not qualitatively investigate the target contents of sharing. Further research is needed in order to interpret this negative relationship between openness to experience and the frequency of Share. Finally, narcissism was positively related to updating Status. Updating Status can be seen as an act of drawing attention to themselves. Status updates not only announce how the user is doing, but also trigger others to click Like and to write Comments in reply. Thus, frequently updating Status may represent the needs to be in the spotlight and the center of conversations among FB friends. Our finding is consistent with Carpenter’s (2012) finding that grandiose exhibitionism was related to updating Status. Overall, the current study expands the extant literature by shedding light into the previously overlooked self-presentational behavior at News Feed. It appears that the personality traits contribute not only to the self-presentational information on Wall but also self-presentational behavior at News Feed. Extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness as well as open to experience appeared to be related to the use of Like, Comment, and Share.
6. Discussion
7. Limitations & suggestions for future research
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality and self-presentation at FB. Specifically, the current study examined how the big five factors and narcissism relate to self-presentational information at FB Wall and self-presentational behaviors at News Feed. The results indicate that the six personality traits helped better explaining self-presentation at FB to some extent. Among the six personality traits examined, extraversion was most relevant to self-presentational information on Wall as well as self-presentational behavior at News Feed. Consistent with the previous studies (Ross et al., 2009; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling et al., 2011; Ryan & Xenos, 2011), extraverts uploaded photos and updated status more frequently, and displayed more friends at FB. In addition, the current study found that extraverts also engaged in self-presentational behavior such as clicking Like, writing Comments and clicking Share more frequently than introverts at News Feed. Thus, extraverts seem to actively engage in self-presentation not only on Wall but also at News Feed. These results are consistent with Ryan and Xenos’ findings (2012) indicating that extroverts use more communicative features of FB. Secondly, neuroticism was negatively associated with self-presentational behaviors at News Feed. As expected, those high in neuroticism appeared to write Comments less frequently than those low in neuroticism. As suggested in the previous research (Ross et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2012; Seidman, 2013), neurotics seem to use FB passively. Those high in neuroticism may be reluctant to engage in self-presentational behavior at News Feed because its lack of control triggers discomfort and anxiety to them. Third, conscientiousness was negatively associated with the frequency of writing Comment. Similar to Ryan and Xenos (2011) finding, which showed that conscientiousness was negatively related to time spent on SNS, we found that conscientious individuals less frequently wrote comments on friends’ postings. Fourth, openness to experience was negatively related to clicking Share. Openness to new experience, measured by the mini-IPIP
As in any research, the current study bears some limitations that the readers should keep in mind. Firstly, the sample used in this study was drawn from a single college in South Korea, which undermines the generalizability of the findings. Although college students represent the majority of FB users in South Korea, the sample certainly does not represent all FB users. Secondly, FB is in a very unique position with South Korea. This country has had its own domestic SNS, Cyword, which prevailed before losing their users to FB. Nonetheless, Koreans now have become FB enthusiasts. In 2013, there are at least 6.5 millions of FB users in South Korea with the annual growth rate of 14.3%. By 2017, FB users are expected to account for 69.5% of the total SNSs users in South Korea (eMarketer, 2013). Thus, South Korean may offer a unique insight to understanding the FB behavior of recent adopters. Lastly, the current study’s findings were not all in the line with our predictions. Although our predictions were based on the precious research, some of the results were not clear-cut. Notwithstanding these limitations, this study is one of the first studies exploring the use of Like, Comment, and Share at News Feed. Although the use of these three features is conceptualized together as self-presentational behavior in the current study, it will be interesting and worthwhile to investigate the qualitative differences among them. For example, previous research shows that photos get the most Likes while texts generate more Comments (Kapin, 2012) and that Like was often used in response to relationship-oriented words such as ‘‘participation’’ and ‘‘fan’’ while Comment to event-oriented words such as ‘‘lottery’’ and ‘‘promotion’’ (Lee & Lim, 2012). Furthermore, a fruitful area for future research should be analyzing the diversity of postings and the tone of comments by characteristics (e.g., informative vs. entertaining) and valences (supportive vs. provocative). A natural extension of the current study would be investigating other self-presentational features, such as Tag, Reading (other’s posting), and Liking (own positing) at News Feed. These features are fairly new; their characteristics and relationship with personality will be a practical research topic as FB users increasingly adopt them.
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