WSU Students Explore Personality and Facebook Usage
OGDEN, Utah — Sharing photos, liking posts and posting comments on Facebook are all influenced by personality traits, according to a study by students in Weber State University’s Department of Psychology.
Students Crystal Garcia, Corbin Standley, Kaitlin Staker and Lyndsi Drysdale worked with assistant psychology professor Shannon McGillivray to conduct the study, which examined the relationship between different personality types and the motivations and emotions associated with Facebook usage. Using a test group of 194 participants ranging in age from 18-70, they measured frequency and reasons for use, features used and emotional responses to certain activities.
“Facebook is something most college students have,” said Garcia, a senior in psychology. “We were super interested to find anything psychological behind what drives Facebook usage.”
Each participant in the study completed a survey measuring narcissism and the “Big Five” personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
The findings show narcissists are less likely to unfriend people and more likely to feel angry in response to being unfriended. Narcissists also said they post on Facebook because they want everybody to know what they’re doing, and they only post what they consider to be important material.
People who were identified as being more agreeable in the Big Five personality trait dimension reported feeling surprised when they were unfriended. In addition, extroverted people were less likely to unfriend individuals.
“The novel aspect of this study was looking closely at motivations and emotional responses associated with Facebook activities,” McGillivray said. “We looked at why people are doing something, how they feel about it and the role different personality plays.”
Some of the findings were expected, McGillivray said. For example, research found that people with neurotic tendencies were more likely to spend longer periods of time on Facebook, especially using gaming apps, which is characteristic of addictive behavior.
However, individuals who scored higher in the openness dimension of the Big Five personality traits were more likely to unfriend someone as the result of a controversial post.
“That was one of the more counterintuitive discoveries we made,” McGillivray said. “It might make sense because perhaps you are slightly more liberal if you score highly on the openness dimension, which means you could take offense to people whose posts are very controversial or derogatory to certain groups.”
After six months of work, the findings from the study were presented at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, the Utah Conference of Undergraduate Research and the WSU Undergraduate Research Symposium. The study was also published in the WSU Ergo Undergraduate Research Journal, Vol. 9.
“Facebook is definitely impactful in today’s society,” Garcia said. “I think that’s why there was a lot of interest in the project, and it was so well-received.”
Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.
Rachel Badali, Office of Marketing & Communications
801-626-7295 • rachelbadali@weber.edu- Contact:
Shannon McGillivray, psychology assistant professor
801-626-7867 • smcgillivray@weber.edu