People Can Accurately Judge Your Personality Based on Your Facebook Profile When you think about peoples online identities, you might imagine that most people try to present an idealized version of their real selves. After all, in most online situations you get to pick and choose the information you want to reveal. You get to select the most attractive photos of yourself to post and you can edit and revise your comments before you make them. Surprisingly, one study discovered that Facebook profiles are actually quite good at conveying your real personality. In the study, researchers looked at the online profiles of 236 U.S. college-aged individuals. The participants also filled out questionnaires designed to measure personality traits including extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness. Observers then rated the personalities of the participants based on the online profiles, and these observations were compared to the results of the personality questionnaires. The researchers found that observers were able to get an accurate read on a persons personality based on their Facebook profile. I think that being able to express personality accurately contributes to the popularity of online social networks in two ways, explained psychologist and lead author Sam Gosling. First, it allows profile owners to let others know who they are and, in doing so, satisfies a basic need to be known by others. Second, it means that profile viewers feel they can trust the information they glean from online social network profiles, building their confidence in the system as a whole.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:38:21 +0000
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