Make new friends or keep the old: Gender and personality differences in social networking use
Highlights
► We examined gender and personality differences online social networking. ► Men used Facebook for relationship formation, women for relationship maintenance. ► Women low in agreeableness reported using instant messaging features. ► Men low in openness reported playing more games.
Introduction
In recent years, use of the Internet as a means of interpersonal communication has grown and changed dramatically. One such change is the advent of social networking websites. Social networking sites, such as Facebook (www.facebook.com) and MySpace (www.myspace.com), provide Internet users with a virtual venue oriented toward interpersonal communication with friends, relatives, peers, co-workers, and strangers. In 2005 only 8% of adult Internet users were members of social networking websites (Lenhart, 2009). However, that number has more than quadrupled to 35% in 2009. Because social networking sites are relatively new, there is a paucity of psychological research examining questions such as: What specific behaviors do individuals engage in while using these sites? And what psychological processes underlie these behaviors? This paper aims to address these questions by examining individual differences in social networking usage. Specifically, we examined whether gender and the five-factor model of personality (Big 5; Benet-Martinez and John, 1998, John et al., 1991, John et al., 2008) moderate the activities individuals engage in while using social networking sites.
Social networking sites provide a venue for people to interact with other individuals – friends, family, or solely online friends (Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008). Facebook and MySpace are the two most popular social networking sites, both with more than 100 million unique visitors per month (ComScore, 2008). These websites are specifically known as friend-networking sites, in which the main purpose is to keep in contact with friends and family and make new friends.
Facebook and MySpace include various communication features that allow individuals to send public and private messages, post photographs, blog, instant message (IM), and even play games. Individuals can search for other users by name or interests—and accumulate friends by “friend requesting” other users. Both Facebook and MySpace are similar in that their focal point is the user profile – a webpage that displays their personal information. While, they differ in some of their features, the present investigation focused on more general features that both sites offer their users, such as those listed above.
Research on the psychological aspects of social networking use is emerging but still limited. A majority of the existing work has focused on aspects of self-presentation (Fogel and Nehmad, 2009, Kramer and Winter, 2008, Manago et al., 2008, Magnuson and Dundes, 2008, Tong et al., 2008). While there have been some peripheral examinations of individual differences such as gender and personality, self-presentation has been the primary focus. For instance, one such study indicated extraverted (i.e., outgoing) individuals present themselves in a less restrained manner on social networking sites (e.g., choosing to present photos with more experimental colors) compared to introverts (Kramer & Winter, 2008). Additionally, research including gender has found that women were more likely than men to regularly change various aspects of their profile pages (Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008), present a social portrait of themselves that revolves around others (i.e., boyfriends; Magnuson and Dundes, 2008, Peluchette and Karl, 2008) and present less personal information (Fogel and Nehmad, 2009, Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008). Men, however, were more likely to display more risky photos or information (e.g., comments or photos involving sex or alcohol; Peluchette & Karl, 2008).
Other research has shown that individuals use information from other peoples’ profile to make attributions about their personality (Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008). For instance, individuals with a moderate number of friends are rated as more attractive than individuals with very high or low numbers of friends (Tong et al., 2008). Perceptions of individuals based on their profiles have also been shown to be quite accurate in reflecting their personality (Back et al., 2008, Back et al., 2010, Buffardi and Campbell, 2008).
Psychological research acknowledges that the central aspects of personality can be described as a five-factor model (Big 5; Benet-Martinez and John, 1998, John et al., 1991, John et al., 2008). According to the Big 5, personality consists of five main factors: extraversion, agreeableness, openness to new experience, conscientiousness, and neuroticism (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Extraversion represents an individual’s level of sociability and outgoingness. Agreeableness reflects the extent to which an individual engages in and endorses interpersonal cooperation. Openness reflects the extent to which an individual is willing to explore new situations. Conscientiousness reflects the extent to which an individual is organized, careful, and shows self-control. Finally, neuroticism reflects emotional stability.
These factors have been explored previously in relation to motivations for using the Internet. Research has shown that individuals high neuroticism (particularly women; Amichai-Hamburger and Ben-Artzi, 2003, Bargh et al., 2002, Butt and Phillips, 2008, Guadagno et al., 2008), high in openness (Guadagno et al., 2008), low in extraversion (Amichai-Hamburger and Ben-Artzi, 2003, Bargh et al., 2002), and low in agreeableness (Landers and Lounsbury, 2006, Peters and Malesky, 2008) may be particularly likely to use the Internet for various activities. Additionally, introverted and neurotic women were found to be less anxious when communicating online (Rice & Markey, 2009).
To our knowledge, only a few published studies have examined individual differences and Facebook use. Ross et al. (2009) explored how the Big 5 and competency and familiarity with technology (motivation to use computer-mediated communication: CMC) differentiated use of Facebook: individuals high in extraversion were members of more Facebook groups; individuals high in neuroticism used the wall (a public message board within the user profile that displays status updates and messages from other users) for communication; and individuals high in openness to new experiences were more likely to use Facebook for socializing (e.g., sending messages). Finally, they found that those higher in CMC motivation reported spending more time on Facebook and using the Facebook wall more often. Other recent research has compared social networking site users to non-users in terms of individual differences. In an Australisan sample, Facebook users were found to be more extraverted, narcissistic, and less conscientious, and lonely compared to non-users (Ryan & Xenos, 2011). Finally, other research has also begun to explore a more specific individual difference variable: jealousy (Elphinston and Noller, 2011, Muise et al., 2009, Muscanell et al., in preparation). Specifically, this emerging research indicates that Facebook may perpetuate or lead to jealousy in the contexts of romantic relationships. Our research seeks to expand on these individual differences in social networking, by examining the interaction between the five factor model and gender.
In addition to the work cited above, there is also a substantive body of literature examining gender differences in online settings. While research indicates that there is no gender difference in overall amount of Internet use (Fallows, 2005, December), there are gender differences in motivations for Internet use and utilization of time spent online. For example, women are more likely to use the Internet to assuage social interaction and are also more likely to engage in behavior consistent with feminine gender role norms that promote relationship maintenance, while men are more likely to spend their time online engaging in more task-focused activities (e.g., reading the news, getting financial information) and are more likely to engage in behavior consistent with their gender role norm that promotes achievement-orientation (Guadagno and Cialdini, 2002, Guadagno and Cialdini, 2005, Guadagno and Cialdini, 2007, Guadagno et al., 2011, Lucas and Sherry, 2004, Weiser, 2000, Weiser, 2001, Williams et al., 2009). This tendency for women to be more focused on interpersonal communication online is also consistent with research in face-to-face contexts. Based on gender role expectations, women have traditionally been more focused on maintaining relationships whereas men have traditionally been more task-focused (Eagly, 1987). Additionally, women are generally more concerned with relational issues and directly discussing their relationships in order to maintain them as compared to men (Baxter & Wilmot, 1983).
With regard to online social networking, there has been some investigation of gender differences in social networking use (Boyd, 2007, Hargittai, 2008, Peluchette and Karl, 2008, Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008). Such research has examined more general characteristics of social networking users (including gender). For instance, a study by Hargittai (2008) found that women were more likely overall to use social networking sites and were specifically more likely to use MySpace compared to men. Equal amounts of men and women were users of Facebook. Men were also found to be more likely to use social networking sites for dating and to learn about new events compared to women (Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008). It appears then that gender differences found in online behavior may apply specifically to social networking sites, such that men and women use these sites, but for different reasons. These reasons may relate to gender role expectations for behavior indicating gender differences in relationship-orientation.
Section snippets
The present study
In summary, the research on individual differences – personality and gender – in online behavior indicates that individual differences can predict the extent to which individuals use the Internet for various activities. Our examination focused solely on users of social networking sites. While previous research has found some support for the relationship between personality and social networking (e.g., Ross et al., 2009, Ryan and Xenos, 2011), our aim was to predict specific social networking
Overview of the data analysis
Each of the Big 5 subscales produced acceptable reliabilities (see Table 1). Additionally, both men and women tended to fall near the middle of the scale for each of the subscales, with the exception of neuroticism, which had slightly lower scores. Overall, these scores are comparable to previous research on personality for the typical college student age range (Srivastava, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2003). Please see Table 1 for means and standard deviations for each of the five subscales.
We
Discussion
Consistent with our overall predictions, the results demonstrated that both gender and personality are related to both individuals’ reasons for using social networking sites and their engagement in specific activities within these sites. Predictions were supported in that gender predicted individuals’ social networking use such that women were more oriented towards activities that facilitate relationship maintenance compared to men. It was also found that men were more likely than women to
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Dr. Cassie Eno for reviewing our work and for the invaluable suggestions provided.
References (51)
- et al.
Loneliness and Internet use
Computers in Human Behavior
(2003) - et al.
How extraverted is [email protected]? Inferring personality from email addresses
Journal of Research in Personality
(2008) - et al.
Personality and self reported mobile phone use
Computers in Human Behavior
(2008) - et al.
Internet social network communities: Risk taking, trust, and privacy concerns
Computers in Human Behavior
(2009) - et al.
Persuade him by email, but see her in person: Online persuasion revisited
Computers in Human Behavior
(2007) - et al.
Even in virtual environments women shop and men build: Gender differences in second life
Computers in Human Behavior
(2011) - et al.
Who blogs? Personality predictors of blogging
Computers in Human Behavior
(2008) - et al.
The relationship between extraversion and neuroticism and the different uses of the Internet
Computers in Human Behavior
(2000) - et al.
An investigation of big five and narrow personality traits in relation to internet usage
Computers in Human Behavior
(2006) - et al.
Self-presentation and gender on MySpace
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
(2008)
Getting to know you: Face-to-face vs. online interactions
Computers in Human Behavior
Self-, other-, and ideal-judgments of risk and caution as a function of the five-factor model of personality
Personality and Individual Differences
The role of extraversion and neuroticism in influencing anxiety following computer-mediated interactions
Personality and Individual Differences
Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use
Computers in Human Behavior
Who uses Facebook? An investigation into the relationship between the Big Five, shyness, narcissism, loneliness, and Facebook usage
Computers in Human Behaviors
Imagined communities: Awareness, information sharing, and privacy on the Facebook
Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions
Facebook profiles reflect actual personality, not self-idealization
Psychological Science
Can you see the real me? Activation and expression of the “true self” on the Internet
Journal of Social Issues
Communication characteristics of relationships with differential growth
Communication Monographs
Los Cinco Grandes across cultures and ethnic groups: Multitrait multimethod analyses of the big five in Spanish and English
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life
Narcissism and social networking web sites
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Normal personality assessment in clinical practice: The NEO Personality Inventory
Psychology Assessment
Cited by (414)
Is her (his) gender matched or not matched with me? Gender (dis)match effect between customers and gendered service robots
2024, International Journal of Hospitality ManagementThe “holiday effect” in consumer satisfaction: Evidence from review ratings
2023, Information and ManagementInternet use among older adults: Determinants of usage and impacts on individuals’ well-being
2023, Computers in Human Behavior