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Cyber-Personality and Liking Expression: A Study From WeChat Users in China
1School of Humanities and Social Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China.
Frontiers in Psychology
|July 26, 2021
Summary
Social media liking behavior is influenced by personality. Agreeableness increases liking, while conscientiousness decreases it, mediated by communication motives like enjoyment and passing time.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Communication Studies
Background:
- Online social support is often expressed through social media 'likes'.
- The relationship between personality traits, communication motives, and 'liking' behavior remains underexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how Big-Five personality traits and communication motives influence the frequency of 'liking' on social media.
- To map the dispositional underpinnings of social media 'liking' expression.
Main Methods:
- An online study surveyed 183 users of WeChat, a Chinese social media platform.
- Assessed Big-Five personality traits and five communication motives in relation to 'liking' frequency.
- Analyzed data using regression to determine relationships between variables.
Main Results:
- Conscientiousness was negatively associated with 'liking' expression (β = -0.505, p < 0.05).
- Agreeableness positively influenced 'liking' directly (β = 0.153, p < 0.05) and indirectly through enjoyment and passing time motives.
- Users averaged 385 friends, spent 2.2 hours daily, and used 'like' 1.1 times on WeChat.
Conclusions:
- Personality traits significantly regulate social media 'liking' behavior.
- 'Liking' expression can serve as an indicator of individual dispositional traits in online social networking.
- Understanding these links provides insights into online social support mechanisms.
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