The influence of personality traits and self-construals on Facebook use

Abstract

This thesis examined personality traits (conscientiousness, openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), narcissism, self-construals (independent and interdependent), and motivation (fun, time, communication, job, relationships, popular, and information) on Facebook use. Personality traits on frequency of Facebook use, amount of Facebook friends and profile length, and factors that may influence motivation to use Facebook were also examined. A survey was conducted with students from a large US western university. Results from the study showed that narcissism was significantly related to the amount of Facebook friends. Agreeableness and independent self-construal, however, were not significantly related. In this study, extraversion was associated with communication as a social-motivation to use Facebook. Conscientiousness and neuroticism, though, did not have any significant relationship with frequency of Facebook use. This finding supports the need to examine the influence of "personality traits," "motivation," and "self-construals" when interpreting social media use behavior. Suggestions for future research are addressed.