Facebook Profiles Capture True Personality
I'll admit - this news comes as a shocker to me too. According to new psychology research at the University of Texas, Facebook profiles typically gave an accurate and realistic impression of the user’s real-life personality.
"I was surprised by the findings because the widely held assumption is that people are using their profiles to promote an enhanced impression of themselves," says Sam Gosling of the more than 700 million people worldwide who have online profiles. "In fact, our findings suggest that online social networking profiles convey rather accurate images of the profile owners, either because people aren't trying to look good or because they are trying and failing to pull it off. "These findings suggest that online social networks are not so much about providing positive spin for the profile owners," he adds, "but are instead just another medium for engaging in genuine social interactions, much like the telephone."The research team collected over 200 profiles of young adults on Facebook and a German social networking site. They used personality questionnaires and interviewed friends to determine the profile owners’ actual personalities, assessing traits like extroversion, agreeableness, openness, neuroticism and conscientiousness. Extroverts were identified most accurately while neuroticism was tougher to pinpoint. Those findings were consistent with previous research showing that neuroticism is difficult to detect without meeting in person...take note ladies seeking romance online. “This online social world is an important environment,” Dr. Gosling said. “If you look at the time people spend on it and the hours people devote to it, it’s not just a fad. It’s meeting some important social needs.” For the last ten years psychologist Sam Gosling has studied how people project and protect their inner selves. In his book Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You he shows how we showcase our personalities, create personality, communicate it others, and interpret the world around us. A very interesting read. Findings of his latest study will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Researchers include: Gosling and Sam Gaddis (The University of Texas at Austin), Mitja Back, Juliane Stopfer and Boris Egloff (Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany), Simine Vazire (Washington University in St. Louis), and Stefan Schmukle (Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster, Germany). source: http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/12/01/facebook_psychology/ Other Facebook Research: What Do Men Do on Facebook?
