Relationship Initiation on Facebook: Understanding the Role of Personality
Keywords:
Facebook, Big Five, Relationship Initiation, Cybernetic Big Five TheoryAbstract
Studies have shown that some individuals use Facebook to initiate romantic relationships, but few have investigated the motivations for using Facebook to form relationships. As discussed via the Cybernetic Big Five Theory, a potential explanation may be personality, which is associated with general social media use. The current study examines the association between the Big Five personality traits and motivations to initiate romantic relationships using Facebook. Data comes from 177 undergraduate students from two universities in the United States who completed an online survey assessing the Big Five and motivations to and behaviors for which they use Facebook for relationship initiation. Using multiple regression analyses, conscientiousness and neuroticism predicted motivations to initiate relationships via Facebook to learn more about a potential partner without asking, to provide a neutral environment to start a conversation, to pace the progress of the relationship, and to give more control over the interaction. Openness was inconsistently positively associated with initiation motivations whereas extraversion and agreeableness were not associated with motivations to use Facebook for relationship initiation. Findings indicate that personality may explain why some individuals use Facebook to form romantic relationships.
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Park, N., Jin, B., & Jin, S. A. (2011). Effects of self-disclosure on relational intimacy in Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior 2011, 27, 1974-1983. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.05.004
Ryan, T., & Xenos, S. (2011). Who uses Facebook? An investigation into the relationship between the Big Five, shyness, narcissism, loneliness, and Facebook usage. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 1658-1664.
Saucier, G. (1994). Mini-Markers: A brief version of Goldberg’s unipolar Big-Five markers. Journal of Personality Assessment, 63, 506-516. doi: 10.1207/s15327752jpa6303_8
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Wang, S. S. (2013). 'I share, therefore I am': Personality traits, life satisfaction, and Facebook check-ins. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, And Social Networking, 16, 870-877. doi:10.1089/cyber.2012.0395
Wilson, R. E., Gosling, S. D., & Graham, L. T. (2012). A review of Facebook research in the social sciences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 203-220. doi: 10.1177/1745691612442904
Amichai-Hamburger, Y., & Vinitzky, G. (2010). Social network use and personality. Computers in Human Behavior, 26, 1289-1295. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2010.03.018
Asendorpf, J. B., & Wilpers, S. (1998). Personality effects on social relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1531-1544. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1531
Ash, I. K. (2009). Surprise, memory, and retrospective judgment making: Testing cognitive reconstruction theories of the hindsight bias effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35, 916-933.
Blachnio, A., Przepiorka, A., & Rudnicka, P. (2013). Psychological determinants of using Facebook: A research review. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 29, 775-787. doi: 10.1080/10447318.2013.780868
Bradfield, A., & Wells, G. L. (2005). Not the same old hindsight bias: Outcome information distorts a broad range of retrospective judgments. Memory & Cognition, 33, 120-130. doi: 10.3758/BF03195302
Cerny, C. A., & Kaiser, H. F. (1977). A study of a measure of sampling adequacy for factor-analytic correlation matrices. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 12, 43-47. doi: 10.1207/s15327906mbr1201_3
Correa, T., Hinsley, A. W., & De Zuniga, H. G. (2010). Who interacts on the web?: The intersection of users’ personality and social media use. Computers in Human Behavior, 26, 247-253. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2009.09.003
DeYoung, C. G. (2010). Toward a theory of the big five. Psychological Inquiry, 21, 26-33. doi:10.1080/10478401003648674
DeYoung, C. G. (2015). Cybernetic Big Five Theory. Journal of Research in Personality, 56, 33-58. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2014.07.004
DeYoung, C. G., Grazioplene, R. G., & Peterson, J. B. (2012). From madness to genius: The Openness/Intellect trait domain as a paradoxical simplex. Journal of Research in Personality, 46, 63-78. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2011.12.003
Facebook. (2016, December). Stats. Facebook Newsroom. Retrieved from http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/.
Forest, A. L., & Wood, J. V. (2012). When social networking is not working: Individuals with low self-esteem recognize but do not reap the benefits of self-disclosure on Facebook. Psychological Science, 23, 295-302.
Fox, J., & Anderegg, C. (2014).Romantic relationship stages and social networking sites: Uncertainty reduction strategies and perceived relational norms on Facebook. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17, 685-691.
Fox, J., & Warber, K. M. (2013). Romantic relationship development in the age of Facebook: An exploratory study of emerging adults' perceptions, motives, and behaviors. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 16, 3-7. doi:10.1089/cyber.2012.0288
Fox, J., Warber, K. M., & Makstaller, D. C. (2013). The role of Facebook in romantic relationship development: An exploration of Knapp's relational stage model. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30, 771-794. doi: 10.1177/0265407512468370
Funder, D. C. (2000). Personality. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 197-221.
Knapp, M. L., & Vangelisti, A. L. (2009). Interpersonal communication and human relationships (6th ed.). Boston, MA, USA: Pearson Education.
Kurdek, L. (2005). Gender and marital satisfaction early in marriage: A growth curve approach. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 68-84. doi: 10.1111/j.0022-2445.2005.00006.x
LeFebvre, L., Blackburn, K., & Brody, N. (2015). Navigating romantic relationships on Facebook: Extending the relationship dissolution model to social networking environments. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 32, 78-98. doi: 10.1177/0265407514524848
Lenhart, A. (2015, April 5). Teens, social media, and technology overview 2015. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/.
Malone, G. P., Pillow, D. R., & Osman, A. (2012). The General Belongingness Scale (GBS): Assessing achieved belongingness. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 311-316. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.10.027
McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. J. (1997). Personality trait structure as a human universal. American Psychologist, 52, 509-516. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.52.5.509
Michikyan, M., Dennis, J., & Subrahmanyam, K. (2015). Can you guess who I am? Real, ideal, and false self-presentation on Facebook among emerging adults. Emerging Adulthood, 3, 55-64. doi:10.1177/2167696814532442
Moore, K., & McElroy, J. C. (2012). The influence of personality on Facebook usage, wall postings, and regret. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 267-274. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.09.009
Nadkarni, A., & Hofmann S. G. (2012). Why do people use Facebook?. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 243-249.
Park, N., Jin, B., & Jin, S. A. (2011). Effects of self-disclosure on relational intimacy in Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior 2011, 27, 1974-1983. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.05.004
Ryan, T., & Xenos, S. (2011). Who uses Facebook? An investigation into the relationship between the Big Five, shyness, narcissism, loneliness, and Facebook usage. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 1658-1664.
Saucier, G. (1994). Mini-Markers: A brief version of Goldberg’s unipolar Big-Five markers. Journal of Personality Assessment, 63, 506-516. doi: 10.1207/s15327752jpa6303_8
Shallcross, A. J., Ford, B. Q., Floerke, V. A., & Mauss, I. B. (2013). Getting better with age: The relationship between age, acceptance, and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104, 734-749. doi: 10.1037/a0034225
Wang, S. S. (2013). 'I share, therefore I am': Personality traits, life satisfaction, and Facebook check-ins. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, And Social Networking, 16, 870-877. doi:10.1089/cyber.2012.0395
Wilson, R. E., Gosling, S. D., & Graham, L. T. (2012). A review of Facebook research in the social sciences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 203-220. doi: 10.1177/1745691612442904
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2019-05-31
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