The Role of Individual Differences and Emotion in Facebook Activity

Facebook has become a common means for self-representation and social interaction. We conducted two studies to examine more closely how individuals’ personality traits and emotion are associated with their Facebook activity. Using both participant self-report and content coding, Study 1 revealed that, contrary to some previous studies, individuals higher in narcissism were less likely to share certain content on Facebook than those lower on narcissism. Study 2 revealed that individuals were more likely to share content on Facebook in response to a vignette describing a happy life event, as opposed to a sad or anxious life event. These studies are the first to demonstrate these results utilizing such vignettes as stimuli for Facebook activity for all participants.