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Face to (Face)Book: The Two Faces of Social Behavior?
Author(s) -
Ivcevic Zorana,
Ambady Nalini
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2012.00804.x
Subject(s) - psychology , social psychology , personality , similarity (geometry) , everyday life , consistency (knowledge bases) , context (archaeology) , cyberpsychology , social media , online and offline , agreeableness , social relation , big five personality traits , world wide web , computer science , paleontology , artificial intelligence , political science , law , extraversion and introversion , image (mathematics) , biology , operating system
Social networking sites such as F acebook represent a unique and dynamic social environment. Objective This study addresses three theoretical issues in personality psychology in the context of online social networking sites: (a) the temporal consistency of F acebook activity, (b) people's awareness of their online behavior, and (c) comparison of social behavior on F acebook with self‐ and informant‐reported behavior in real life. Method F acebook W all pages of 99 college students (mean age = 19.72) were downloaded six times during 3 weeks and coded for quantity and quality of activity. Everyday social interactions were assessed by self‐ and friend report. Results F acebook activity showed significant consistency across time, and people demonstrated awareness of their online behavior. There was significant similarity between everyday traits and interactions and F acebook behavior (e.g., more posts by friends are related to A greeableness). Some differences between online and everyday interactions warrant further research (e.g., individuals with more positive offline relationships are less likely to engage in back‐and‐forth conversations on F acebook). Conclusions The results indicate substantial similarity between online and offline social behavior and identify avenues for future research on the possible use of F acebook to compensate for difficulty in everyday interactions.