Would you believe someone if they told you that your social media presence directly reflect your personality? Well, in China, researchers are gathering data to prove this theory.
In the past, psychologists used questionnaires and a variety of tests to measure personality based on self-provided information. With nearly one billion people using social media, personalities are now being measured through profiles and updates. According to the article by Megan Garber, “Your Personality Type Can Be Measured According to Your Social Media Presence,” the frequency of updates, the quality of content shared, and the use of certain pronouns can tell quite a bit about someone’s personality. Although the studies have just begun, researchers have found a direct correlation with personality and social media.
Social media users are providing valuable information unknowingly to data collectors with every profile update. The information gathered about consumers’ personalities, enables marketing teams to tailor promotional campaigns and advertisements to reach highly-definable target markets. So the next time you see an advertisement on your Facebook profile, it will most likely relate to something you posted on your profile page.
Read an excerpt from the article.
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According to the theory of the Five Factor model, human personality can be divided into five different core dimensions:openness (having an active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, and intellectual curiosity), conscientiousness (being organized and achievement-oriented), extraversion (being social, assertive, and talkative), agreeableness (being helpful, cooperative, and sympathetic) and neuroticism (being anxious, envious, guilty, or depressive). Those factors, the theory goes, describe someone’s overall personality and offer important clues when it comes to that someone’s role in social interactions. That makes those factors valuable not only to social science researchers, but also to educators and daters and content providers and marketers.
Traditionally, personality has been measured according to self-reported info, through mechanisms like questionnaires. But people’s own view of themselves is often notoriously at odds with the way other people view them, so simply asking people about themselves can lead to discrepancies and misleading results.
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