Do YouJustGetMe? Do I Even Get Myself?
David Evans presented a paper at the International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM 2008) this week on the science of interpersonal perception, or more specifically: how well people are able to understand (or "get") others based on others' online profiles, and what elements of those profiles are most important to that understanding.
The results presented in the paper, "What Elements of an Online Social Networking Profile Predict Target-Rater Agreement in Personality Impressions?", are based on data collected through an online site, YouJustGetMe, that invites users to answer a set of 40 questions designed to enable assessment of their personality - based on the "big five" personality traits, which, according to Wikipedia, include the following:
- Openness - appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience.
- Conscientiousness - a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behaviour.
- Extraversion - energy, positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others.
- Agreeableness - a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.
- Neuroticism - a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability
The research questions that David and his co-authors, Sam Gosling and Anthony Carroll, posed were:
Are people getting to know each other via social media? Are they at least seeing others as the others see themselves? Under what conditions?
The YouJustGetMe web site was designed to answer these questions.
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