Thesis

MÉMOIRE
DE
FIN
D’ÉTUDES

MSM(14)

Promotion
2014

“Can
you
guess
one’s
personality
based
on

his
Facebook
profile
?”

Préparé par Alia Khadem
sous la direction de M. Marcelo Vinhal Nepomuceno
CONFIDENTIEL Non ≺ Oui

Dedicated
to my devoted parents
and mindful brother,
for giving me the best
education they could.
In honor
of my loving aunt Feyrouz
In memory of my friend
Nazih Sanjakhdar,
for being the best catapult
I have always needed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I hear academic acknowledgements are quite tricky when it comes to the tone and
formality chosen and that it would be best to remain as prudent as possible when it comes to
sharing emotions. I - Alia, am a bundle of feelings and it would be a pleasure to begin by
personally thanking people that have contributed to lead the way. I hope that you would all
forgive my unorthodox manners of discourse and bear with my sincerity till you reach the
table of content. Being a spontaneous and revealing person who appreciates all kinds of self-
expression and happens to be fond of the digital world, aligning physical behavior and online
disclosure with my personal perception of extended-self has lately been an overwhelming
experimental challenge that I moved from ideas about personality and the Internet to this
dissertation. I achieved a lot of things that I am proud of this year and received support and
encouragement from a great number of individuals.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my parents, for incessantly investing their
time and finances for a long journey that started with a teenager’s dream to become a tennis
champion to a marketing graduate student and aspiring strategist. Without their support, I may
have not found myself at ESA Business School today. They are well informed about this
project and aware about how my working experience and previous degree have shaped my
character and confirmed my determination in the perspective of sculpting a new future. Their
emotional support and my brother’s overprotectiveness were carried by long hours of
identity-forming discussions that made me confidant to pursue a career change. So thank you,
to Mom, Dad and Riad for being the most supportive family one could hope for.
Importantly, I would like to thank Mr. Marcelo Vinhal Nepomuceno for deliberately
accepting to be my supervisor despite operating under the umbrella of ESCP Paris and for
providing a complete statistical approach attempted by one of his prior students. I am forever
grateful for his support throughout this exercise whilst empowering me to work with my own
rythm and style. I attribute the completion of my thesis and the competence of my Masters
degree to his best knowledge of the field and enlightening correspondance. One could have
definitely not asked for a better or more cordial tutor.
I would also like to express my gratitude to some inspiring and challenging teachers
from this program and the seminars at ESCP Europe London and Solvay Brussels School of
Economics for pushing me this far namely Mr. Georges Gellad, Mr. Benoît Heilbrunn, Mr.
Philippe Letréguilly, Mr. Max Poulain, Mr. Frédéric Leroy, Ms. Sandrine Macé, Ms. Anne-
Gaëlle Jolivot, Mr. Christian Blümelhuber, Mr. Jean-Pierre Baeyens, Mr. Antoine Cardyn,
Mr. Peter Stephenson Wright, Ms. Marie Taillard, Ms. Laura Raznick, Mr. Chris Halliburton
and Mr. Olivier Badot.
Next, I would like to shout a big thank you to my cousins Yasmine and Rouba for
being the best big sisters in the world and another big one to Kassem for offering me the most
generous and thoughtful pre-graduation contribution. Also, I would like to thank my
housemate Dalia for tolerating my chronic mood swings and stress during this entire year, and
to Nidal who has been a great host and cook but also for lending me her couch during project
overnights.
Lastly, a big thank you to a unique support system that has given me the strength to
pursue so much effort in little time and the thrive to continue. Thank you Nazih for being
along all these years my very good friend, my analogue classic fool and all time-preferred pen
pal and of course the one and only who understands how it’s difficult for me to write when
the mood is not right. He taught me many things that not only did death itself bitterly unveil
but the passing of time as well. It was conventional to argue with him about what I would

hypothetically crave but wouldn’t dare to try. Now, my heart has retired from its sheer
essence to one that is unbreakable and practical enough to explore its passions.
Besides writing for cathartic needs, it has become possible to serve academic purposes.
I would like to thank him for being the best listener, debater and shoulder to cry on and for
being whom he is to keep me going. I would like tell him about all what I’ve been up to and
so many other things like how my interview with Google went and that it’s OK it didn’t work
out because I’m still chasing this dream and hopefully sometime soon, I should become a
strategist, who knows… somewhere in the tech world maybe. We’ll see. But whatever
happens… kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, and I will go on.
I would like to end this part by quoting his words in one of the letters:
“ When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. Well…
Take it from me, this is bullshit. When you want something, no one will help you, not even the
universe; you have to make it on your own. And so, as dubious as it sounded back then, it
happened and now we are here. ”
and now we are here.

SUMMARY
Humans are social animals whom lives depend on others and this dependence is primarily
manifested through social interaction; we communicate our qualities to others. Through this
manifestation, human beings are shortly apt to discern and label the qualities and facets of
other people. This notion has been validated by research indicating that men are able to
recognize other’s personality characteristics after brief social encounters. The aim of this
thesis is to align this notion with social media and investigate if it is possible to apply the
same validation by exploring how users are capable of designating a person’s penchants
and/or personality traits by only relying on the information disclosed on his Facebook profile.
The likelihood of confirming this presumption is expected with the rise of social networks as
signaling tools. People are using social media to network with friends and express themselves
through implying their personality, displaying their looks, conveying their temperament,
humor, affluence, artistry, awareness and even amorous caliber. This thesis will examine
users’ online behavioral mechanism on Facebook to communicate qualities and present
resourceful research methods as well as study limitations.
KEYWORDS
Applied Thematic Analysis, Cyber-Conformity, Digital Darwinism, Facebook,
Five-Factor Model (BIG-5), Interpretative Phenomelogical Analysis, IPIP Big-Five
Factor Markers, Online Impression Management, Phatic Communication, Social
Networking Sites, Web 2.0

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................1
I. BACKGROUND ...........................................................................................1
II. WHAT? (Quoi?).............................................................................................4
III. WHY? (Pourquoi?)........................................................................................5
IV. FOR WHO? (Pour Qui?) ...........................................................................10
V. HOW? (Comment?) .....................................................................................10
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................12
I. THE NEW MEDIA SCOPE.......................................................................12
II. FACEBOOK ...............................................................................................13
II. i. HISTORY, DEFINITION AND FEATURES .........................13
II. ii. FACEBOOK AND THE RESEARCHER...............................16
III. GATEKEEPING..........................................................................................17
IV. SOCIAL CAPITAL .....................................................................................18
V. PERSONALITY EXPRESSION AND ONLINE IMPRESSION
MANAGEMENT..........................................................................................20
V.i DEFINITION.............................................................................20
V. ii. CYBER-CONFORMITY..........................................................22
V.ii. i. ANONYMITY AND DISEMBODIMENT .........25
VI. PHATIC COMMUNICATION ..................................................................26
VII. PERSONALITY ...........................................................................................29
VII.i HISTORY, DEFINITION AND THE "BIG-5" .......................29
VII.ii. FACEBOOK PERSONALITY TESTS ...................................32
V.ii. i. YOU ARE WHAT YOU LIKE........................32
V.ii. ii. PENN'S PROJECTS ........................................33
WORLD WELL-BEING PROJECT.....33
FIVE LABS ...........................................34
I

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY ...........................................36
I. QUALITATIVE STUDY..............................................................................36
I. i. STUDY DESIGN.......................................................................36
I. ii. DATA ANALYSIS ...................................................................41
II. QUANTITAVE STUDY ..............................................................................46
II. i. STUDY DESIGN.....................................................................46
II. ii. DATA ANALYSIS..................................................................48
CHAPTER 4: LIMITATIONS & REMARKS........................................................49
CHAPTER 5: APPENDIX.........................................................................................51
I. REFERENCES...............................................................................................51
II. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.........................................................................60
THE CONVERSATION PRISM ..................................................................60
THE SYNTHESIZED WORKING DEFINITION OF MEDIA ...................61
THE BIG FIVE: THE OCEAN MODEL......................................................61
SHARING DIARY-LIKE EVENTS ON FACEBOOK................................62
FACEBOOK USER GROWTH CHART IN MILLIONS............................62
WORLD-WELL BEING PROJECT.............................................................63
Extraversion ..........................................................63
Agreeableness .......................................................64
Conscientiousness..................................................65
Neuroticism ...........................................................66
Openness.................................................................67
FIVE LABS ..................................................................................................68
YOUAREWHATYOULIKE.........................................................................69
III. SURVEY .........................................................................................................71
IV. SAMPLE QUESTIONS.................................................................................74
V. SAMPLE ANSWERS....................................................................................75
V.i FOR THE ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRE................................75
V. ii. FOR SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS..........................84
VI. DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY..........................................................93
II

ABSTRACT
Social media are constantly reforming how and why we communicate and share
information. On Facebook, you are poking someone, writing a status or a note or on
someone’s timeline, following people and pages, uploading picture(s) or video(s), sending
personal message(s), playing games, being part of groups, creating pages, sharing interests,
saving links, liking something, making new friendships, deciding to disclose or conceal
content, surfing the network to be acquainted with friend’s news and liked pages etc.… While
performing all these activities on this social network, stating that it doesn’t portray at least to
a certain extent one’s personality is controversial. Although information processed and stored
on such milieu might be primarily used for identification and participation purposes so that
people can get closer and connect with each other, the deliberate use and choice of wording
and interactive media indubitably pictures how it consciously operates as a purposeful
network of identities and personalities. Facebook is designed to be a comprehensive locale
that perpetually stimulates elaborate communication, interaction and simulacrum. Thus,
postulating that it’s a medium for interpreting people’s personalities is a compelling
expedition. How are Facebook users behaving and accordingly bringing into being their
identities? This thesis will answer this question by examining the use of Facebook’s multiple
tools originally designed to communicate to the ongoing interest of expressing opinion and
character. In a world where social networks have become an integral part of our lives, we will
attempt to understand how signaling through media can be predictive and revealing of one’s
personality. First, an online questionnaire and in-depth semi-structured interviews were
performed with different participants in order to offer insights about people’s interpretation of
Facebook’s role and relationship vis-à-vis personality. Second, some of these participants and
additional ones were asked to autonomically explore the same Facebook profile and instantly
respond to an online survey aimed at attempting to describe best the personality of the
examined profile.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
I. BACKGROUND
Since the invention of the “optical telegraph”1
in 1794, a real and functional
communication system existed making it possible for an idea like the Internet to be in the
making two centuries later. Jointly, many developers worked side by side on the evolution of
the Internet to later write about it and describe it as “a world-wide broadcasting capability, a
mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction
between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location.”2
(Leiner,
Barry, et al.) Meanwhile and precisely in the half of the twentieth century was born the first
type of social media. CEO of KAS Placement3
explains that it was characterized by
“phreaking” or “phone phreaks”4
, a technique used by hackers and specialists in high-tech
aimed at understanding the functioning of the telephone system by hacking phone lines and
being able to dial numbers freely (Sundheim, 2011). Considered as the precursor of computer
hacking and although very different from social media that we know today with the surfacing
of giants like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn; this technique brings to our attention that there
has been a long and challenging concern to reunite social life and the collection of
information to make information spreading possible. Thirty years later after “phreaking”, a
newer type of social media was created and it was the “telephone modem”.
1
DILHAC,
J.
M.
(2001).
“The
Telegraph
of
Claude
Chappe-‐An
Optical
Telecommunication

Network
For
The
XVIIITH
Century”
2
LEINER,
Barry
M.,
CERF,
Vinton
G.,
CLARK,
David
D.,
KAHN,
Robert
E., KLEINROCK,

Leonard,
LYNCH,
Daniel
C.,
POSTEL,
J.,
ROBERTS,
Larry
G.,
&
WOLFF,
Stephen.
“Brief

History
of
the
Internet”
3
A
leading
sales
and
marketing
recruiting
company
in
New
York

http://www.kasplacement.com
4
SUNDHEIM,
Ken
(2011).
“Where
They
Started,
The
Beginning
of
Facebook
and
Twitter:
A

Brief
History
of
Social
Media”
Les opinions émises dans ce document n’engagent que son auteur.
L’Ecole Supérieure des Affaires ne saurait en aucun cas être tenue
pour responsable du contenu du présent document.
1

The phone modem allowed people with access to computers to engage in groups and make
discussions, play online, send and/or receive downloads and/or uploads. Innovation had been
since then changing the rules for a connected world of information.
Nonetheless, the “social” face of social media was effectively present for the first time
in the nineties with the “World Wide Web” going public and accessible to everyone through
chatting systems like AOL and music distribution services for the masses like Napster. Social
networking sites like Friendster and MySpace followed but it wasn’t too long before
Facebook, which didn’t only emerge similarly to them as a timely and convenient trend but in
contrast prevailed as a complete social phenomenon; outperformed them.
Social media is not a singular word like it sounds, it’s the plural of online websites
available on the Internet allowing people to engage; share information and discourse about
themselves and others by the use of a combination of media that has been individualized
through personal use; noting that by media we infer to the words, photos, videos and audio
sounds exploited. It is remarkable that these online websites have impelled people and
different groups to generate and share content but also to primly engage in one-to-one
dialogue. Curtis gives an extensive list of the forms in which Social media exist “blogs and
microblogs, forums and message boards, social networks, wikis, virtual worlds, social
bookmarking, tagging and news, writing communities, digital storytelling and scrapbooking,
and data, content, image and video sharing, podcast portals, and collective intelligence”5
(2013). Examples of social media sites and applications are numerous, to list a few: Youtube,
Snapchat, Wikipedia, Reddit, Flickr, Pinterest, WordPress, Instagram and Blogger etc.…
5
CURTIS,
Anthony
(2013).
“The
Brief
History
of
Social
Media”
2

Another synonym for social media is mentioned by Ellison as “Social network sites” (SNSs)
and they are defined as “Web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public
or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom
they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by
others within the system”6
(2007).
With the Internet becoming a basic and daily need, people are no longer afraid of
sharing information online and even revealing their real identity; many are displaying their
entire life at the convenience of online spectators. Accessibility to information and the
development of Facebook over the years is due to a new way of computing. According to
founder of O’Reilly Media, computation has shifted from working on a selection of online
distributed pages to a complete networking platform. He defines it as “Web 2.0” and labels it
as an “architecture of participation”7
, one that upgrades everyone’s online experience
including individual users (O’Reilly, 2005). This process is strengthened through an ultra
connectivity of devices, applications and constantly updated software designed to enhance
people’s consumption of the Internet. Inclusive of social networking sites, the use of different
sources to connect is inducing more compounding of information perpetually synthesized by
various users and leading to an immense networking force. Architecture participation is the
main reason behind sharing mounting content on social networks and works in defense of
analyzing it. The latest version of the conversation prism (Solis, 2013) arranges the growing
social media panorama and relays the communication shift from a distinct monologue and
audience to a polychrome discourse (refer to Figure 1 in the List of Illustrations Appendix).
The prism’s main value is contingent on envisioning real conversations that occur beyond
social mediums and eludes to our next part explaining how and why we are communicating
on Facebook.
6
ELLISON,
Nicole
B.
(2007).
“Social
network
sites:
Definition,
history,
and
scholarship”
7
O’REILLY,
Tim
(2005).
“Web
2.0:
compact
definition”
3

II. WHAT? (QUOI?)
(1) “You are what you share.”8
― C.W. Leadbeater, We Think: The Power Of Mass Creativity
(2) “The question isn't what do we want to know about people? It's what do
people want to tell about themselves?”9
(3) “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information
and different kinds, but more openly and with more people–and that social
norm is just something that has evolved over time.”10
(4) “They're keeping up with their friends and family, but they're also building
an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand.
They're connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It's
almost a disadvantage if you're not on it now.”11
― Mark Zuckerberg
The notion behind (1) is undoubtedly devised in a world shaped by strapping
technologies and notably social networks like Facebook where the principles are ruled by the
content that is shared. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) created the DART model to control
value co-creation procedures. They describe that value creation, which has been serving us
perfectly for almost a century is now replaced with co-creation practices because leaders are
in need of a new setting when it comes to creating value. This trend has strengthened the
weight of individuality and individual experiences that differentiate one person from another.
The role of the consumer has shifted from isolation to connection, from ignorance to
knowledge and from passiveness to activeness. Consequently, it leads to a fixed relationship
between companies and consumers where the latters’ intervention and in disregard of its
breadth is necessary to enable processes like product design and production as well as sales
8
LEADBEATER,
Charles
W.
(2009).
“We
Think:
The
Power
Of
Mass
Creativity”
9
SCHONFELD,
Erick
(2011).
“Zuckerberg
talks
to
Charlie
Rose
About
Steve
Jobs,
IPOS,
and

Google’s
‘Little
Version
of
Facebook’”
10
JOHNSON,
Bobbie
(2010).
“Privacy
no
longer
a
social
norm,
says
Facebook
founder”
11
VOGELSTEIN,
Fred
(2009).
“The
Wired
Interview:
Facebook’s
Mark
Zuckerberg”
4

and marketing. Understanding this interaction is crucial for an emerging economy shaped by
social networks and startups but also for setting rules of engagement and dialogue between
the different participants.
Internet users have become encouraged to be co-creators and take active action of
fulfilling basic needs like passion, creativity, recognition, sharing, socializing, enjoyment,
money, solutions, social reward and expression on one hand to taking action like
consumption, creation, communication, participation, gaming, chatting, contribution and
creation on the other hand. Hence, the web of today is one that is not only more open and
egalitarian in a sense where everyone is a spectator but also an actor when he chooses to.
Closely, an American Art history professor describes online co-creation on Facebook
and Twitter for research purposes, as “this growing preference for inquiry over certainty, for
co-creation of content rather than consumption of content, is the basis of citizen scholarship
in social media”12
(Sikarskie, 2012). Even though the idea that performing scholarly research
with a discipline like History sounds far fetched on social media, she explains that social
networks have excised all types of barriers to the point that it’s no longer a place for
connecting with people and meeting your next love but a new paradigm for crowd-sourcing
and authority-sharing in the world of academia. Ingeniously, her report has made it paramount
to understand that co-creation has taken a long way with social networks becoming tools to
converse about everything one feels like sharing.
Why not personality then?
III. WHY? (POURQUOI?)
Inspired by French philosopher Descartes’ proposition “cogito ergo sum”13
(1637)
which when translated to English becomes “I think, therefore I am”, the researcher would like
to confirm that users are choosing to affirm their existence on the digital scene by talking
12
SIKARSKIE,
Amanda
(2012).
“Citizen
Scholars:
Facebook
and
the
Co-‐Creation
of

Knowledge”
13
DESCARTES,
René
(1637).
“The
Discourse
on
the
Method”
5

about themselves. Truly, becoming actors in social networks involves (2) “[…] It's what do
people want to tell about themselves?” (Schonfeld, 2011), who they are and what they
think so we can understand them better and/or fulfill their needs.
In an article published in Time magazine, an editor-at-large explains the reason why and
the process that occurs when we talk about ourselves online. Instance of scientific research
lead at Harvard to explain this happening, she clarifies how multiple tests that scanned the
human brain while people where revealing their own personal information or answering
questions related to them and/or evaluating others’ personalities and/or ideas proved that
willingness to talk about thyself is simply due to the phenomenological chemistry of our
brain. The author further explains that self-disclosure and self-promotion applies to all
broadcasting mediums including social networks, radio talks, book groups and others
(Luscombe, 2012).
Correspondingly, the aim of this study is to assert that personality can be predicted
from a Facebook profile with the researcher’s confidence that Facebook users believe that
when present on this medium, they are subject to Descartes’ philosophical preposition as well.
The researcher would like to adapt the philosopher’s argument to “I Facebook, therefore I
am” implicating that when a user is aware of Facebook’s summons in terms of privacy,
identity and impression management, he will ponder about his existence on this platform and
acknowledge that his online existence is gravely reflective and will accordingly compare the
factuality of his and/or others’ inherent personality/personalities to the one/ones portrayed on
his/their Facebook profile/profiles. As a result of this awareness, the user will revise part of
this activity on this social network as well as the kind of information he whishes to share,
display or conceal. By way of illustration, the researcher created a mock-up where the
“PROTOTYPE User” believes that if he “facebooks”14
(which refers to sharing content in
this particular case) in a certain manner then his personality type is auxiliary to it.
14
MAXWELL,
Kerry
(2008).
“Facebook”
6

Hypothetical scenarios of this design would be:
― “User 1” shares scientific facts then he is “curious”, “imaginative” and “open-
minded”
― “User 2” shares articles about higher education then he is “ambitious”
― “User 3” shares a public profile then he is “friendly”
Furthermore, this user might edit certain information because he whishes to remove or alter
any data that compromises his real personality unless he is creating an illusive one, the latter
being a possible enterprise in an online world governed by commands of anonymousness and
disembodiment.
“I
FACEBOOK
THEREFORE
I
AM”15

According to Brian Solis, an industry expert focused on analyzing the effects of
disruptive technologies on the business world, culture and marketing, and in an article posted
in Innovation Insights (a Wired16
community blog); the reason behind consumers’ self-
15
This
clip
art
was
purposely
created
by
the
researcher
at
http://memegenerator.net

The
original
caricature
belongs
to
GILEVICZ,
Nano
and
was
retrieved
from
his
Account

at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nanogilevicz/9709490593/)
16
Wired
is
an
American
magazine
that
reports
on
Business,
Technology
and
Lifestyle
7

expression is what he labels as “Digital Darwinism.”17
He believes that Digital Darwinism is
characterized by the evolution of customers’ conduct at a time where society and technology
are developing at such an exponential rate that it is hard to adjust and match with customers’
capabilities (2014).
Before digging into Solis’ theory, it would be sound to present what Darwinism is by
summing it in the following statement “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor
the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. In the
struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in
adapting themselves best to their environment.”18
Henceforth, Darwin postulates that every
other specie and living thing emerges and matures via a kind of natural selection of micro
variations that have bequeathed over time and entitled him to stretch his individuality in order
to sustain, compete and procreate.
Having the evolution theory in mind, the idea that (3) social norms inherent to social
media have evolved by growing in quantity and diversity when it comes to information shared
with a broader and larger audience is a pure example of Digital Darwinism. In this manner,
Solis is making an analogy of the digital age and the surge of social media with Darwinism
providing his own and contemporary version of the theory by replacing species that evolved
to become able to exercise sustainability, competition and procreation with customers who
have evolved to become super connected, empowered and extremely demanding. We would
like to add here that Tamir, one of the researchers that performed the brain experiments we
mentioned earlier explains that conversing about the self is one of the outcomes of human
evolution and mainly a way to preserve social interactions with others “If a social creature
did not disclose information, then other creatures might stop interacting with it”19
(Dotinga,
2012).
The origin of online behavioral shift has been made visible from a rise of cyber
sociability owing to an increase in social networks engagement, mobile device use,
participation in real-time media and computing. Offered different types of operating systems,
17
SOLIS,
Brian
(2014).
“Digital
Darwinism:
How
Disruptive
Technology
is
Changing

Business
for
Good”
18
DARWIN,
C.R
(1909–14).“The
Origin
of
Species”
19
DOTINGA,
Randy
(2012).
“People
Love
Talking
About
Themselves,
Brain
Scans
Show”
8

platforms, devices, networks and mediums to communicate instantly and at will, people have
limitless access to express themselves and converse about anything.
The surge of connectivity and mass communication is one of utter convergence
gameshifting the business world, authorities and clientele with technology and innovation’s
influencing of decision-making and reaction to change. Solis further explains that despite
certain outliers refusing to adapt to technological progress due to ignorance, companies are
adapting when change is safe and cost-effective (2014). This phenomenon is dominated by a
huge number of followers and few leaders competing to present the world with relevant
material, products and solutions which emphasizes the role of the human factor and to which
extent companies are taking customers’ opinion into account since dealing will always be
centralized towards PEOPLE; specifically empowered clients and employees.
As a result, the strengthening of social networking connections between brands and
clients demonstrates that the type of discourse used on Facebook by users is one that focuses
on (4) brand building and sharing the brand identity with the brand’s target market (Facebook
friends, followers, likers and larger public audience). Perceptibly, Internet users are turning
out to be empathetic emotionally intelligent engaged communicators. They have become
experts at refining their online experience and understanding how to better personify their
activity and identity while reassessing other people and enterprises and what information to
disclose with who. Spiteri demonstrates this manifestation by stating how “On Facebook, we
are constantly writing ourselves into being, not simply through our status updates, but more
widely via the photos we share” and that “[…] Facebook makes it easier for users to express
elements of their identity which are difficult to articulate offline – this is because Facebook
provides more time for contemplation before actually acting, as would happen in the real
world”20
(2012).
The key to understanding users’ online activity consists of filtering information and
extracting strictly useful data that authenticates their identity and secures connectivity with
their contacts. A carefully designed, socially prone and custom-tailored platform reflects
users’ individual data across different channels and incorporates ubiquitous media material to
entertain users with diversified subjects across the different platforms is best. And that’s the
20
SPITERI,
Christine
(2012).
“I
Facebook
therefore
I
am”
9

reason behind Facebook’s success!
IV. FOR WHO? (POUR QUI?)
Discerning that personality traits and dimensions can be disclosed and predicted by
Facebook profiles is an ongoing concern relevant to different stakeholders that are internal
and external to Facebook. These stakeholders are amateurs and experts, the researcher
arranged them into five distinct categories and they range from the majority of (1) Facebook
users who in this context happen to be considered as ordinary individuals roaming around the
social network to perform simple communication tasks; to (2) professionals in sociology and
psychology (like anthropologists specialized in linguistics and semiotics researching links
between online activity and human behavior namely impression management and personality
in our case); to (3) hiring companies and human resource adepts for using this site and other
social networks to identify and match qualities of potential employees as well as to
understand their nature and temperament among other people before employment; to (4)
advertisers and marketers targeting specific users’ ASL (age, sex, location) and/or tastes and
likes etc…; to (5) Facebook who shares but on a bigger scale the same stakes with all of the
above in order to stay in the lead within a fast, unpredictable and rough industry by
understanding the users’ needs (through concealing, accumulating and analyzing their
secondary data which is no other than their offline behavior explained by means of studies
and statistics as well as their online one on and off Facebook); keeping them stimulated to use
the service; challenging developers to craft eminent software and entertaining designs;
yielding profits and returns on investment from it’s advertising model; to bloggers, technical
experts, entrepreneurs and start-ups, copy-cats and competitors.
V. HOW? (COMMENT?)
In the first part of the exercise, a review of literature will describe the effects of the new
social Web on online communication processes taking place within the bounds of social
networking utilities and its impacts on tangible communication further. Accordingly, we will
attempt to define Facebook and bring forward social and psychological conjectures by
10

explicating the advent of a new media scope of interpersonal communication, the
materializing of personality in the digital landscape through notable mediating constituents
like phatic communication, online impression management and cyber-conformity nurtured in
a metaphoric virtual space of anonymousness and disembodiment. In this manner, we will be
first describing the change that the online ecosystem has forced into interpersonal
relationships and how phatic communication is responsible for displaying self-expression and
personal opinions that consequently shape online impression. Besides, we will show the
difference between physical and online presence and the effects of the second on shaping
personality. We will also offer a definition of personality, briefly mention personality theories
and focus on the application of Five Factor Model in the real world.
To take more variables into account, the researcher decided to embrace in the second
part of the exercise a mixed modus operandi through the multi-methodological approach. The
first method is a qualitative study; it consists of an online questionnaire and semi-structured
interviews focused on Facebook’s role with respect to personality expression because the
researcher believes that online users and interviewees will offer significant perceptions and
interpretations of this particular relationship. The second method is a quantitative study; it
consists of an online survey where a sample is attempting to postulate the personality of the
same Facebook profile. The main aim of this survey is to examine if similarly to the non-
virtual world, people are able to identify the attributes and qualities of others in the virtual
world specifically through Facebook social signalling that occurs on one’s profile.
Subsequently, we will exploit the results of the research, explain restraints inherent to the
study and suggest recommendations that profit all the stakeholders we mentioned earlier.
11

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
I. THE NEW MEDIA SCOPE
Human species are distinct by their ability to verbalize their thoughts clearly; this
mental capacity has gradually enabled them to communicate despite the little tools they had
back then compared to the tons we have access to today. Therefore, understanding the modern
scope of media requires a partial understanding of its evolution. If we were to examine the
history of media within a context of scarcity of resources to capture the first sign of
communication, we would go back to 4000 B.C. in Egypt when writing was born with the
advent of Sumerian stamp seals (Byrnes, 2010). As explained earlier in the introduction,
survival was always key to human evolution. Moran explains this fact with civilizations
managing to preserve through expressing their events, ideas, expectations and worries by
creating their own system of communication known as language today (2010). Furthermore,
he explains that language “allows us to think conceptually and to extend our thinking through
media that extend our senses”21
.
Since media has originated as a way of communicating with others to a tool of
stretching one’s existence, the media scope and the purpose of communication evolved and is
continuously transforming. The arrival of the Internet has played a big role in this
metamorphosis by initiating a new approach to the notion of “mass media”. Attempting to
define the latter term in a scholarly compound, Potter dissolved with an alluring table
explaining messages senders, audience members and channels of disseminating messages
(2013) (refer to Table 1 in the List of Illustrations Appendix). It clarifies the shift in the
communication model and the emergence of a new form of communication system that
Strangelove sums as “the open and distributed technology of the Internet has created, quite by
accident, an entirely new form of human communication — mass participation in bi-
directional, uncensored mass communication”22
(1994).
21
MORAN,
Terence
P.
(2010).
“Introduction
to
the
History
of
Communication:
Evolutions

&
Revolutions”
22
STRANGELOVE,
Michael
(1994).
“How
to
Advertise
on
the
Internet”
12

Together with the Internet and other social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook’s
evolution has influenced people’s use of the web and disturbed methods of browsing by
amplifying digital space activity and opinion voicing to wide spectrums provided with the
choice of settling on selected niches when desired. Besides, the relationship between
communication and people is explained in the fashion of a dialogue principled by socially
confirmed commands catering for sustained interpersonal relations whereby a communication
ecosystem is only considered as qualitative when it prompts the opportune development of
“individual and relational growth.”23
(Cushman & Cahn, 1985)
Undeniably, social networking sites including Facebook are proffering the resonance
of such communication by promoting adept tools for maximal conference of interpersonal
relationship communication. Initially being characterized by physical presence and face-to-
face reciprocity, technological progress has shifted interpersonal communication to a virtual
scope comprising phone calls, electronic mail, instant messaging and social networking by
virtue of the internet being the sole and focal medium incorporating all communication tools
(Bargh et. al, 2004, p. 577).
II. FACEBOOK
II.i HISTORY, DEFINITION AND FEATURES
Undoubtedly, Facebook is the most governing and impacting networking site in the
social media arena. It’s an exhaustive and embracing webbing of swarms initiated by users’
past and present attended educational institution(s) (schools, colleges, academies, universities
etc…), hiring employer(s) and workplace(s) in addition to geographical location(s)
(hometowns and places of residences). The captivating facet of Facebook’s structure revolves
around arranging independent networks that can easily converge and interact on the same
platform in spite of inherent barriers to each network with the other(s).
23
CUSHMAN,
Donald
P.,
&
CAHN,
Dudley
D.,
(1985).
“Communication
in
interpersonal

relationships”
13

Inspired by “face books” (American universities’ directory records characterized by
students’ names and photographs), it was originally named “thefacebook”. Back then, it was
exclusively limited to Harvard students who could join groups and post on “walls”, it
subsequently comprised other nearby universities in Boston, the Ivy League and Stanford
University. Then, it gradually expanded to all universities and high-school students in the
United States, worldwide university students afterwards and finally became accessible to
anyone who owns a valid email and is older than thirteen. Ever since it was created, Facebook
grew exponentially. The number of Facebook monthly users grew from 1 million in
December 2004 to 1.32 billion in April 2014 including an average of 829 million daily active
users (Facebook Statistics, 2014) (refer to Chart 1 in the List of Illustrations Appendix).

Facebook wasn’t purposely created for perfect strangers to meet, it was originally
designed to facilitate online communication between people who already knew each other in
the offline world and factually belong to a certain social network. On the homepage, before
signing up or signing in, you would find on your upper left hand corner Facebook’s motto
“Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life” and it was recently
adapted to “connect with friends and the world around you on Facebook.”24
The feature
“People You May Know” was later created for connecting with friends, friends of your friends
and/or people belonging to the same network and later opened up for complete strangers to
meet in disregard of sharing any network(s) or friend(s) with the other user. Allowing such
connections to occur smoothly constitutes the initial intention behind creating Facebook and
they are defined in its jargon as “friendships”, users are capable of viewing them individually
in “friendship pages”.
On the Facebook medium, each user is entitled to a profile where he is free to upload
different types of personal information (work, education and professional skills; places lived;
contact information [electronic address, phone and mobile numbers, link to other social
networking accounts like Twitter and Instagram, physical address, website domain]; basic
information [birth date and year, gender, languages spoken, political and religious views];
relationship status and family members on Facebook; likes and interests, an “About You”
section where the user can provide details about himself and life events arranged by date), his
24
Facebook,
(2014).
Retrieved
from
https://www.facebook.com
14

name, a profile picture and a cover photo that easily identify him to other Facebook users who
wish to get in touch with him and communicate further on.
Whether public or private, communication on Facebook is multimodal. It publically
takes place on users’ profiles or walls (which was later defined as a “Timeline”), a user can
write on his own or someone else’s and discretely via private messages (that was later adapted
to Facebook’s own chatting application “Messenger”). It is important to note here that all
kinds of posts are timely dated and that the posts of the timeline are presented starting the
user’s birth date up till the present. Also, events, pages, groups and third-party applications
expedite communication but aren’t open to the public unless desired.
The “News Feed” feature figures on the homepage of each profile and offers news
updates about the user’s friends’ activity (status updates, wall posts, profile picture changes,
added pictures and videos, tagged friends, friends’ birthdays and upcoming events) while the
“Mini-Feed” solely updates the user’s activity; both reinforce social ties between users due to
constant updating about one another (Hargittai, 2007).
“Update Status” is a tool to update others about the user’s thoughts and feelings
and the willingness to be approved, disapproved or debated through likes, comments and
shares of the status. This tool was remodeled to include the user’s current location (check-
in) “Where Are You”, his surrounding company “Who Are You With” and activity or
thought “What Are You Doing” where he is entitled to express his feelings, mention what
he is watching or reading, listening to, eating, drinking, playing, traveling to, looking for
or exercising. As well, “Add Photo/Video” allows users to create albums or share
individual photos and/or videos. The last two motions enable users to “tag” others and
share content with them and in case of photos, it is facilitated by an internal facial
recognition software that authenticates the identity of the users.
Last but not least, Facebook’s “Privacy Settings” are detailed in a sense that the
user rigorously chooses who can contact him, search for him and have access to his posts
noting that these features can be set in manual mode or become automated allowing the
user to occasionally change the audience of specific posts. It protects users’ personal
information from being visible to a large audience because originally, a Facebook post can
15

be public and reach tons of users. It leads to a new concept of “public” and “private” life
that is specific to the online world and cannot be compared with the one in real life; a
public profile is open to anyone who has access to a Facebook account while a private one
is secluded to Facebook friends and in many cases to some of these friends. All the
features presented above facilitate communication and are detected to enhance social ties
and provide users significant leverage with regard to “life satisfaction, trust and public
participation”25
(Valenzula, Park et al., 2009).
Facebook filed its initial public offering in 2012; this event stimulated particular
interest in the topic and strong awareness of Facebook and related news that it even became
subject to scrutiny in the worlds of research and academia, finance, technology and
marketing. Facebook related topics became trendier but also constantly varied due to the
interface’s alterations, mergers and acquisitions, technical developments and marketing model
revamping. Among others, subjects of matter include effective business models and
marketing approaches, politics administration, health and psychological impacts, social
networking along with entertainment effects and the implementation of education etc…
Conducted research with regard to Facebook and psychology is recurring with the rise
of salient themes linked to Facebook’s culture and use alike earlier online and offline social
mediums, individual and corporate consumptions of this service as well as the psychological
effects of Facebook usage (Anderson, Fagan et al., 2012).
II.ii FACEBOOK AND THE RESEARCHER
Besides joining Facebook in 2006 when she was a university sophomore and being
since then a heavy user, the researcher would like to inform the reader about her young
passion towards the Internet and technology that lead hear to being extremely fond of social
media. As a teenager, she used to long for the arrival of the latest mobile phones, gadgets and
music devices in the few accessible retail stores of the Lebanese market. For her, they were
25
VALENZULA,
Sebastián,
PARK,
Namsu,
&
KEE,
Kerk.
F.
(2009).
“Is
There
Social
Capital

in
a
Social
Network
Site?:
Facebook
Use
and
College
Students'
Life
Satisfaction,
Trust,
and

Participation”
16

amazing inventions that would satisfy her relentless desire to explore the human-tech bond
and satisfy her needs in terms of solution-oriented processes and practical products. Also, she
was one of the early adopters of the social network hi5 that she used to have access to in
neighboring cybercafés. Over the years, she understood that she is relentlessly curious about
relationship building and mainly excited about what the future of computer-mediated
communication holds because she believed it would tremendously facilitate hers and people’s
lives. For the following reasons, she decided to carry her first literary work aiming that this
research will give her more perspective and assist her sometime to pursue the career of her
dreams in the field of technology and marketing. Her confidence in social networking sites’ as
crucial mediums for building and sustaining relationships leaves us to discuss Facebook’s
impact on gatekeeping.
III. GATEKEEPING
With Facebook’s present eminence as a mass communication medium, the
researcher’s effort towards explicating mass media earlier precipitates understanding its
gatekeeping theory with respect to Facebook. Gatekeeping is “the process of culling and
crafting countless bits of information into the limited number of messages that reach people
each day, and it is the center of the media’s role in modern public life.”26
(Shoemaker & Vos,
2009); users of this social network are behaving similarly to journalists and newsmen by
immensely sharing, documenting and archiving their actions and thoughts in a diary-like
structure so that their day-to-day activities and contemplations are recorded during boundless
lifespan.
The best illustration of Facebook gatekeeping is the built-in status feature which
allows the Facebook user to include his major life events (refer to Figure 2 in the List of
Illustrations Appendix), related to one’s work (started a new job, graduated, started military
service etc…), love life (got engaged, married, gave birth, owned a pet, lost a loved one
etc…), conditions of living and transportation means (moved to a new city, bought a home,
has a roommate, owns a new car etc…), accomplishments (learned a language, got a license,
traveled, achievement or award etc…), state of health (broke a bone, had surgery, overcame
26
SHOEMAKER,
Pamela
J.
&
VOS,
Timothy
(2009).
“Gatekeeping
theory”
17

an illness, etc…). This feature has been lately updated and expanded to permit more Facebook
gatekeeping activity and includes more detailed actions recounting daily banal actions like
one’s current feeling, what he is watching, reading or listening to, drinking, eating, playing
and what he is looking for etc…

Nayar explains that social networking is manufacturing a database culture and a trade-
off of information surpassing reciprocal familiarity “For Wittel, these social relations become
primarily ‘informational’, not ‘narrative’. What he means by this is that communications
between people become more ephemeral and more akin to an exchange of ‘data’ than deep,
substantive or meaningful communication based on mutual understanding”27
(2010).
Accordingly, with the constant updating of friends’ stories, followed pages and groups on its
News Feed, Facebook reflects network gatekeeping and provides the ideal space for
questioning profile users’ personalities.
IV. SOCIAL CAPITAL
Virtual encounters are held accountable for altering human relations if not harnessing
social capital. The latter is defined as an “investment in social relations with expected
returns”28
and demonstrates that relational richness is fostered through online social
networking (Lin, Cook & Burt, 2001, p.6). Even though literature is divided upon considering
if computer-mediated communication is responsible for intensifying or narrowing social
capital, the researcher is concerned with emphasizing on how social capital is reinforced
through social networking sites in order to later analyze personality through the window of
relational recognition.
According to one, the Internet can be a source of stress and depression leading to
isolation from the real world (Kraut, Lundmark, et al., 1998). In contrast, other scholarship
attests that networking activity mainly strengthens social ties through extending offline
relationships rather than just pairing random strangers and illustrates that Facebook’s
identification tools like personal information, common friends and shared networks as well as
27
NAYAR,
Pramod
(2010).
“The
New
Media
and
Cybercultures
Anthology”
28
LIN,
Nan,
COOK,
Karen
S.,
BURT,
Ronald
S.
(2001).
“Social
capital:
Theory
and
research”
18

exposed interests are facilitating the bridging of dormant and feeble ties hence building up to
achieve a snow-ball effect of constructive social capital (Ellison, Steinfield & Lampe, 2011,
pp. 4-5).
Furthermore, social networks are simulating comparable replicas of people’s offline
communities and social circles “these communications rest on operating processes at the
micro-level of individuals and structuring processes at the meso- or macro- level of
communities, institutions and societies.”29
(Kay & Johnston, 2011, p. 46) Being a figurative
and interactive social directory empowering selective neighboring, Facebook is a living
example of this replication by familiarizing what the researcher would name here as
“Facebook neighbors” (Facebook friends) with each other and leads to adequate
understanding of one another’s identity and digital persona. The online world is naturally
eradicating the physical confines that originally limited social intercourse to corporal
presence.
Mass communication’s suppressing of habitual communication norms and
manifestations like physical presence and body language connotations is due to featuring
language as the main substance for correspondence and it was earlier implied by McLuhan
describing that in “a culture like ours […] it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that,
in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the
personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves –
result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or
by any new technology”30
(Meenakshi &Kellner, 2006, p.107). Continually instituting that the
“medium is the message”31
(Kuipers, 2012), we will reflect on language as a medium to
understand Facebook users’ posts and subsequently interpret them as personality expressions.
The researcher would like to base the foundation of his research on the Five Factor
Model, which will be later explained when attempting to define personality. Yet, to depict any
Facebook post or status as a personality expression in disregard of which personality trait it is
portraying and under the umbrella of which personality theory, is related to defining it along
with the concepts of online impression management, cyber-conformity, anonymity and
29
KAY,
Fiona.
JOHNSTON,
Richard
(2011).
“Social
capital,
diversity,
and
the
welfare
state”
30
MCLUHAN,
Marshall
(1964).
“The
medium
is
the
message”
31
KUIPERS,
Giselinde
(2012).
“Medium
is
the
Message”
19

disembodiment since they explain how posts can authentically express and reflect the
identities and personality traits of their corresponding authors in the virtual world. After
providing tangible examples of personality expressions related to Facebook’s infrastructure,
we will be able to make valid interpretations of selected posts. Consequently, we will explore
both terms in the following section.
V. PERSONALITY EXPRESSION AND ONLINE
IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT
V.i DEFINITION
Impression management is found to be synonymous with self-presentation and defined
as a conscious or unconscious targeted procedure where people are trying to impact the
perception of others about a person, a commodity or an occurrence; the technique behind it
resides in managing and controlling information about the subject through social interaction
and leads to influencing the vision of the image conveyed (Piwinger & Ebert, 2001).
Typically, most people spend the biggest amount of their time interacting with others; these
interactions enable them to sculpt an internal perception of themselves before reflecting it to
others when presenting themselves in the course of communication; communication being in
our case the various Facebook features supporting the expression of personality. Blumer
states this process by explaining how “symbolic interactionism captures the ongoing
processes between one’s self, one’s social interactions, and their links to developing
meaning”32
(1986).
Through the lens of Goffman’s theoretical research about impression management
in theatre, status updates and wall posts are described as a “public performance” and
“front stage role”33
because similar to an acting performance; users who have access to
these features are considered to be audiences capable of assessing and judging
information while the transmitting communication requires “private preparation for
32
BLUMER,
Herbert.
(1986).
“Symbolic
interactionism:
Perspective
and
method”
33
SAS,
Corina,
DIX,
Alan,
HART,
Jennefer,
&
SU,
Ronghui
(2009).
“Emotional
experience

on
Facebook
site”
20

public performance” and “back stage role” to elaborate signals vehiculing desired
impressions (Sas, Dix et al., 2009).
Similarly to the offline world and through interpersonal means of communication,
entities are handling perceptions of each other on Facebook “users appear to extend their
offline personalities into the domains of online networking sites.”34
Research demonstrated
that users who are interacting on Facebook to communicate with others are to a greater
extent authenticating their identity “Facebook Profiles Reflect Actual Personality, Not Self-
Idealization”35
.
Despite fundamentally being a locale for social interaction, Facebook is an apparatus
of unconscious and conscious rationales forming idolized identities through the display of
mindful selection of shared content. When investigating networking on this medium in
reference to identity construction, 296 students out of 400 confirmed that their profiles are
accurately “true to self”36
(Stern & Taylor, 2007). As well, a study associating the number of
friends on Facebook to interpersonal impressions on this medium revealed that social media
users are committed to shaping impressions and constantly service them by communicating
with others “social networking sites, such as Facebook, are particularly interesting to
communication researchers because they are dedicated specifically to forming and
managing impressions, as well as engaging in relational maintenance and relationship-
seeking behaviors”37
(Tong, et al., 2008).
Moreover and when correlating Facebook activity to searching and tracking
34
Gosling,
Samuel
D.,
AUGUSTINE,
Adam
A.,
VAZIRE,
Simine,
HOLTZMAN,
Nicholas,
&

GADDIS
Sam
(2011).
“Manifestations
of
Personality
in
Online
Social
Networks:
Self-‐
Reported
Facebook-‐Related
Behaviors
and
Observable
Profile
Information”
35
BACK,
Mijita
D.,
STOPFER,
Juliane
M.,
VAZIRE,
Simine,
GADDIS,
Sam,
SCHMUKLE,

Stefan
C.,
EGLOFF,
Boris,
&
GOSLING,
Samuel
D.
(2010).
“Facebook
profiles
reflect
actual

personality,
not
self-‐idealization”
36
TAYLOR,
Kim,
STERN,
Lesa
A.,
YERGENSEN,
Brent,
TYMA,
Adam,
RAHOI-‐GILCHREST,

Rita
L.,
CHARLESWORTH
Dacia,
SIMMERLY,
Greggory,
PORROVECCHIO,
Mark
J.,
REESE,

Robin,
MARTIN,
R.
J.,
MACKENZIE
Lauren,
STROKLUND
Martin,
SCHOENBERG,
Brandi,

KIENZLE,
Natalie,
&
HUSAR,
Shane
(2007).
Journal
of
the
Communication,
Speech
&

Theatre
Association
of
North
Dakota,
Vol.
20.
37
TONG,
Stephanie
T.,
VAN
DER
HEIDE,
Brandon,
LANGWELL,
Lindsey
&
WALTHER,

Joseph
B
(2008).
“Too
much
of
a
good
thing?
The
relationship
between
number
of
friends

and
interpersonal
impressions
on
Facebook”
21

information, researchers deduced that the network’s main intentions are “social searching
(i.e., extracting information from friends’ profiles)” and “social browsing (i.e., passively
reading newsfeeds)” and emphasized the occurrence of affirmative feelings after users
examined their friends profiles “the goal-directed activity of social searching may activate
the appetitive system, which is related to pleasurable experience, relative to the aversive
system”38
. The particular observation of the study resides in comparing the time spent on both
intentions and reveals that users were keen on performing social searching to a greater extent
(Wilson, Gosling & Graham, 2012) suggesting that users are interested in being acquainted
with their friends’ impressions through their online activities and identity signals; which are
posteriorly approved and /or refuted when profiles are investigated and thus provide more
accurate judgment.
Nonetheless, self-presentations are also described as aspired expositions “hoped-for
possible selves are a subcomponent of the possible selves that differs from the suppressed or
hidden ‘‘true self” on the one hand and the unrealistic or fantasized ‘‘ideal self””39
(Zhao et.
al, 2008). As a result of having rich literature and research demonstrating Facebook
presentations to be true, ideal or hoped selves is validating the omnipresence of personality on
this medium yet impels the conduct of further research to confirm the possibility of
corresponding it to one’s actual personality (cyber-conformity) as well as clarifying
limitations related to the nature of computer-mediated communication in opposition to face-
to-face communication.
V.ii CYBER-CONFORMITY
Compared to face-to-face interactions and due to its immediacy and asynchronousity,
cyber communication can be argued to be defying when it comes to self-presentation.
Besides, Facebook is described as the less anonymous social network and defined as a
“nonymous environment” where “users have some control over how they are presented, but
not total control, because the activities in which they are involved online, and the people with
38
WILSON,
Robert
E.,
GOSLING,
Samuel
D.,
&
GRAHAM,
Lindsay
T.
(2012).
“A
review
of

Facebook
research
in
the
social
sciences”
39
ZHAO,
Shanyang,
GRASMUCK,
Sherri
&
MARTIN,
Jason
(2008).
“Identity
construction

on
Facebook:
Digital
empowerment
in
anchored
relationships”
22

whom they connect, also provide identity cues—and identity validation or refutation—to
other users”40
(Zhao, Grasmuck, et al., 2008). However, applying Goffman’s sociological
theory of communication to online social interactions has affirmed that despite the absence of
physicality, the technology behind virtual communication supplies novel occasions and
various means of presenting the self (Brooks, et. al, 2002).
Noting that they are informal and implicit, norms are described as behavioral
indicators within the confines of social clusters and defined as “the rules that a group uses for
appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors”41
and conformity is
the ability to match behavior with the clustered norms (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).
Regardless of the presence or absence of others, conformity may often result from group
pressure “both adults and adolescents often conform their behavior and opinions to peer
groups, even when they themselves know better.”42
In a connected world where competition and tension are quotidian, conformity to
norms is paired with well informed decisions of joining communities like Facebook “users
may be informed about what the benefits and risks are to an extent, but they could still be
influenced to join and use Facebook based on peer pressure and because everyone else is
doing it”43
. In addition, disclosing personal information and modeling identities is ruled by
Facebook’s environmental principles encouraging impression management and self-
presentation by the use of identity pegs (Geidner, et. al, 2007) and identity cues (Goffman,
1959).
Veritably, consciously disclosing specific information online determines the urge that
users have towards portraying their impressions in front of their own connected audience.
Facebook’s features mentioned earlier promote these portrayals and the numerous examples
on Facebook’s platform range from writing to uploading content including profile pictures,
cover photos, photos and albums, videos, to status updates, notes, pages, likes, detailed
40
ZHAO, Shanyang,
GRASMUCK,
Sherri
&
MARTIN,
Jason
(2008).
“Identity
construction

on
Facebook:
Digital
empowerment
in
anchored
relationships”
41
MARSHALL,
Gordon
&
SCOTT,
John
(2009).
“A
Dictionary
of
Sociology”
42
HAUN,
Daniel
&
TOMASELLO,
Michael
(2011).
“Conformity
to
peer
pressure
in

preschool
children”
43
GOVANI,
Tabreez,
PASHLEY
Harriet
(2005).
“Student
awareness
of
the
privacy

implications
when
using
Facebook”
23

information similar to the one in the “About You” section (Yurchisin et. al, 2005), groups a
user belongs to and many others. Also, basic information that we are invited to fulfill when
we first create a Facebook account is likely to be ignored at a first glimpse, yet and in this
context; it is also part of these examples which portray one’s self is like bringing into public
political and religious views and/or interests since such type of information may be shared in
the real world as well (Limperos, et al., 2009).
Information disclosure also results in the recurrence of cyber-conformity and cyber-
privacy concerns, users are more careful when interacting on Facebook “more people
engaged with Facebook privacy settings than the industry average of 5–10 percent.”44
Online
users are expecting various types of diversion to the point that they are suspecting others’
identities and/or personalities portrayed. Based on the premises that online identities ought to
be real, users are given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to conforming their personality
expressions to their personalities. In fact, Bakardjieva and Feenberg (2000) demonstrated that
the growth of online communities dependent on information disclosure compels users to shift
their attention from information ethos in terms of privacy to issues with respect to alienation,
which is defined as a manipulation of information detached from appropriate uses performed
by the recognized online populace.
By exploring the environments of the workplace and bedrooms as tangible spaces
where personality expression occurs, studies defined and dissected individual personality
expression into two distinct categories and named them as the “identity claim” and the
“behavioral residue”45
. The first is described as a purposeful choice picked by the user to
convey his image, is visible from the ways he garnishes his physical appearance, his hairstyle
and taste in clothes but also through explicit declarations like bumper stickers or oral
announcements while the second is unintentional and can be guessed from clues related to
one’s behavior as tidy or messy spaces would reveal one’s penchant to be organized or
disorganized (Gosling, et al., 2002).
In the context of Facebook, behavioral residues and identity claims are considered to
give clues about a user’s personality; likes are considered identity claims because users with
44
HARGITTAI,
Eszter
(2010).
“Facebook
privacy
settings:
Who
cares?”
45
GOSLING,
Samuel
D.,
KO,
Sei
J.,
MANNARELLI,
Thomas,
MORRIS,
Margaret
E.
(2002).
“A

room
with
a
cue:
personality
judgments
based
on
offices
and
bedrooms”
24

access to them can automatically sort them out and deduce private information about the
likers such as their sexual orientation, political affiliation, religious views, intellect and
personality (Kosinki, Stillwell & Graepel, 2013) while friend lists and picture postings are
considered as behavioral residues (Gosling, et al., 2011).
The non-phatic nature of Facebook subsequently developed explains that conformity
occurs in computer-mediated communications by varying cross-culturally due to the
disappearance of social cues and verbal language, which are exterior to cultural habits
(Cinnirella & Green, 2007). Despite the lack of literature advancing factors related to social
conformity in the online world and specifically groups in Facebook, one can’t fail to notice
that conformity is motivated by some of Facebook’s settings and other networking sites like
groups and networks because these memberships encourage users’ belongingness and compel
them to adhere to their regulations before joining and eventually interacting with other
members. By the use of Google+ Hangout, a recent study comparing conformity between
textual and video environments validated that conformity is equally present in both text and
video (Devers, et al., 2012).
V.ii.i ANONYMITY AND DISEMBODIEMENT
Whether online or offline, anonymity is established as a state characterized by non-
existence of identity. Marx explained that identity is defined to be knowledgeable in the
offline world through one’s legal name, locatability or contact address (like phone numbers or
e-mails), pseudonyms, pattern knowledge (revealing people’s identities through machine
learning), social categorization (like gender, ethnicity, age, religion etc…) and symbols of
eligibility (like passwords and secret codes) (2001). Further on, he explicated that anonymity
in the online world is characterized by the disclosure or non-disclosure of people’s
information, which can be segmented into individual identification, shared identification,
geographic location, date, and time of activity, relationships, group and or/networks, objects
(like cars, electronic devices or buildings and businesses), communication and economic
behavior, values and emotions and measurement characterizations (like college scores, blood
tests or credit utilization) (2004).
25

Anonymity is held accountable for affecting social conformity “moderations of the
impact of anonymity of the self on social influence should exclusively result in ordinal
interactions, because anonymity of the self impacts on only one social influence mechanism:
conformity”46
and cyber-conformity as well “when members of online groups interacted under
anonymous conditions and group salience was high, normative behavior increased in those in
groups as compared to electronic groups in which members where anonymous […]
participants who interacted under individuating conditions displayed an intermediate level of
conformity to group norms”47
.
Discourse related to information technology often refers to the virtual nature of
communication and the abandonment of the human body (Bell & Kennedy, 2000); the online
user is depicted as a disembodied human “in cyberwriting, the human is often referred to as
the ‘meat’, the dead flesh that surrounds the active mind which constitutes the ‘authentic’ self
[…] the dream of cyberculture is to leave the ‘meat’ behind and to become distilled in a
clean, pure, uncontaminated relationship with computer technology”48
which leaves us to
apprehending conformity under a new angle and characterized by “the combination of
disembodiment and anonymity creates a technologically mediated environment in which a
new mode of identity production emerges.”49
VI. PHATIC COMMUNICATION
Language is classified into formal and informal categories that can be analyzed to
explain what the conversationalist intends to say or convey. Defined by Laver as “a type of
speech in which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words”50
(1975), phatic
communication is an informal language indifferent to the bearing of meaning and to providing
46
BIRCHMEIER,
Zachary,
DIETZ-‐UHLER,
Beth,
&
STASSER,
Garold
(2011).
“Strategic
Uses

of
Social
Technology:
An
Interactive
Perspective
of
Social
Psychology”,
Cambridge

University
Press
47
KRAUT,
Robert,
BRYNIN,
Malcolm,
KIESLER,
Sara
(2006).
“Computers,
Phones,
and
the

Internet:
Domesticating
Information
Technology.”
Oxford
University
Press

48
BELL,
David,
&
KENNEDY,
Barbara
M.
(2000).
“The
Cybercultures
reader”
49
BARGH,
John
A.,
MCKENNA,
Katelyn
Y.
A.,
&
FITZSIMONS,
Gráinne
M.
(2002).
“Can
you

see
the
real
me?
Activation
and
expression
of
the
‘‘true
self”
on
the
Internet”
50
LAVER,
John
(1975).
“Communicative
functions
of
phatic
communion”
26

valuable piece of information to the audience. Moreover, Cummings explains that it
stimulates the accomplishment of a social mission by endorsing “Schneider (1988: 11)
observes that phatic speech ‘does not convey much cognitive information […] but it is always
loaded with social information’.”51
(2010)
Originally acquired by people to communicate trivial actions like saluting or saying
goodbye, phatic communication has also been detected to vitalize connectivity between
speakers. This correlation is similarly occurring in the online world and evidently social
networks where phatic communication is as present as the offline one since “the Internet
represents an entangled union of a technology and its culture, and exemplifies this technology’s
facility to create, develop and maintain social relationships”52
(Wang et. al, 2011).
Although lacking substance and considered as meaningless talk, phatic
communication is confirmed to make sense when examined and interpreted. For instance, a
poke on Facebook can be perceived as an interest in someone and a laid-back attitude of
affirming visibility (Radovanovic, 2012). Similar to the poke’s example, we will seek to make
a thorough analysis of other Facebook tools like status writing and content sharing to interpret
personality weight and significance.
With the rise of the online world and the proliferation of communication on the web
through networks like Facebook, social media is considered to be a meaningful and
captivating locale of phatic communication; “the rise in prominence of phatic media and
communication is a way to achieve some form of intimacy and connection with the ever
increasing amount of contacts, connections and networks in which we are increasingly
embedded”53
(Nayar, 2010). As a matter of fact, Facebook is a case in point and it encourages
phatic culture by forcing users to share brief responses with a limited number of characters by
trimming surplus wording and/or content besides embedding it inside what appears to be a
preview of the original post and that can be viewed when clicked.
The intensification of physical absenteeism and phatic nature of emerging
technologies are vindications behind Facebook’s success in modern cultural norms. Users are
51
CUMMINGS,
Louise
(2010).
“The
pragmatics
encyclopedia”
52
WANG,
Victoria,
TUCKER,
John
V.,
TRACEY,
E.
R.
(2011).
“On
phatic
technologies
for

creating
and
maintaining
human
relationships”
53
NAYAR,
Pramod
(2010).
“The
New
Media
and
Cybercultures
Anthology”
27

constantly strengthening Facebook’s existent phatic configuration by publishing predominant
phatic material when updating their statuses (the status facility is inferred by the platform as
sharing “what’s on your mind” and is distinctively positioned in the status box through a
smaller shaded grey font) and provides implicit hints about one’s willingness to apprise his
existence and availability to be reached and/or contacted when frequently sharing his thoughts
and activities (like check-ins and life events) and vice-versa.
This effect is also reinforced by the means of “poking” other users and purposely
trying to attract their attention; it is undoubtedly the only tool designed to generate almost
identical human-like phatic communication since it refers to nudging someone as a way to
seek further communication. As an illustration of Facebook’s poking’s phaticity and taking
into consideration the role that social context and the extent of intimacy play in defining a
poke’s meaning, the researcher would like to refer to Dave McClure’s (Creator of 500
Startups54
) interesting sketch55
of the range of pokes’ possible meaning(s).
Finally, “liking” content snippets shared by friends or others to verbalize contentment
is another way of further engaging in Facebook phaticity. In this context, writer Douglas Ray
illustrates a simplistic explanation of social media. He features in a list56
a donut as the subject
of interest and compares how it is portrayed in different phatic posts across the main social
networks where he illustrates liking a donut on Facebook as one of them.
Having thoroughly covered above all the fundamental concepts related to signalling
through Facebook, we will contextually define personality and review popular frameworks by
focalizing on the Five Factor Model because it will be utilized in our methodology.
54
500
Startups
is
a
seed
fund
and
startup
accelerator
program
55
MCCLURE,
Dave
(2007).
“The
Zen
of
Poke:
A
Facebook
Story”
56
RAY,
Douglas
(2012).
“Social
Media
Explained”
retrieved
from
his
Instagram
account

and
edited
by
the
researcher
on
Photoshop.
It
originally
appeared
at
http://www.three-‐
ships.com/blog/social-‐media-‐and-‐donuts
28

VII. PERSONALITY
VII.i HISTORY, DEFINITION AND THE “BIG-5”
Assessing the personalities of people in our surrounding environment has nearly
become one of our mundane activities “in our postmodern culture which is TV dominated,
image sensitive, and morally vacuous, personality is everything and character is increasingly
irrelevant.”57
Closely to personality psychologists, we are unconsciously observing other’s
behaviors and estimating why they are behaving in certain manners. Noting that our
assessments are specific to individuals we know, personality theories developed by experts
explain these behaviors to serve the general public.
Despite the abundance of personality theories, understanding personality as a stand-
alone word is a prime requisite. Personality originates from the Latin derivative “persona”58
which signifies a character acted by a performer and refers to theatrical masks in disregard if
the role-play is projecting one or various characters and/ or concealing identity. Describing
personality is associated with describing traits. In essence, a personality trait is a patterned
amalgam of beliefs, emotions and behaviors uniquely distinguishing a person (Michel, Shoda
& Smith, 2004), it emerges from one’s inner confines and is described to be mainly persistent
(Caspi & Moffitt, 1993).
From way back when Middle Age civilizations existed, mankind was in quest of
explaining people’s comportment by arranging personalities into discrete categories; each
personality evaluation was elaborately centered on individuals’ behavior, beliefs and
emotions. The first personality model was created by Greek physician Hippocrates and
founded on medical theories connecting personality to one of four types of temperaments
(Garrison, 1966). Medicine of the eighteenth century advanced expeditiously but it wasn’t
until the end of the nineteenth century that psychology was separated from the fields of
biology and philosophy, and that personality was firstly discerned from man’s morphology
and physiology. At the time, psychologist Wilhelm Wundt demonstrated that humans were
57
WELLS,
David
(1994).
“No
Place
For
Truth:
or
whatever
Happened
to
Evangelical

Theology”
58
BISHOP,
Paul
(2007).
“Analytical
Psychology
and
German
Classical
Aesthetics:
Goethe,

Schiller,
and
Jung,
Volume
1:
The
Development
of
the
Personality”
29

not characterized by one temperament but embraced each in various degrees depending on
their interchangeable emotional states (Carlson & Heth, 2010).
In the twentieth century, undivided attention was brought upon the subject of
individual personality with Sigmund Freud’s structural model of the psyche where the “id”
represents intuitive impulse, the “super-ego” involves the judgmental and counseling
responsibility and the “ego” reflects realm between impulse and judgment; the interaction and
clash between the three components to dominate redounds in behavior specific to each
individual (Ruth, 2006). Many other adepts supplied theories of personality from Eduard
Spranger who proposed different dimensions of value attitudes (artistic, religious, theoretic
and economic) (Stewart, 1998), to Henry Link who postulated an exemplary personality
assessment as a data filter allocating the best possibilities to perform distinct purposes (Link,
1919), Erich Fromm who contrasted sickly and harmful orientations (receptive, exploitative,
hoarding and marketing) to a positive one (the productive orientation) on one hand and a
deathly one (the necrophilous orientation) on the other hand (Sayers, 2007), and Carl Jung
who developed the psychological patterns of extraversion, sensation, thinking and judging
coupled with their opposites (Jung, Hull & Baynes, 1976) later developed by Katharine
Briggs and Isabelle Myers as a test (the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) identifying sixteen
personality types and assisting people in understanding themselves better when falling under
one of them (The Myers & Briggs Foundation, 2014). As for Abraham Maslow, he explained
that humans are motivated to maximize their potential based on their position in his
developed hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1943); and John Watson argues that all humans’
actions including thinking and feeling should be interpreted as behaviors (Graham, 2010).
Having speedily enumerated behavior-based personality theories, we would not want
to lastly fail to mention that behavior was further explained by Hartman as an external
expression of personality barring comportment alike the previous theories yet resulting from
other factors described as one’s driving core motives and including his instincts and
preferences, needs and wants, values and character (1987) “every human personality is the
product of an innate drive to create something unique from one’s raw individual
experience”59
and the researcher believes that the combination of these motives catalyzes the
activity of self-expression occurring on the Facebook medium.
59
NAGAO,
Tadahiko,
SAITO,
Isamu
(2000).
“Kokology:
The
Game
of
Self-‐Discovery”
30

On this account, we provided the reader with a succinct history of personality theories
and assessments revealing that personality can be evaluated through different principal
aspects (temperament and dispositions, dynamic psychology of conscious and unconscious
motivations, medicine and biology, critical thinking and rationalism, behavior and cognitive
social learning). Furthermore, the immense and diversified history of psychology points to
difference of opinion and lack of consent with researchers applying extensive approaches
instead of recognizing themselves with a distinct personality perspective. Unlike certain
personality models focused on theory evolution, psychoanalysis and dynamic psychology, our
interest resides in locating empirically driven personality models with concrete applications of
personality testing which leaves us with the Five-Factor-Model.
Trait theories proposed different numbers of personality traits, some were complex
like Allport’s list of four thousand traits (Allport et. al, 1936) and Catell’s sixteen factors
(Catell et. al, 1970) while others were compact like Eysenck’s three-factor theory (1970).
Researches found that the proper personality trait model shouldn’t be extremely complicated
or narrowed which lead to the inception of the Five-Factor-Model describing five pivotal
traits as a foundation of personality. The Five-Factor-Model was anticipated by McDougall
who extensively discussed personality and factor “personality may to advantage be broadly
analyzed into five distinguishable but separable factors, namely, intellect, character,
temperament, disposition, and temper. [...] Each of these is highly complex [and] comprises
many variables”60
(1932).
In the beginning of the twentieth century, many debates disputed the Five-Factor
model (FFM) of personality until Goldberg affirmed it as “robust” and that “it should be
possible to argue the case that any model for structuring individual differences will have to
encompass at some level-something like these 'big five' dimensions”61
. He also asserted the
speculative side of the Five-Factor-Model “the empirical evidence for this “Big-Five”
representation has been obtained in analyses of the relations among trait terms when they are
used by subjects to describe themselves and others”62
. Moreover, the efficiency of the model
60
MCDOUGALL,
William
(1932).
“Of
the
words
character
and
personality”
61
GOLDBERG,
Lewis
R.
(1981).
“Language
and
individual
differences:
the
search
for

universals
in
personality
lexicons”
62
GOLDBERG,
Lewis
R.
(1990).
“An
alternative
“Description
of
personality”:
The
Big-‐Five

factor
structure”
31

was explicated through its detecting of various personality traits not overlapping under any
circumstance, through empiric enquiries revealing the model’s uniformity in different
research methods including interviews and descriptive examinations and covering a broad
scope of participators of various ages and cultures (Matthews, Deary & Whiteman, 2003).
The Big-Five factors and their integral traits are currently celebrated in the academic milieu
under the OCEAN acronym (Atkinson et. al, 2000) (refer to Table 2 in the List of
Illustrations Appendix).
VII.ii FACEBOOK PERSONALITY TESTS
VII.ii.i YOU ARE WHAT YOU LIKE
Having defined in our literature the “like” as a Facebook feature and as a means of
online phatic communication expressing appreciation, we present you with You Are What
You Like, an online test created by the Psychometrics Centre63
to predict one’s personality
through his Facebook likes. The concept of the test is that Facebook users like different
things, which explains the different traits they have “people who like deviantART.com are on
average liberal, while those who like NASCAR are rather traditional”64
. After granting the
application permission to access one’s profile and perform the test, users’ likes are recorded
and an average of one’s personality is carried out by examining the stereotyped personality of
existing figures who share same likes with the examined user. When the majority of a
person’s likes matches the likes of a renowned personality of a figure, the user is considered
to share the same trait(s). For instance, a user who shares likes similar to the ones of film
directors Woody Allen, Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino, known to be liberal in the
Hollywood community (Chotiner, 2014) is concluded by the test to be liberal as well.
Performing this online personality prediction consists of collecting more Facebook
data which is gathered from the examined profile and friends’ profiles and mainly found in
the about you section (date of birth, education and work history, hometown and current city,
63
The
Psychometrics
Centre
is
a
center
at
the
University
of
Cambridge
devoted
to

research,
education
and
product
development
with
respect
to
social
and
applied

psychology
in
the
online
world.
Retrieved
from
http://www.psychometrics.cam.ac.uk
64
Cambridge
Psychometrics
Centre.
“You
Are
What
You
Like”.
Retrieved
from

http://youarewhatyoulike.com/HowDoesItWork
32

relationship information, religious and political views). Friend’s likes are also compared to
the examined profile and the above-mentioned example of a famous typical personality (ies)
leads to the personality prediction of the examined profile. The projection is fragmented into
five linear sections presenting diagnose in the form of percentile uniformly designed like the
five-factor model traits. It also provides a final section with suggestions of personality twins
and opposites from the profile’s friend list (refer to Figure 14 in the List of Illustrations
Appendix which illustrates the researcher’s personality prediction).
Besides explaining the mechanism behind’s it’s prediction model, it warns online
users from the experimental nature of the test which may bypass precision and where
interpretation is constrained to the full responsibility of the author’s (Facebook user)
comprehension of data specific to his profile. As well, the website claims that the
revolutionary side of it is majorly due to its speed and prompt result preventing the user from
any frustration related to filling any questions or surveys; to its actual validity by exclusively
analyzing Facebook behavior instead on relying on offline behavior; as well as the difficulty
to fake answers with such clinical research because likes are choices decided in the past
opposed to less spontaneous answers provided in standard testing (Cambridge Psychometric
Centre). Finally, the research behind this application further explains that Facebook likes can
offer other psychodemographic predictions from one’s profile such as intelligence,
contentment as well as indices related to political and spiritual viewpoints (Kosinski,
Stillwell, & Graepel, 2013).
VII.ii.iii PENN’S 65
PROJECTS
WORLD WELL-BEING PROJECT
The World Well-Being Project (WWBP) is a project created by the Positive
Psychology Center66
, which is mainly devoted to the spreading of Positive Psychology. The
latter is a scientific research-based exploration of human’s strengths and weaknesses aiming
to find grounds for people’s success and thriving when they are living their lives to the fullest
65
University
of
Pennsylvania,
http://www.upenn.edu
66
The
Positive
Psychology
Centre
is
a
center
at
the
University
of
Pennsylvania
devoted

to
research,
academia,
teaching
and
the
spread
of
positive
psychology.

http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu
33

and in the most meaningful ways through developing their education and career path,
affection and pleasure whilst striving to preclude misery resulting from unproductive and
purposeless existence (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Having earlier defined language
as a signalling tool in the new media scope, we would like to reconcile with the team behind
the WWBP since it is purposed to assess welfare, health and happiness as well as detecting
psychological processes impacting well-being on the basis of language use in social media
which is no other than a verbal expression of personality (World Well-Being Project beta,
2014).
Language analyses performed by the project enquired into the factors of age, gender
and personality. The researcher is specifically interested in the last analysis since it correlates
with the study by inspecting the use of language in Facebook through identifying user’s traits
under the FFM. The project adapted personality language to the age of the user and words
used on Facebook were distinguished depending on their close relationship with the Big-5,
the bigger the word the higher its closeness to the trait and the brighter its color the higher its
frequency (noting that color shades start with grey and culminate with red). For instance, a
more extravert person is identified by being dynamic, conversational, intrepid, daring, lively
and self-confident and in Facebook, he would be portraying his positive feel by the use of
words like “chilling”, “bestie”, “beach”, etc… (refer to Figure 3 in the List of Illustrations
Appendix which illustrates the trait of a more extraverted person and to Figures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
9, 10, 11 & 12 for the remaining traits of the FFM and their opposites).
FIVE LABS
Based on the above-mentioned Well-Being Project, Five Labs is an online test
imbedding an artificial intelligence engine and predicting personality by examining language
use on Facebook67
(Schwartz, 2013). The application’s co-founder Nikita Bier described the
test as a fun and educating “personality snapshot” explaining how data portrays the online
user on public networks and it’s use whereby it’s “meant to hold a mirror to the growing
trend of social applications mining data from user content”68
. Being considered as the chief
67
Retrieved
from
http://labs.five.com
68
O’CALLAGHAN,
Jonathan
(2014).
“What
does
your
Facebook
status
say
about
you?
Tool

34

personality theory of contemporary psychology (Digman, 1990), the Five-Factor Model is
also a cornerstone of the Five Labs test. The procedure consists of extracting keywords from
one’s timeline in order to form an impression of a user’s personality by featuring it in the
geometric shape of a pentagon where each of the fives ends presents one trait of the FFM and
can be compared to other pentagons of famous public figures like Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg, President of the United States Barack Obama and others (refer to Figure 13 in
the List of Illustrations Appendix which illustrates a screenshot of the Five Labs homepage
and a user’s personality test compared to one of her friends).
analyses
posts
to
reveal
the
personality
traits
of
you
and
your
friends”.

35

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