Personality Factors Predicting Disinhibited and Risky Online Behaviors

Abstract

The current study examined how individual differences relate to one s tendency to feel disinhibited in the online space. We conducted an online study for which we developed two short measures to assess online disinhibition and risky online behaviors. Specifically, we examined the relationship between feelings of anonymity and invisibility in the online environment and personality. Moreover, we hypothesized that feelings of disinhibition in the online realm would be strongly related to engaging in risky behaviors. We examined the relationship between our two measures and the HEXACO six-factor model of personality and three additional individual differences. Results indicated that lower Honesty-Humility, higher Emotionality, and higher stimulating risk-taking are predictors of both online disinhibition and risky online behaviors. Additionally, lower eXtraversion and lower Conscientiousness are predictors of online disinhibition, but not risky online behaviors. Implications for these findings are discussed.