Self-Disclosure on Social Media: Do Personality Traits Matter?

Abstract

The aim of this study is to integrate the privacy calculus theory with the Big Five Personality Traits Theory and to investigate the direct and moderating effects of the Big Five personality traits (openness, neuroticism, agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness) on the relationship between the privacy calculus structural factors (Perceived Risk and Perceived Benefits) and disclosure of personal information on social network sites. A survey was conducted to collect data from 379 social network sites users. The sample is composed of 225 females and 154 males. The survey was designed in Qualtrics and distributed on WhatsApp using the snowball sampling technique. The measurements of the research model and the hypotheses related to the direct and moderating effects were tested using SmartPLS software. We found that perceived risk was a strong inhibitor, while perceived benefit was a strong facilitator for the disclosure of personal information. In contrast to our expectation, we found no indication that the Big Five personality traits moderate the disclosure of personal information. However, agreeableness had a positive direct effect on information disclosure. These results have implications for privacy policy makers in organizations in modifying policies and strategies for users based on their unique personality traits.