Investigation and Analysis on the Relationship Between Received Feedback and Personality Changes of Twitter Users

Abstract

It is not well studied how users’ experience and interaction in social networking sites influence personality traits. In this paper, we examined Twitter users to clarify the relationship between feedback from other users and changes of personality traits, defined as Five-Factor Model: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. Firstly, using an API produced by IBM, we estimated users’ personality traits at the past and at the present, and verified how much personality traits are changed from the past to the present. Next, we obtained data related to feedback actions such as replies, retweets, and Likes users received from others. We conducted nonlinear multi-regression analysis to find direct effects of feedback on changes of personality traits. Primary results demonstrated that neuroticism increases when users often receive retweets but decrease when receiving Likes, and that agreeableness decreases when receiving more Likes but increases when receiving more replies. Finally, we discussed implications, limitations, and future work.