Who Are Seeking Friends? The Portrait of Stranger-Seeker in Social Network Sites

We aim to understand the stranger seeking behaviors on Social Network Sites (SNSs) and learn about the characteristics of these people who frequently seek strangers (stranger-seeker). By conducting two surveys, we obtain an overall acknowledgement of stranger seeking behavior and give a portrait of stranger-seekers in social network sites. We find: stranger-seekers are extroversive, narcissism, in poor family relationship, motivated to seek belongingness, but without a larger proportion of strange friends. This finding may contribute to personal attractiveness oriented online product design.

[1]  Yair Amichai-Hamburger,et al.  Social network use and personality , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[2]  Y. Amichai-Hamburger,et al.  Loneliness and Internet use , 2003, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[3]  P. Costa,et al.  NEO inventories for the NEO Personality Inventory-3 (NEO-PI-3), NEO Five-Factor Inventory-3 (NEO-FFI-3), NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R) : professional manual , 2010 .

[4]  Rosanna E. Guadagno,et al.  Who blogs? Personality predictors of blogging , 2008, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[5]  Yair Amichai-Hamburger,et al.  Click to the past: The impact of extroversion by users of nostalgic websites on the use of Internet social services , 2008, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[6]  Teresa Correa,et al.  Who interacts on the Web?: The intersection of users' personality and social media use , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[7]  Tracii Ryan,et al.  Who uses Facebook? An investigation into the relationship between the Big Five, shyness, narcissism, loneliness, and Facebook usage , 2011, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[8]  Yair Amichai-Hamburger,et al.  Internet and personality , 2002, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[9]  C. Hall,et al.  The Narcissistic Personality Inventory: alternative form reliability and further evidence of construct validity. , 1981, Journal of personality assessment.

[10]  Craig Ross,et al.  Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use , 2009, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[11]  Danah Boyd,et al.  Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship , 2007, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[12]  S. Gosling,et al.  Development of personality in early and middle adulthood: set like plaster or persistent change? , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[13]  D. Ames,et al.  The NPI-16 as a short measure of narcissism , 2006 .

[14]  P. Costa,et al.  Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) , 1992 .