THE MODERATING EFFECT OF INDIVIDUAL MOTIVATIONS AND PERSONALITIES ON ONLINE SELF-DISCLOSURE

Abstract

Social network sites are becoming increasingly intertwined with organizational communications, especially with more organizations engaging virtual teams and telecommuters today. Although social network sites, by their nature as online media, are said to facilitate relationship development due to greater self-disclosure, the extent of self-disclosure may be moderated by differences between the individual users. This study examines how individuals’ motivations and personalities interact to affect self-disclosure on the social networking site, Facebook. Using a sample of 253 undergraduate students in Singapore, we found that individuals are motivated to use Facebook to widen and maintain their offline networks tend to engage in greater self-disclosure online, while personality traits like openness to experience and agreeableness strengthen these relationships. However, contrary to our predictions, individuals high on conscientiousness engaged in less online self-disclosure even when they are motivated to use Facebook as a social maintenance platform. Implications of this study are discussed.