Self-Disclosure Behavior on Social Networking Web Sites

The pervasiveness of social networking has sparked many researchers and practitioners' interest in the individuals' behavior on these networks. This paper investigates specifically the willingness of people to disclose personal information on a social networking site (SNS). Founded on soci...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of electronic commerce 2015, Vol.19 (2), p.66-94
Main Author: Loiacono, Eleanor T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavioral decision theory
Disclosure
Online self-disclosure
Personal information
Personality traits
risk
Social exchange theory
social network sites
Social networks
Studies
User behavior
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The pervasiveness of social networking has sparked many researchers and practitioners' interest in the individuals' behavior on these networks. This paper investigates specifically the willingness of people to disclose personal information on a social networking site (SNS). Founded on social exchange theory (SET), the proposed model includes "the Big Five" personality traits of openness to experience, neuroticism, agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness. The results reveal that perceived risk and perceived benefits, as well as extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, have a strong impact on a person's decision to self-disclose. The contributions to theory are an expanded SET model with greater explanatory power and a better understanding of the uniqueness of SNSs compared to other information systems. The results offer practical insights. Personality traits are significant contributors to people's attitudes, and thus managers and marketers need to consider them in situations when self-disclosing of information is critical to the organization's success, such as with SNSs.
ISSN:1086-4415
1557-9301
DOI:10.1080/10864415.2015.979479