Do the offline and social media Big Five have the same dimensional structure, mean levels, and predictive validity of social media outcomes?

* References marked with an asterisk are cited in the supplemental materials.

Alhabash, S., & Ma, M. (2017). A tale of four platforms: Motivations and uses of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat among college students? Social Media + Society, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117691544

Allport, G. W., & Odbert, H. S. (1936). Trait names: A psycholexical study. Psychological Monographs, 47(1), i–171. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093360

Baccarella, C. V., Wagner, T. F., Kietzmann, J. H., & McCarthy, I. P. (2018). Social media? It's serious! Understanding the dark side of social media. European Management Journal, 36(4), 431–438. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2018.07.002

Bakshy, E., Messing, S., & Adamic, L. A. (2015). Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook. Science, 348(6239), 1130–1132. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa1160

Bayer, J. B., Triệu, P., & Ellison, N. B. (2020). Social media elements, ecologies, and effects. Annual Review of Psychology, 71, 471–497. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010419-050944

Behm-Morawitz, E. (2013). Mirrored selves: The influence of self-presence in a virtual world on health, appearance, and well-being. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(1), 119–128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.07.023

Bem, D. J., & Funder, D. C. (1978). Predicting more of the people more of the time: Assessing the personality of situations. Psychological Review, 85(6), 485–501. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.85.6.485

Blumer, T., & Döring, N. (2012). Are we the same online? The expression of the five factor personality traits on the computer and the Internet. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 6(3), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2012-3-5

* Borkenau, P., & Ostendorf, F. (1990). Comparing exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis: A study on the 5-factor model of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 11, 515–524. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(90)90065-Y

Browne, M. W., & Cudeck, R. (1993). Alternative ways of assessing model fit. In K. A. Bollen & J. S. Long (Eds.), Testing structural equation models (pp. 136–162). Sage.

Bunker, C. J., Saysavanh, S. E., & Kwan, V. S. (2021). Are gender differences in the Big Five the same on social media as offline? Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 3, Article 100085. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2021.100085

Chae, J. (2017). Virtual makeover: Selfie-taking and social media use increase selfie-editing frequency through social comparison. Computers in Human Behavior, 66, 370–376. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.10.007

Chaffey, D. (2020). Global social media research summary, 2020. Smart Insights. https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/

Chen, S. X., & Bond, M. H. (2010). Two languages, two personalities? Examining language effects on the expression of personality in a bilingual context. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(11), 1514–1528. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167210385360

Cheng, C., Wang, H.-y., Sigerson, L., & Chau, C.-l. (2019). Do the socially rich get richer? A nuanced perspective on social network site use and online social capital accrual. Psychological Bulletin, 145(7), 734–764. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000198

* Church, A. T., & Burke, P. J. (1994). Exploratory and confirmatory tests of the Big Five and Tellegen’s three- and 4-dimensional models. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 93–114. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.66.1.93

* Cheung, G. W., & Rensvold, R. B. (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling, 9(2), 233–255. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_5

Connelly, B. S., & Ones, D. S. (2010). An other perspective on personality: Meta-analytic integration of observers' accuracy and predictive validity. Psychological Bulletin, 136(6), 1092–1122. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021212

Conover, M. D., Gonçalves, B., Flammini, A., & Menczer, F. (2012). Partisan asymmetries in online political activity. EPJ Data Science, 1(1), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds6

Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992a). Four ways five factors are basic. Personality and Individual Differences, 13(6), 653–665. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(92)90236-I

Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992b). Revised NEO personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO five-factor inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Psychological Assessment Resources.

Del Vicario, M., Vivaldo, G., Bessi, A., Zollo, F., Scala, A., Caldarelli, G., & Quattrociocchi, W. (2016). Echo chambers: Emotional contagion and group polarization on Facebook. Scientific Reports, 6, Article 37825. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep37825

* DeYoung, C. G. (2006). Higher-order factors of the Big Five in a multi-informant sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(6), 1138–1151. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.6.1138

* DeYoung, C. G. (2015). Cybernetic big five theory. Journal of Research in Personality, 56, 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.07.004

Digman, J. M. (1990). Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model. Annual Review of Psychology, 41(1), 417–440. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.41.020190.0022

* Digman, J. M. (1997). Higher-order factors of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(6), 12461256. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1246

Edwards, M. C., & Wirth, R. J. (2012). Valid measurement without factorial invariance: A longitudinal example. In J. R. Harring & G. R. Hancock (Eds.), Advances in longitudinal methods in the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 289–311). Information Age Publishing.

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143–1168. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x

Flaxman, S., Goel, S., & Rao, J. M. (2016). Filter bubbles, echo chambers, and online news consumption. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(S1), 298–320. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw006

Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative "description of personality": The Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), 1216–1229. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.59.6.1216

Gosling, S. D., Augustine, A. A., Vazire, S., Holtzman, N., & Gaddis, S. (2011). Manifestations of personality in online social networks: Self-reported Facebook-related behaviors and observable profile information. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(9), 483–488. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2010.0087

Hollenbaugh, E. E., & Ferris, A. L. (2014). Facebook self-disclosure: Examining the role of traits, social cohesion, and motives. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, 50–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.055

Holtrop, D., Born, M. P., de Vries, A., & de Vries, R. E. (2014). A matter of context: A comparison of two types of contextualized personality measures. Personality and Individual Differences, 68, 234–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.04.029

Holtz, B. C., Ployhart, R. E., & Dominguez, A. (2005). Testing the rules of justice: The effects of frame‐of‐reference and pre‐test validity information on personality test responses and test perceptions. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 13(1), 75–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0965-075X.2005.00301.x

Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118

Hu, X., Kim, A., Siwek, N., & Wilder, D. (2017). The Facebook paradox: Effects of Facebooking on individuals’ social relationships and psychological well-being. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, Article 87. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00087

Huang, C. (2019). Social network site use and Big Five personality traits: A meta-analysis. Computers in Human Behavior, 97, 280–290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.03.009

Huang, G. C., Unger, J. B., Soto, D., Fujimoto, K., Pentz, M. A., Jordan-Marsh, M., & Valente, T. W. (2014). Peer influences: The impact of online and offline friendship networks on adolescent smoking and alcohol use. Journal of Adolescent Health, 54(5), 508–514. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.07.001

John, O. P., Naumann, L. P., & Soto, C. J. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative Big Five trait taxonomy. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 114–158). Guilford Press.

Johnson, J. A. (2014). Measuring thirty facets of the Five Factor Model with a 120-item public domain inventory: Development of the IPIPNEO-120. Journal of Research in Personality, 51, 78–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.05.003

Kenrick, D. T., & Funder, D. C. (1988). Profiting from controversy: Lessons from the person-situation debate. American Psychologist, 43(1), 23–34. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.43.1.23

Kircaburun, K., Alhabash, S., Tosuntaş, Ş. B., & Griffiths, M. D. (2020). Uses and gratifications of problematic social media use among university students: A simultaneous examination of the Big Five of personality traits, social media platforms, and social media use motives. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 18(3), 525–547. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-018-9940-6

Kircaburun, K., & Griffiths, M. D. (2018). Instagram addiction and the Big Five of personality: The mediating role of self-liking. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 7(1), 158–170. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.7.2018.15

Kokkinos, C. M., & Antoniadou, N. (2019). Cyber-bullying and cyber-victimization among undergraduate student teachers through the lens of the General Aggression Model. Computers in Human Behavior, 98, 59–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.04.007

Kotov, R., Gamez, W., Schmidt, F., & Watson, D. (2010). Linking “big” personality traits to anxiety, depressive, and substance use disorders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136(5), 768–821. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020327

Kwan, V. S. Y., & Bodford, J. E. (2015). The psychology of cyberlife engagement. In R. A. Scott & S. M. Kosslyn (Eds.) Emerging trends in the social and behavioral sciences. Wiley Publications.

Lee, J.-E. R., Moore, D. C., Park, E.-A., & Park, S. G. (2012). Who wants to be “friend-rich”? Social compensatory friending on Facebook and the moderating role of public self-consciousness. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(3), 1036–1043. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.01.006

Lin, J.-S., Lee, Y.-I., Jin, Y., & Gilbreath, B. (2017). Personality traits, motivations, and emotional consequences of social media usage. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 20(10), 615–623.

Liu, D., & Brown, B. B. (2014). Self-disclosure on social networking sites, positive feedback, and social capital among Chinese college students. Computers in Human Behavior, 38, 213–219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.06.003

Liu, D., & Campbell, W. K. (2017). The Big Five personality traits, Big Two metatraits and social media: A meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Personality, 70, 229–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2017.08.004

Lorenzo-Seva, U., & Ten Berge, J. M. (2006). Tucker's congruence coefficient as a meaningful index of factor similarity. Methodology, 2(2), 57–64. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-2241.2.2.57

Lundy, B. L., & Drouin, M. (2016). From social anxiety to interpersonal connectedness: Relationship building within face-to-face, phone and instant messaging mediums. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 271–277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.08.004

* Marsh, H. W., Lüdtke, O., Muthén, B., Asparouhov, T., Morin, A. J., Trautwein, U., & Nagengast, B. (2010). A new look at the big five factor structure through exploratory structural equation modeling. Psychological Assessment, 22(3), 471–491. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019227

McFarland, L. A., & Ployhart, R. E. (2015). Social media: A contextual framework to guide research and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(6), 1653–1677. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039244

* McCrae, R. R., Zonderman, A. B., Costa, P. T., Jr., Bond, M. H., & Paunonen, S. (1996). Evaluating the replicability of factors in the Revised NEO Personality Inventory: Confirmatory factor analysis versus procrustes rotation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 552–566. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.3.552

Meier, A., Reinecke, L., & Meltzer, C. E. (2016). “Facebocrastination”? Predictors of using Facebook for procrastination and its effects on students’ well-being. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 65–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.06.011

Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. Wiley.

Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102(2), 246–268. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.102.2.246

* Musek, J. (2007). A general factor of personality: Evidence for the Big One in the five-factor model. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(6), 1213–1233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2007.02.003

Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). McGraw Hill.

Olaru, G., Witthöft, M., & Wilhelm, O. (2015). Methods matter: Testing competing models for designing short-scale Big-Five assessments. Journal of Research in Personality, 59, 56–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2015.09.001

* Parker, J. D. A., Bagby, R. M., & Summerfeldt, L. J. (1993). Confirmatory factor analysis of the Revised Neo-Personality Inventory. Personality and Individual Differences, 15, 463–466.

Paulhus, D. L., & Vazire, S. (2007). The self-report method. In R. W. Robins, R. C. Fraley, & R. F. Krueger (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in personality (pp. 224–239). Guilford Press.

Pawlikowski, M., Altstötter-Gleich, C., & Brand, M. (2013). Validation and psychometric properties of a short version of Young’s Internet Addiction Test. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 1212–1223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.10.014

Peluchette, J. V., Karl, K., Wood, C., & Williams, J. (2015). Cyberbullying victimization: Do victims’ personality and risky social network behaviors contribute to the problem? Computers in Human Behavior, 52, 424–435. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.06.028

Perrin, A. (2015). Social media usage: 2005–2015. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/10/08/social-networking-usage-2005-2015/

Poropat, A. E. (2009). A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychological Bulletin, 135(2), 322–338. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014996

Postmes, T., Spears, R., & Lea, M. (1998). Breaching or building social boundaries? SIDE-effects of computer-mediated communication. Communication Research, 25(6), 689–715. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365098025006006

Rains, S. A., & Keating, D. M. (2011). The social dimension of blogging about health: Health blogging, social support, and well-being. Communication Monographs, 78(4), 511–534. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2011.618142

Reddock, C. M., Biderman, M. D., & Nguyen, N. T. (2011). The relationship of reliability and validity of personality tests to frame‐of‐reference instructions and within‐person inconsistency. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 19(2), 119–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2011.00540.x

Roberts, B. W., Lejuez, C., Krueger, R. F., Richards, J. M., & Hill, P. L. (2014). What is conscientiousness and how can it be assessed?. Developmental Psychology, 50(5), 1315–1330. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031109

Robie, C., Risavy, S. D., Holtrop, D., & Born, M. P. (2017). Fully contextualized, frequency-based personality measurement: A replication and extension. Journal of Research in Personality, 70, 56–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2017.05.005

Sbarra, D. A., Briskin, J. L., & Slatcher, R. B. (2019). Smartphones and close relationships: The case for an evolutionary mismatch. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(4), 596–618. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619826535

Scheier, M. F., & Carver, C. S. (1985). The Self‐Consciousness Scale: A revised version for use with general populations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 15(8), 687–699. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1985.tb02268.x

Schmit, M. J., Ryan, A. M., Stierwalt, S. L., & Powell, A. B. (1995). Frame-of-reference effects on personality scale scores and criterion-related validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80(5), 607–620. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.80.5.607

Schulze, J., West, S. G., Freudenstein, J.-P., Schäpers, P., Mussel, P., Eid, M., & Krumm, S. (2021). Hidden framings and hidden asymmetries in the measurement of personality––A combined lens‐model and frame‐of‐reference perspective. Journal of Personality, 89(2), 357–375. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12586

Seidman, G. (2013). Self-presentation and belonging on Facebook: How personality influences social media use and motivations. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(3), 402–407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.10.009

Sheldon, K. M., Ryan, R. M., Rawsthorne, L. J., & Ilardi, B. (1997). Trait self and true self: Cross-role variation in the Big-Five personality traits and its relations with psychological authenticity and subjective well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(6), 1380–1393. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1380

Shim, M., Lee-Won, R. J., & Park, S. H. (2016). The self on the Net: The joint effect of self-construal and public self-consciousness on positive self-presentation in online social networking among South Korean college students. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 530–539. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.054

Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2017). The next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 117–143. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096

Soto, C. J., John, O. P., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2011). Age differences in personality traits from 10 to 65: Big Five domains and facets in a large cross-sectional sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(2), 330–348. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021717

Stewart, R. W., Drescher, C. F., Maack, D. J., Ebesutani, C., & Young, J. (2014). The development and psychometric investigation of the Cyberbullying Scale. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 29(12), 2218–2238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260513517552

Taber, L., & Whittaker, S. (2018, April). Personality depends on the medium: differences in self-perception on Snapchat, Facebook and offline. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Paper No. 607). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174181

Taber, L., & Whittaker, S. (2020, April). “On Finsta, I can say ‘Hail Satan’”: Being authentic but disagreeable on Instagram. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–14). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376182

Tang, J.-H., Chen, M.-C., Yang, C.-Y., Chung, T.-Y., & Lee, Y.-A. (2016). Personality traits, interpersonal relationships, online social support, and Facebook addiction. Telematics and Informatics, 33(1), 102–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2015.06.003

Teske, J. A. (2002). Cyberpsychology, human relationships, and our virtual interiors. Zygon, 37(3), 677–700. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9744.00445

Tifferet, S. (2019). Gender differences in privacy tendencies on social network sites: A meta-analysis. Computers in Human Behavior, 93, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.11.046

Trapnell, P. D., & Campbell, J. D. (1999). Private self-consciousness and the five-factor model of personality: Distinguishing rumination from reflection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(2), 284–304. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.2.284

Tsai, T.-H., Chang, H.-T., Chang, Y.-C., & Chang, Y.-S. (2017). Personality disclosure on social network sites: An empirical examination of differences in Facebook usage behavior, profile contents and privacy settings. Computers in Human Behavior, 76, 469–482. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.08.003

Tskhay, K. O., & Rule, N. O. (2014). Perceptions of personality in text-based media and OSN: A meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Personality, 49, 25–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2013.12.004

* Van der Linden, D., te Nijenhuis, J., & Bakker, A. B. (2010). The general factor of personality: A meta-analysis of Big Five intercorrelations and a criterion-related validity study. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(3), 315–327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2010.03.003

* Vassend, O., & Skrondal, A. (1997). Validation of the NEO Personality Inventory and the five-factor model: Can findings from exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis be reconciled? European Journal of Personality, 11, 147–166. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0984(199706)11:2<147::AID-PER278>3.0.CO;2-E

Xie, W., & Kang, C. (2015). See you, see me: Teenagers’ self-disclosure and regret of posting on social network site. Computers in Human Behavior, 52, 398–407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.05.059