A new study examining online “echo chambers” suggests that these virtual communities are populated by people who have similar psychological profiles.
The study in Computers in Human Behavior analyzed 32,029 Facebook users, who left a combined 3,287,325 comments on public Facebook pages over 5 years. The researchers examined users who participated in online communities devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and online communities devoted to sharing conspiracy theories.
The researchers found that people who join polarized online communities tended to have very similar personality traits. In particular, the people in both the scientific and conspiracy “echo chambers” displayed low extraversion, low agreeableness, low conscientiousness and high openness.
PsyPost interviewed Alessandro Bessi of the University of Southern California about his research. Read his responses below:
PsyPost: Why are you interested in this topic?
Bessi: During my PhD studies I investigated the problem of digital misinformation spreading in online social networks and, while doing that, I realized that there were several aspects to consider. Among these, cognitive biases and psychological traits of individuals seem to have a fundamental role.
What should the average person take away from your study?
People tend to look for information confirming their preexisting beliefs as well as avoid dissenting information. In online social networks, such a tendency — that is, confirmation bias — drives the emergence of echo chambers, virtual polarized communities where like-minded individuals reinforce their opinions and worldviews.
In this study, I investigated the relationship between personality traits of users and their behavior on Facebook. I found that specific personality traits in individuals lead to their considerable involvement in supporting narratives inside echo chambers.
Are there any major caveats? What questions still need to be addressed?
Our dataset is a particular dataset, and thus we cannot venture any general claims. Contexts differ, and far more research would be necessary to support any such general claims. Moreover, personality traits have been inferred using only lexical features, and more information (for example the number of friends or interactions) would improve our estimates.
One question that I would like to address in the future is the following. In my study there is a weak evidence that being embedded into echo chambers does not affect personality traits of people. Still, I believe that further analyses are needed to assess with greater accuracy such a finding.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
I take the chance to say that I would love to collaborate with psychologists and, more generally, social scientists. I have a background in statistics, but I believe that interdisciplinary research efforts are needed to answer important questions related to human behavior. Thus, if you are reading and you are interested in collaborating with me, send me an e-mail.
The study was titled: “Personality traits and echo chambers on Facebook.”
