Can Personality Type be Predicted by Social Media Network Structures

Social media platforms have become an integral part of how we live our lives, in particular for those generations who have grown up in the digital world and use these platforms to connect and communicate with many different groups. Personality profiling now underpins many facets of our lives for example digital marketing campaigns target specific audience groups using information gleaned from how a person engages with social media (Seung, 2012). Specific personal information that could assist with precise targeting might be helpful to those who want to interact with people via digital media. Psychological Type suggests we are predisposed to certain behaviors and preferences (Jung, 1921). Traditional methods of assessing personality include observation or psychometric questionnaires. Both methods have their benefits and drawbacks but what are the alternatives? Can the digital world and in particular, social media platforms, provide an alternative method? If a person’s digital personality footprint could be assessed by the way they engage in social media activity this information could be used to precisely target informative communications as well as product marketing campaigns (Maehle & Shneor, 2010). This paper presents a summary of initial work undertaken to explore the nature of structural patterns represented by an individual’s Psychological Type, as defined by their MBTI type and specific aspects of their social network data, as defined within the context of their Facebook connections and usage. Initial findings suggest that the virtual world is able to reflect personality differences that exist in the external world. Ongoing research is being undertaken to build on these initial findings.