Millions of users have profiles on the social networking site Facebook, where they can list their majors, hometown, favorite books, movies, music, quotes and other personal information. A UT researcher found this information does not always give an accurate impression of the user.
Psychology associate professor Samuel Gosling and collaborator David Evans created You Just Get Me, a Facebook application and Web site, to determine how well people understand each other by looking at a personality profile.
You Just Get Me users answer 40 questions about their personality and then compare their answers to how other users view them. Users rate each other based on first impressions, such as how lazy, ingenious, quiet or rude a person seems. The first impressions can be gleaned from a Facebook profile or a personality profile on
http://www.YouJustGetMe.com.
Gosling said that knowing how one is perceived is crucial because online social networks are often the place where people get first impressions of one another. He mentioned that Facebook users have been denied job opportunities by potential employers because their profiles created bad impressions.
"It's crucial to figure out what other people are like," Gosling said. "Navigating the social world is the most critical task we humans have. It's important to understand where perceptions go right in the world."
Gosling and Evans found that if users post things on their profile like their most embarrassing moment, proudest moment or their spirituality, they will be better understood than if they only post things like their favorite movies or books.
The researchers said they were also surprised to discover that when a user posts a link to a funny online video, it helps people to "get" their personality. They will present their findings Monday at the International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media in Seattle.
"The issue of impression accuracy teaches us whether we understand ourselves and whether we are understood by others - it's anything but trivial," Evans said. "We want everyone to see You Just Get Me as their own private online personality laboratory."
Psychology senior Lindsay Graham is researching speed dating and how quick judgments affect first impressions. She said perceptions comprise the ways in which overall impressions are formed for current interaction and future interactions.
"If these perceptions are so important that they influence the present and the future, then it is important to study what exactly is occurring in these perceptions and how accurate they are," Graham said. "Better understanding how you are being perceived helps you to understand how you are relating with the rest of the world. This same principle applies to how you perceive others."
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