Self-Report Versus Web-Log

Abstract

Number of studies have investigated the relationship between personality and web use behaviors on Social Network Sites (SNS), and the measurement of web use behaviors relies on self-report technique. In this study, the authors investigated the correlation between self-report and web-log measures of web use behaviors, and further examined which one would be better to predict user’s personality. There are two major findings: (a) a diverse relationship exists between self-report and web-log measures of web use behaviors; (b) web-log data is a better predictor of user’s personality than self-report data. It suggests that such two sets of data (self-report and web-log) should be treated differently, and it is suitable to predict user’s personality using web-log data.