Abstract:

Given that personality traits are an important phychological mechanism to drive user behaivors, this study examines users’ perception differences of academic information seeking behavior based on the different levels of personality traits in social media context, as well as the interactive effect of users’ personality traits and basic characteristics on academic information seeking behavior. Data were collected by questionnaire survey. It has been found that because of the different levels of extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience and agreeableness, there are significant differences in social media users’ academic information seeking behavior. Meanwhile, the relationships between users’ personality traits and their academic information seeking behavior are significantly different according to the difference in users’ basic characteristics.

Key words: Personality traits, Social media, Academic information, Information seeking behavior, Perception differences