Does Reading Comments Depend on Personality? - Results of an Empirical Study

Internet-usage has visibly become the part of our everyday life – especially because of the widespread usage of social network sites and relatively high penetration of computers/laptops and smart phones. From a marketing-communication point of view its great advantage is the chance to inform potential customers on a very precisely targeted way at a relatively low cost, but on the other hand, internet-users has the same possibility to give information and share their opinion on products, events or on services by writing comments. And, as sometimes they are more believable sources of information than the producer or the seller for the customers, their opinion really count and should be taken into consideration. However, it is not clear who are those who are ready to write and read these opinions and to what extent can these comments influence the readers. The aim of this study is to understand more the attitude toward and personality behind comment-reading activity. Using the personality scale identified by Isabel Briggs Myers, we can differentiate the respondents based on four aspects: (1) their flow of energy, (2) how they take in information, (3) how they prefer to make decisions, and finally, (4) the basic day-to-day lifestyle that they prefer. As a result of that we can compare the attitudes toward comment reading of the different temperament types defined by Keirsey (the Artisans, the Guardians, the Idealists and the Rationals). In this study we tested the hypothesis that men read more comments than women and that Rationals and Idealist read more comments and have more positive attitude toward comment-reading activity than Artisans and Guardians. Due to the intensive field work in February, 2014, we can analyze the responses of 992 university students of Óbuda University, Budapest, Hungary in order to get closer to the understanding the nature of comment-reading.