Influence of traits and emotions on boosting status sharing through microblogging

ABSTRACT

Disclosing status information through microblogging can facilitate effective and efficient electronic word-of-mouth marketing. Therefore, we should understand why people share status information and why certain pieces of content are being shared more often than others. This study adopted an impulsive perspective to investigate status-sharing behaviour in microblogs, which is more spontaneous and unplanned compared with that displayed in traditional virtual communities. Specifically, this study developed a theoretical model to investigate the association among personality traits, emotions, and urge to share status through microblogging. The research model was empirically validated by conducting an online survey among the users of a prevalent microblogging service in China. These users’ urge to share their status was influenced by their personality traits and emotions. Moreover, people with a high level of sharing impulsiveness were inclined to generate negative emotions, whereas those with a high level of inherent novelty seeking could easily induce positive emotions.

KEYWORDS:

• Microblogging
• status sharing
• impulsive behaviour
• personality traits
• emotions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We also used other splitting strategies (e.g. first two weeks vs. last four weeks) to test non-response bias and obtained similar results.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Science Foundation of China [grant number 71201096; 71202034; 71432007].