Personality Matters - Qualitative Online Research

PERSONALITY

MATTERS

CHRISTIAN DÖSSEL FLORIAN TRESS

2Follow us: @olympiamilano @FTress #GOR14

WHO WE ARE

CONSUMERS NORSTAT MM-EYE END CLIENTS

Masters of the Art of Market Research


THE COMPOSITION OF WORKING MROCs

NO WILLINGNESS TO PARTICIPATE / NO AVAILABILITY

NO LOGIN / SAMPLE FAILURE

LURKERS SILENT

OBSERVERS

REGULAR PARTICIPANTS

OUTSTANDING PARTICIPANTS

RECRUITMENT FIELD PERFORMANCE

RECRUITMENT over recruitment phone call to enhance

commitment reminder mails

FIELD PERFORMANCE Would it be possible to recruit outstanding participants only? To what degree is performance a matter of participants' personality? What is the personality of outstanding participants? Is performance a matter of social dynamics / formation of social

roles?


openness

extraversion

agreeablenessemotional stability

conscentiousness

THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS

accounting for different traits in personality without overlapping high consistency in interviews, self-descriptions and observations

open

average

conventional

extroverted

average

introverted

agreeable

average

disagreeable

emotional stable

average

neurotic

conscientious

average

spontaneous

X X X X =243

personality profiles


openness

extraversion


conscentiousness

THE STUDY DESIGN

GROUP 1 all participants score average values in

every domain of their personality

openness

extraversion


conscentiousness

GROUP 2 all participants score average values in

every domain of their personality but there is exactly one dimension with

extreme positive or extreme negative

values


REQUIREMEN

TS Modular software: diary,

community, surveys, media

uploads Multiple topics: performance

as a matter of relevance


RECRUITING

PRE-SCREENING OF 2.627 PANELISTS

560 ELIGIBLE PANELISTS (IR: 21%)

2.067 NON-ELIGIBLE PANELISTS

169 PANELISTS 391 PANELISTS

GROUP 1 GROUP 2

SCREENING OF 560 PANELISTS

invitations to 50 selected

panelists

to get 20 participants

CONVERSION: 40%

invitations to 70 selected

panelists

to get 20 participants

CONVERSION: 29%


CONVERSION TOREGISTEREDPARTICIPAN

TS

ACTIVE PARTICIPAN

TS

Group 1 40% (20) 55% (11)

Group 2 29% (20) 55% (11)

Conscientious 50% 67%

Unconscientious 43% 100%

Agreeable 25% 50%

Disagreeable 43% 67%

Emotional labile 25% 50%

Emotional stable 25% 0%

Open 50% 33%

Conventional 0% n/a

Extroverted 33% 50%

Introverted 0% n/a

CONVERSION

RECRUITMENT• Different personalities seem to have a

different likeability to join a MROC.• Introverted and conventional people pose

a risk to be underrepresented.• On the other hand, unconscientious and

disagreeable people tend to be

overrepresented.

FIELD PERFORMANCE• However, on the surface, both groups

performed similarly, once they were

recruited.• But on closer inspection, there are huge

differences between different personality

profiles.


PERSONALITY TRAITS: AGREEABLENESS

Agreeable individuals value getting along with others.

They are generally considerate, kind, generous, trusting

and trustworthy, helpful, and willing to compromise their

interests with others. Agreeable people also have an optimistic view of human

nature.

Agreeable person in respect to possible risks of online

dating: "… an awful lot of things can go wrong. For

example you could meet you boss or your neighbor

on an online-dating platform, it is unpredictable…"

Disagreeable person regarding same topic:

"… I find it very risky to look for a partner this

way. Especially young people are very easy for

someone and really know nothing about the other

person…"


PERSONALITY TRAITS: AGREEABLENESS

Disagreeable participants showed a competitive attitude,

e.g. strived to obtain a special status in the community

(first / last post of the day).

They were more likely to take extreme positions during

the discussions and were stimulated by controversies.

These extreme positions potentially intimidated other

participants from contributing to these discussions.

Our findings suggest, that disagreeable persons are more

likely to join a community and to participate actively.

In contrasts, agreeable participants were not remarkable

in an either positive or negative way.


PERSONALITY TRAITS: EXTRAVERSION

The trait is marked by pronounced engagement with the

external world. Extraverts enjoy interacting with people,

and are often perceived as full of energy. They tend to be

enthusiastic, action-oriented individuals.

Extroverted person about early childhood care:

"... children do join childhood care earlier and

earlier so that parents can continue working much

quicker. Children are getting more independent

than in previous times. It is important that children

learn how to deal with technology very early, it is

important for their working life..."

As mentioned before, we were not able to recruit

introverted participants.


PERSONALITY TRAITS: EXTRAVERSION

As expected, extroverted participants are very likely to

open a discussion by writing the first post. They serve as

a good example for other participants and break the ice

in a community.

Extroverted participants are very receptive for positive

recognition by the moderator. Their behavior can easily

be reinforced positively.

Like disagreeable participants, extroverted participants

strived to obtain a special status with their posts, e.g. first

or last posts of a thread or a summary of the day.


PERSONALITY TRAITS: CONSCIENTIOUSNESS

Conscientiousness is a tendency to show self-discipline,

act dutifully, and aim for achievement against measures

or outside expectations. High scores on conscientiousness indicate a preference

for planned rather than spontaneous behavior.

Conscientious person about online dating:

"… face to face is the only true communication to

begin a partnership because otherwise I do not

know if my opposite is lying or not. Nowadays

everybody seems to be cowards, easily hiding

behind computer screens and longing for the

dream prince or princess. But reality is different…"


PERSONALITY TRAITS: CONSCIENTIOUSNESS

With regards to the activity level, conscientiousness has

no impact on the general amount of contributions.

However, unconscientious / spontaneous participants had

a slightly different style when contributing to the

community. They used more abbreviations, enumerations

and incomplete sentences than conscientious

participants.

Only in some very involving topics, unconscientious

participants got more into the topic. It seems that

unconscientious participants have difficulties to get

deeply engaged with a topic.


PERSONALITY TRAITS: EMOTIONAL STABILITY

Being emotionally instable (neurotic) is the tendency to

experience negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or

depression. Those who score high in neuroticism are emotionally

reactive and vulnerable to stress. They are more likely to

interpret ordinary situations as threatening, and minor

frustrations as hopelessly difficult.

Emotionally instable person about car-sharing

"… the success is surely on the cheap alternative

for people who only need the car very little…"

"… typical user: living in the city, because car-

sharing is not common in rural areas, either single

or family (in that case: car sharing as second car)…

"


PERSONALITY TRAITS: EMOTIONAL STABILITY

Emotional stable participants were not remarkable in an

either positive or negative way.

On the other hand, emotional instable participants

contributed in a very restrained way: a lot of descriptive

posts, extensive use of impersonal pronouns,

confirmation of what has already been said, avoiding to

take a personal standpoint.

It is open to question, if this personality profile has a

function in MROCs: these participants are neither

moderating / counterbalancing extreme positions, nor

adding new arguments to the discussion.


PERSONALITY TRAITS: OPENNESS

Open people are, when compared to closed people, more

creative and more aware of their feelings. They are more

likely to hold unconventional beliefs. On average, people who register high in openness are

intellectually curious, open to emotion, and willing to try

new things.

Open person about differences between renting and

owning a house:

"Whether there is a typical tenant, I do not know.

Many do not have the ability to build a house,

financially or for other reasons. A homeowner is

proud of its acquisition in general and often looks

down from above on the tenant. For him, tenants

are almost second-class citizens. Typical saying a

homeowner is "Yes, my tenants ..."


PERSONALITY TRAITS: OPENNESS

Participants with an open personality generally answered

in complete sentences, are specific, weight their

arguments and use examples to underline them. They

reacted positively upon new content and follow-up

questions.

These participants are absolutely vital for MROCs. They

support the moderator by providing a lot of stepping

stones for getting deeper into the topic. Usually, their

contributions are very meaningful and make the

interpretation of the contents easier.

Conventional participants could not be recruited. A

possible reason is an aversion to the “new experience” of

an MROC (against the backdrop of a known panel

membership).


GROUP DYNAMICS

There is no evidence, that heterogeneous groups (GROUP

2) are per se more dynamic than homogenous groups

(GROUP 1). However, there are differences in the

dynamics.

Homogenous groups less variance in the activity level of

their group members. New stimuli generate an even level

of engagement with the discussion.

On the other hand, heterogeneous groups tend to be very

selective with regards to stimuli: if they are too

controversial, they intimidate some participants while

provoking others at the same time. These groups require

a more thorough moderation, to get every participant

involved.


WHAT ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS?

Overall Satisfaction

The posts of other participants were interesting to me.

The questions were clear and concise.

I did ok with other participants.

I would participate again in this community.

I would have liked, if others revealed more about them.

It was fun to discuss with other people.

I have learned something new in this community.

GROUP 1 GROUP 2

In average, the heterogeneous group was more satisfied with the overall community

experience. Even though there had been irrelevant posts as well, the multitude of different

opinions and statements increased the value of participating.


SUMMARY I

PERSONALITY MATTERS Open and extroverted participants have a clear value for

the discussion in MROCs. Disagreeable participants can spice up the composition of

a group, but should be supervised by the moderator. Including emotionally labile participants seems to add no

value to the discussions.

COMPOSITION MATTERS It’s easy to blight the dynamics of a group, it’s hard to

create dynamics. Homogenous groups run risk to lack new impulses from

different perspectives. Heterogeneous groups run risk that single members loose

track with the rest of the group.


SUMMARY II

MODERATION MATTERS Although there has to be conducted additional research to

support the findings, knowing personality traits for

community members help moderation to… … control undesirable effects … steer "ideal" composition of communities … moderate more individually according to the traits … optimize the interplay of research objectives,

methodical setup of the community and

participation … better - and more targeted - motivate participants

and help to a more satisfactory research experience


DISCUSSION

Inter-dependence of single personality traits: working with complex personality profiles

(e.g. open, extroverted and agreeable)

How to deal with MROCs about topics that correlate with personality traits (e.g. fashion,

drinking out, …)


CHRISTIAN DÖSSELMANAGING DIRECTOR

MM-EYE

[email protected]+49 (0) 40 3068 88-28

@olympiamilano

FLORIAN TRESSDIRECTOR R&D

NORSTAT DEUTSCHLAND

[email protected]+49 (0) 89 5480 194-41

@FTress

image credit: morguefile.com

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Personality Matters - Qualitative Online Research