May 31, 2024
Personality and political news consumption online: A comparison between self-reports and webtracking data
This study compares self-reported political-news use with web-tracked browsing behaviour to assess how measurement affects apparent links between personality and news consumption. Openness predicts reported (but not observed) online news use, whereas neuroticism predicts actual tracked use, showing that survey measures can obscure or distort these relationships.
Abstract
Research has explored the links between personality and political news consumption, resulting in mixed results that vary across platforms. One potential reason for these inconclusive patterns might be that previous work has exclusively relied on self-reported measures of political news consumption. Considering that personality has been linked to biased response behavior in the past, we investigate to what extent the relationship is affected by potential measurement errors associated with different capturing methods. To do so, we introduce an innovative measurement technique capturing actual internet use through webtracking. While we do not find strong evidence that personality is systematically related to over- or underestimating one's political news consumption, the comparison between the behavioral webtracking measure and self-reported news consumption nevertheless reveals significant differences: notably, openness is positively associated with self-reported online news consumption, but this relationship does not hold in the webtracking data. Instead, when using behavioral measures, neuroticism is a better predictor of political news consumption – an association not observed in the self-reported data. Our insights refine our understanding of the interplay between personality and online political news consumption and enhance the broader discourse on survey response behaviors linked to personality.
To continue reading please visit: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112735
This open access article was published in Personality and Individual Differences on 31 May 2024.
Valli, C., de León, E., & Makhortykh, M. (2024). Personality and political news consumption online: A comparison between self-reports and webtracking data. Personality and Individual Differences, 228, 112735. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112735
Keywords: Big Five, Political news consumption, Self-reports, Webtracking
Author
See also
Improving the Quality of Individual-Level Web Tracking: Challenges of Existing Approaches and Introduction of a New Content and Long-Tail Sensitive Academic Solution
By Ernesto de León • October 16, 2024
How Much Data Should I Request? Balancing Richness and Compliance in Digital Trace Data Donations
By Ernesto de León • Fabio Votta • Daniel Oberski • Theo Araujo • Claes de Vreese • March 30, 2026
Panning for gold: Comparative analysis of cross-platform approaches for automated detection of political content in textual data
By Ernesto de León • November 18, 2024
More results /
AI insiders warn it could end humanity. Does the public agree?
By Ernesto de León • Claes de Vreese • September 17, 2026
By Natali Helberger • June 16, 2026
By José van Dijck • April 30, 2026
Loss of judicial sight? The impact of assistive AI technologies on judicial perception — beyond the question of discretion
By Iris van Domselaar • Isabella Banks • September 23, 2026
By Tynke Schepers • July 09, 2026
By Corinne Cath • May 29, 2026
Fairy Tales That Make Life Harder: AI, and the social and ethical costs of believing in it
By Martijn Logtenberg • September 28, 2026
By Martijn Logtenberg • March 13, 2026
By Martijn Logtenberg • November 20, 2025
The Label Paradox: Can AI transparency create more distrust?
By Natali Helberger • September 21, 2026
By Jin Wan • Theo Araujo • Natali Helberger • Claes de Vreese • September 17, 2026
By João Pedro Quintais • September 03, 2026
