How user personality and social value orientation influence avatar-mediated friendship
通过179名用户在虚拟世界中的行为数据，研究发现人格和社会价值取向影响用户结交朋友的数量和发出的好友请求数，但不会影响收到的邀请数，且只有尽责性表现出同质性。
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of user personality and vlaues on the number of connections users make, the number of requests for connections that users give out, and the number of connections invitations users receive. Design/methodology/approach This is a field study of 179 participants interacting in a novel virtual world. The world’s server logs are used to capture sociometrics about the users and their interaction. Findings Findings suggest that personality and values influence the number of friends users make and the number of friendship requests users give out, but not the number of friendship invitations users receive. Only one personality trait – conscientiousness – exhibits homophily. Originality/value Perosnality and social value orientation have rarely been studied together in information systems (IS) research, despite research showing the two have an impact on IS relevant constructs. The use of server logs for data capture is novel. Avatar friendship is an under-researched concept in IS.