Personality Filters for Online News Interest and Engagement

Figure 1

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Correlations between REI-40 and BFI-20 factors and news categorized by participants, along with engagement modes and likelihoods for high and low scorers

Story	Category	Engagement mode	Correlate	Statistics	Mean engagement scores
					Low scorers	High scorers
2	Informative	Read	Extraversion	r(88)=.27, p=.010	2.59	3.37
5	Informative	Read	Rational engagement	r(87)=.37, p<.001	1.58	2.54
5	Informative	Read	Experiential ability	r(87)=−.43, p<.001	2.42	1.57
5	Informative	Read	Experiential engagement	r(87)= −.23, p=.036	2.21	1.72

Summary of the results from two multivariate ANOVAs, run separately for age and gender groups (note that one participant did not report gender and three did not report age)

		Read	Like	Share
Age	F-statistic	F(2,168)=1.96, ns	F(2,168)=0.22, ns	F(2,168)=0.45, ns
	Mean 18–24 (n=104)	M=2.64 (SD=0.64)	M=1.15 (SD=0.33)	M=1.15 (SD=0.38)
	Mean 25–34 (n=49)	M=2.57 (SD=0.62)	M=1.17 (SD=0.45)	M=1.14 (SD=0.28)
	Mean 35–71 (n=21)	M=2.86 (SD=0.76)	M=1.14 (SD=0.26)	M=1.22 (SD=0.36)
Gender	F-statistic	F(1,168)=0.79, ns	F(1,168)=0.88, p=.047	F(1,168)=0.75, p=.040
	Mean females (n=114)	M=2.60 (SD=0.62)	M=1.11 (SD=0.31)	M=1.12 (SD=0.26)
	Mean males (n=60)	M=2.70 (SD=0.71)	M=1.22 (SD=0.43)	M=1.23 (SD=0.46)

Five news stories selected for an exploratory analysis of the correlation between individual stories and personality characteristics, all with high agreement on the news category

Experimental condition	Most frequent category selection	Participant agreement	Norwegian version	English translation
Crime, tabloid	Vulgar	68.54%	1. Avkledd og avslørt	1. Undressed and exposed
Personal story, informative	Alluring	68.54%	2. Fant mynter for 5,5 millioner, får ingenting	2. Found coins worth 5.5 million, gets nothing
Lifestyle, informative	Informative	77.53%	3. Vask baderomsvifta for bedre luftkvalitet	3. Clean the bathroom fan to improve air quality
Finance, tabloid	Alluring	66.67%	4. Koster nesten en million kroner, men ingen får overnatte	4. It costs nearly one million kroner, but nobody can stay overnight
Local politics, informative	Informative	71.11%	5. Nøkkelproblemer og IT-systemer som feilet var noen av grunnene til kaos da Veireno tok over	5. Key troubles and failing IT systems were some of the reasons for the chaos that came with Veireno taking over

Summary of interaction effects from four repeated-measures ANOVAs, run separately to investigate interactions between the personality inventories and presentation mode and news angle, respectively

		Presentation mode			News angle
		Read	Like	Share	Read	Like	Share
Big Five Inventory	Extraversion	F(1,163)=1.81ns	F(1,163)=2.37ns	F(1,163)=1.16ns	F(1,163)=0.48ns	F(1,163)=0.43ns	F(1,163)=0.19ns
	Agreeableness	F(1,163)=6.76p=.01ηp2=.04	F(1,163)=0.85ns	F(1,163)=0.21ns	F(1,163)=0.16ns	F(1,163)=0.78ns	F(1,163)=0.08ns
	Conscientiousness	F(1,163)=.03ns	F(1,163)=0.20ns	F(1,163)=0.001ns	F(1,163)=0.54ns	F(1,163)=0.04ns	F(1,163)=0.01ns
	Emotional stability	F(1,163)=.083ns	F(1,163)=0.31ns	F(1,163)=0.21ns	F(1,163)=3.08ns	F(1,163)=0.81ns	F(1,163)=0.12ns
	Openness to experience	F(1,163)=0.07ns	F(1,163)=1.12ns	F(1,163)=0.55ns	F(1,163)=0.24ns	F(1,163)=0.01ns	F(1,163)=0.13ns
Rational–Experiential Inventory	Rational ability	F(1,163)=0.01ns	F(1,163)=1.91ns	F(1,163)=0.38ns	F(1,163)=3.37ns	F(1,163)=0.84nsns	F(1,163)=4.75p=.03ηp2=.03
	Rational engagement	F(1,163)=1.16ns	F(1,163)=0.37ns	F(1,163)=0.21ns	F(1,163)=0.52ns	F(1,163)=2.35ns	F(1,163)=1.12ns
	Experiential ability	F(1,163)=0.02ns	F(1,163)=0.59ns	F(1,163)=0.79ns	F(1,163)=4.77p=.03	F(1,163)=0.06ns	F F (1,163)=4.38p=.04
	Experiential engagement	F(1,163)=0.35ns	F(1,163)=1.05ns	F(1,163)=0.35ns	F(1,163)=0.13ns	F(1,163)=0.28ns	F(1,163)=3.41ns

j_nor-2019-0021_apptab_001

Experiment A				Experiment B
Section	Presentation mode	Rhetorical angle	Genre and story number	Presentation mode	Rhetorical angle	Genre and story number
3	Verbal	Tabloid	Crime 1	Verbal+visual	Informative	Lifestyle 2
3	Verbal	Informative	Sports 2	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Celebrity 1
3	Verbal	Tabloid	US affairs 1	Verbal+visual	Informative	Crime 2
3	Verbal	Informative	Lifestyle 2	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Personal story 1
3	Verbal	Tabloid	Accident 1	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Lifestyle 1
3	Verbal	Informative	Celebrity 2	Verbal+visual	Informative	Celebrity 2
3	Verbal	Informative	Crime 2	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Local politics 1
3	Verbal	Informative	International 2	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	US affairs 1
3	Verbal	Informative	Accident 2	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Accident 1
3	Verbal	Tabloid	Local politics 1	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	International 1
3	Verbal	Informative	US affairs 2	Verbal+visual	Informative	US affairs 2
3	Verbal	Informative	Local politics 2	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Finance 1
3	Verbal	Tabloid	International 1	Verbal+visual	Informative	Personal story 2
3	Verbal	Informative	Finance 2	Verbal+visual	Informative	Sports 2
3	Verbal	Tabloid	Sports 1	Verbal+visual	Informative	Finance 2
3	Verbal	Tabloid	Celebrity 1	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Crime 1
3	Verbal	Tabloid	Personal story 1	Verbal+visual	Informative	International 2
3	Verbal	Tabloid	Lifestyle 1	Verbal+visual	Informative	Local politics 2
3	Verbal	Informative	Personal story 2	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Sports 1
3	Verbal	Tabloid	Finance 1	Verbal+visual	Informative	Accident 2
5	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Local politics 2	Verbal	Tabloid	Crime 2
5	Verbal+visual	Informative	Finance 1	Verbal	Informative	Crime 1
5	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	US affairs 2	Verbal	Informative	Local politics 1
5	Verbal+visual	Informative	Accident 1	Verbal	Informative	Personal story 1
5	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Crime 2	Verbal	Tabloid	International 2
5	Verbal+visual	Informative	Sports 1	Verbal	Tabloid	Finance 2
5	Verbal+visual	Informative	Personal story 1	Verbal	Tabloid	Accident 2
5	Verbal+visual	Informative	International 1	Verbal	Informative	Sports 1
5	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Celebrity 2	Verbal	Tabloid	Local politics 2
5	Verbal+visual	Informative	Crime 1	Verbal	Tabloid	Personal story 2
5	Verbal+visual	Informative	Lifestyle 1	Verbal	Informative	Accident 1
5	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Finance 2	Verbal	Tabloid	Lifestyle 2
5	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Accident 2	Verbal	Informative	Lifestyle 1
5	Verbal+visual	Informative	Celebrity 1	Verbal	Tabloid	US affairs 2
5	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Personal story 2	Verbal	Tabloid	Celebrity 2
5	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Sports 2	Verbal	Tabloid	Sports 2
5	Verbal+visual	Informative	Local politics 1	Verbal	Informative	US affairs 1
5	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	Lifestyle 2	Verbal	Informative	Finance 1
5	Verbal+visual	Tabloid	International 2	Verbal	Informative	Celebrity 1
5	Verbal+visual	Informative	US affairs 1	Verbal	Informative	International 1

Participants’ primary news source

	News source	Frequency
Online news: 81%	Digital media	99
	Social media	44
Offline news: 19%	TV	5
	Radio	6
	Printed news	20
	Other (friends/family)	4
	Total	178

Experimental design with a counterbalanced task order

	Experiment A	Experiment B
Section 1	Information and consent	Information and consent
Section 2	Demographics and news interest questionnaire	Demographics and news interest questionnaire
Section 3	Engagement task, verbal presentation mode	Engagement task, verbal+visual presentation mode
Section 4	BFI-20	BFI-20
Section 5	Engagement experiment, verbal+visual presentation mode	Engagement experiment, verbal presentation mode
Section 6	REI-40	REI-40
Section 7	Categorization task (same stimuli as section 3)	Categorization task (same stimuli as section 5)