Big Five Personality Dimensions, Motivation to Use Social Media and Perception of Online Advertisement

The popularity of the Internet, and social media have dramatically increased in the last few decades. Facebook especially, is at the top of social websites that has become popular among young people and adults. Thus, online advertisement is becoming a huge part of social media and this deserves attention as to the after-effects and influence on overall motives of using social media in general. The main aim of this thesis is to examine the relationships between the Big Five and the motives and motions (belongingness and self- presentation) of using Facebook; also the relationship between Big Five and perception of online advertisement. Students of Eastern Mediterranean University were chosen as the respondents. The methodology of the current study is quantitative. Questionnaires were distributed among Turkish and English speaking students. A total of 150 responses were collected and used for further analysis. The results showed that high Agreeableness and Openness were the best predictors for belongingness; while self-presentational behaviors were best predicted by Agreeableness as well. Neuroticism and Conscientiousness did not show any relationship and effect on belongingness and self- presentation. In the case of perception of online advertisement, dimensions of trust and global; the best predictor was high Openness. Surprisingly, low Conscientiousness and low Neuroticism were predictors of irritation with online advertising. Extraversion did not show any relationship with trust and global perceptions of online advertising. iv Recommendations for future researchers is to use the full version of the personality questionnaire. Future studies may combine Big Five personality dimensions, motives of using Facebook and perception of online advertisement using mediation and moderation models. Keywords: Big Five, Facebook, belongingness, self- presentation, trust and global, perception of online advertisement.