Being popular in online social networks: How agentic, communal, and creativity traits relate to judgments of status and liking

• Personality differentially affects status and liking in online social networks.
• Agency influences ascribed status, creativity and communion influence liking.
• Mediating behavioral cues are identified such as inventiveness of the OSN profile.
• Findings are similar for judgments based on full OSN profiles and profile pictures.

We investigated how personality affects both peer-perceived popularity (status) and sociometric popularity (liking) in online social networks (OSNs). Self-ratings of agentic (e.g., extraversion), communal (e.g., agreeableness), and creativity traits (e.g., openness) were collected from 103 OSN profile owners (targets). Unacquainted perceivers provided status and liking judgments based on either targets’ full OSN profiles or profile pictures. Independent coders assessed behavioral cues (e.g., attractiveness) from targets’ OSN profiles. Results showed that targets scoring high on agency were ascribed a high status (without necessarily being liked), whereas targets scoring high on creativity or communion were liked. Brunswikian lens model analyses revealed mediating behavioral cues. Analyses based on profile pictures suggested that the differentiated impact of personality on popularity is a fast process.