The Relationship Between Personality, Activity Tracking, & Preferences in Performance Feedback

The transition into post-secondary education is difficult and involves increases in technology use and sedentary behaviours that can have adverse effects on health. Fortunately, the advent of activity tracking technology provides an opportunity to utilize college-aged individuals’ affinity for technology to promote activity. Activity trackers provide users with feedback about their activity that can influence their behaviour or how they are perceived by others. Two studies were conducted examining the relationship between personality traits, activity feedback, and framing effects. Study One found that participants preferred goal-related feedback. In addition, Extraversion was related to finding the leaderboard most likely to influence one’s activity. Study Two found that participants were able to form perceptions about a target’s personality based solely on that target’s activity feedback. When the feedback display indicated higher degrees of activity, participants perceived the target more positively for each of the Big Five traits apart from Agreeableness.