Social Media and Ethics: The Role of Context Personality

The present study examined the influence that social media presentation formats and personality characteristics have upon perceptions of the four aspects of Jones (1991) issue-contingent model of Moral Intensity, problem recognition, ethical sensemaking strategies, and overall ethical decision-making. The presentation formats were presented in either a more formal online news article context, an informal social media forum-style discussion context, or both and the personality characteristics of interest were conscientiousness and narcissism. The results of this study found that social media format does influence the social consensus aspect of moral intensity, with individuals perceiving social consensus to be higher when ethical information is presented in a news article context and lower when the same information is presented in a social media discussion context. Social media presentation format did not significantly influence the remaining aspects of moral intensity. Conscientiousness also interacted with social media presentation format to influence problem recognition and ethical sensemaking. Narcissism did not appear have either a direct or interactive effect on the dependent variables of this study. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. Keywords: Social media, moral intensity, sensemaking, ethical decision making, ethic