EXAMINING THE ROLE OF PARTICIPANTS' PERSONALITY TRAITS ON DATA QUALITY IN ONLINE PANEL SURVEYS

In the era of extensive digital transformation, all business areas are experiencing disruptive changes, and the marketing research industry is no exception. With research agencies increasingly depending on online panellists from commercial research panels, it is crucial to understand the characteristics of panel participants and their potential impact on the quality of collected data. The present study explores the role of participants' personality traits on the quality of data collected via online consumer panels. A quantitative study examined Big Five personality characteristics and social desirability of the responses in the context of online panel participation. The study results indicate that self-selected panel participants tend to be more extroverted and have lower conscientiousness scores than non-participants. Participants with higher openness and lower conscientiousness scores also tend to provide more socially desirable responses. The findings implicate that participants with specific personality traits might be overrepresented in commercial online panels and are more likely to provide socially desirable responses, impacting data quality and reliability.