M.J. Smith, G. Salvendy (Eds.): Human Interface, Part I, HCII 2011, LNCS 6771, pp. 521–527, 2011. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011 Different People Different Styles: Impact of Personality Style in Web Sites Credibility Judgement Rahayu Ahmad 1 , Jieyu Wang 1 , Karoly Hercegfi 2 , and Anita Komlodi 1 1 Department of Information Systems, University of Maryland Baltimore County 2 Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary {arahayu1,wajieyu1,komlodi}@umbc.edu, Hercegfi@erg.bme.hu Abstract. Reliance on the Internet as a source of information has increased dramatically in recent years among information seekers. The reliability of information on the Internet can sometimes be questionable due to the absence of an editorial function. Users need to carefully consider the quality of the information before using it. The goal of this research was to study the process of credibility evaluation by users. We examined how personality styles influence the way people make credibility judgments when they are browsing online. Our results show that thinkers’ evaluation style were more fact based than intuitive users who relied more on their initial impression and prior experience with the websites. Perceivers gathered information from various sources before trusting information and forming perception on the credibility of authors and websites. Lastly the judgers tend to formed conclusions quickly. This resulted to filtering credible web sites based on the format and layout of the websites. 1 Introduction Reliance on the Internet as a source of information has increased dramatically in recent years among information seekers. On the other hand, the advent of Web technologies has created unprecedented opportunity for information producers to easily publish information [6]. The privilege of writing anonymously and the absence of an editorial function can lead people to often questionable or inaccurate information. These processes have created a need for examining the process of credibility evaluation by users. The credibility evaluation styles, however, might vary depending on the skills, experiences and learning style of the user [9]. This study attempts to have a more in depth look at the effect of one particular individual difference, personality, on performing credibility evaluations of Web pages. 2 Background Credibility is not a property of an object but a quality or perception ascribed to an object by the receiver of the information [9][10]. There are two components of credibility; trustworthiness and expertise. Trust is defined by the terms “well- intentioned, truthful, unbiased” [8, pp.1] meanwhile expertise, is defined by terms such as “knowledgeable, experienced, and competent”[8, pp.1]. Research in this area