Insights on Immigration, Personality and Language Use

Abstract

The goal of this thesis is to gain insight on the psychology of migratory populations. Immigrants and non-immigrants show differences throughout some dimensions of the Five Factor model of personality. We conducted three large scale empirical studies to address different questions about immigration, personality and language use. In Chapter 1, we use personality scores and geographical information from more than 1.5 million responders to investigate which traits can predict different migration distances within and across national borders. Our results highlight the mechanisms of how one’s transitory psychological configuration can assist, accompany or interfere with the act of migration. In Chapter 2, we examine how one’s migration affects their levels of openness, and how this relationship is modulated by other known determinants of personality traits such as age and gender. Our findings shed light on the psychological effects of immigration and consider how these effects are modulated by people of different age and gender. Finally, in Chapter 3 we use demographic, psychological and textual data from Facebook to determine how differences in personality of immigrants and non-immigrants are reflected in their language use on Facebook. The comprehensive exploration carried out in Chapter 3 gives insights on how language use distinguishes people of different immigration status. Taken together, our results contribute with both new evidence and insights to the knowledge about the psychological components of immigration and differences in language use among immigrants and non-immigrants.