Exploring the influence of stakeholder personality on crisis response evaluations and outcomes

While public relations professionals are beginning to utilize psychographic data for more refined audience targeting methods, this study examines how elemental personality traits impact (1) crisis communication outcomes (lessen levels of attributed crisis responsibility, improve individual's reputation and increase positive word-of-mouth) and (2) evaluations of crisis response strategies during a paracrisis. This study utilized an experimental design with 368 collegiate participants. Results suggest that several underlying personality traits predict reputation repair-outcomes regardless of the communication strategy used. For example, findings suggested that stakeholders who rated higher in gentleness and lower in modesty and social boldness reported higher reputational scores pertaining to the offending individual. Yet, other traits, such as prudence, interacted with strategies that prompt the offending individual's preferred crisis communication outcomes.