Photo: flickr
Reserchers asked participants to look at the selfies and make their own judgments about the owners' personalities.
The researchers found the following results:
- People who scored higher in agreeableness (similar to friendliness) were more likely to show positive emotion in their selfies and to hold the camera in a lower position
- High-scorers on conscientiousness were less likely to reveal a private location in the background (presumably because of concerns about privacy)
- People who scored higher in neuroticism (suggestive of emotional instability) were more likely to pull a duck face
- Higher scores in openness-to-experience correlated with showing more positive emotion. Levels of extraversion were not correlated with any of the cues, perhaps because so many people attempt to appear outgoing in their selfies.
The stark lesson from this research is that if you don't want people to assume that you are lazy and neurotic, drop the duck face. This research isn't quackery, but it does have some notable limitations, most obviously that the results might not apply in other cultures, and that the owners of the selfies rated their own personalities. Nonetheless, it makes a novel contribution, with the authors claiming theirs is the first ever study of links between personality and selfies.
Click on the link below to read the full article
Category(s):Other
Source material from http://digest.bps.org.uk/
