Facebook profile photos indicate whether you’re confident, shy or extraverted: study
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Amanda Stocker, 21, of Staten Island, displays her Facebook profile page. A new study reports that personality traits can be accurately identified based on Facebook photos.
Be careful what photos you choose to post on Facebook.
Your peers are using them to read your personality.
New research shows that people can tell whether someone is an extravert or introvert and how high self-esteem is, even by looking at a neutral pose, according to a study reported by LiveScience.
For the study, a dozen observers looked at full-body photos of 123 undergraduate students whom they’d never met. Six observers viewed the students in a neutral pose and six saw the same students in a spontaneous pose.
They rated each picture on 10 personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness (open to experience), likability, self-esteem, loneliness, religiosity and political orientation. Researchers compared the ratings with the profile owner’s self-ratings and ratings from three of their close friends.
The observer accurately identified 9 out of 10 traits in the expressive shots, were able to judge extraversion and self-esteem correctly in the controlled poses.
“In an age dominated by social media where personal photographs are ubiquitous, it becomes important to understand the ways personality is communicated via our appearance,” Laura Naumann of Sonoma State University, one of the study’s researchers, told LiveScience. “The appearance one portrays in his or her photographs has important implications for their professional and social life.”
And those hoping to make a good impression can pose in ways that put them in a favorable view.
“If you want potential employers or romantic suitors to see you as a warm and friendly individual, you should post pictures where you smile or are standing in a relaxed pose,” Naumann said.