A legit research paper into profile pictures and personality traits has been published, so that at long last we can find out ‘What Your Profile Picture Says About You‘ without reading the mindless ramblings of a 26-year-old Comms graduate (ahem).
A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania analysed profile pictures of 66,000 Twitter users, as well as their tweets for insights into their personality. They then compared their findings with 429 users who also filled in a standard personality questionnaire.
The results were published in a paper called Analyzing Personality through Social Media Profile Picture Choice, but if wading through research papers *isn’t* your idea of a wild time, read the abbreviated results below.
Openness
Congrats! Out of everyone here, you tend to have ‘the best’ profile pictures – a.k.a. they’re significantly correlated to features indicative of better aesthetic qualities, i.e. increased contrast, sharpness, saturation and less blur. However, they’re less colourful (“perhaps because of the artistic quality of the images” bloody hell) and low in emotion.
Apparently, this personality dimension can be separated into two different but correlated traits: ‘Intellect’ and ‘Openness to Experience’. In both cases, these people are the most likely to have profile pictures of things other than their face, because they don’t play by the rules etc. But if they do have a face, they’re likely to be wearing glasses. Like nerds do.
Conscientiousness
Is your profile picture actually of your face? Bingo! You might be a conscientious-type person, one who is into “orderliness, planned behaviour and self-discipline”. These people tend to obey the social norms that dictates your profile picture *must* be of a face, but of course, they’re not the only ones.
Conscientious people favour colourful, natural pictures that are also kinda blurry and have “no respect to the rule of thirds” (you fucking heathens). They prefer a single face in their photos (theirs, presumably), and tend to choose photos that make them seem older. Oh, and they’re almost definitely smiling, but not because they’re actually happy, but because they’re expected to appear happy. Wow.
Extroversion
We live in a society that favours extroverts. You know what else society favours? Youth. You know who extroverts like to take photos with? Young people.
Extroverts’ photos tend to be bright, sharp, and in-line with the rule of thirds – although they’re lacking in contrast, saturation, and can be kinda blurry. (Sharp? Blurry? Idk either, I’m not a scientist.)
They also don’t wear glasses, because glasses are for NEEEEEERDS. And if they’re not taking photos with younger people, they’re choosing photos that make them appear younger. But it’s okay, because they’re *super* engaged with the outside world.
Agreeableness
Agreeable people – who are all about that social harmony and cooperation – tend to have blurry, bright, and not v. sharp photos , with faces in them and a healthy respect to the rule of thirds. They are NOT, however, as bright as their extroverted counterparts, and although they’re also smiling, they’re not faking it like those lyin’ conscientious people.
Neuroticism
Neurotic people – whom researchers dubbed as those who experience “negative emotions and emotional instability” (so, all of us?) – tend to go for grayscale photos, and have a strong tendency not to show their face. If they do, they tend to wear glasses, which the researchers note “have been associated with perceived introversion and a decrease in attractiveness”. Fucking nerds.
In what might be the understatement of the century, neurotic people tend *not* to post happy smiling pictures, but actually ones that show a lack of emotion. You, with the black and white profile picture of you looking off to the side? I see you, you neurotic dickhead.
Source: University of Pennsylvania.
Photo: MYSPACE TOM <3.
