Your Facebook profile pix may say more about you than you realize

Parent Cafe
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<p>"More than 700 million people worldwide are now using online social networking sites that showcase personal photographs, but few realize just how accurate first impressions online can be. The findings from this study and other research on personality suggest that the photos you post online provide a wealth of information about who you are—whether you like it or not. …</p>

<p>A forthcoming study on Facebook, which will be published in Psychological Science next year, found that online social networking sites are not effective for promoting “idealized” identity. Instead, such sites often portray personality quite accurately, a finding that might help explain their popularity.</p>

<p>As with the study on personality based on physical appearance, the Facebook study found that accuracy was strongest for judging extroversion and openness. While it’s difficult to influence the way strangers judge you from a photograph, it’s even harder to control your overall online persona when other features like friend lists and Facebook message walls come into play. </p>

<p>“If I want to appear extroverted, I can’t just suddenly create 450 friends and have them post on my wall and have photos of me yelling drunkenly at the camera at yet another party,” says Samuel Gosling, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas and an author of both personality studies. “You can’t just fabricate those.” </p>

<p>Vazire says the research suggests that strangers can know as much about your personality as acquaintances just by looking you up on the Internet. “It’s another example of how pervasive personality is,” she says. “You can’t outrun your personality. It’s going to follow you everywhere.”
[Making</a> a Digital First Impression: Why You Can’t Fake Your Facebook Profile - The Human Condition Blog - Newsweek.com](<a href=“http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/11/10/making-a-digital-first-impression-why-you-can-t-fake-your-facebook-profile.aspx]Making”>http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/11/10/making-a-digital-first-impression-why-you-can-t-fake-your-facebook-profile.aspx)</p>

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<p>I’m sure that some researcher will figure out how to fake the personality of a picture.</p>

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<p>I’ve never gotten around to uploading pictures of me to my profile. For a long time I had a pair of purple Merrels, which is one of my favorite pair of shoes. I’ve also had a couple of my paintings as profile. My sil’s brother changes his profile picture at least once a week. He tends to alternate between weird pictures from his childhood to weird pictures of him now - often cropped so you only see part of his face. His job is using new media in advertising and he clearly uses Facebook as a incubator for ideas. </p>

<p>I hate people who put up teeny tiny pictures of themselves - often as part of a group photo - either show me what you look like or don’t. I got a friend request from someone who might be a high school classmate, but squinting at the photo - I certainly can’t tell.</p>

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<p>As an empty nester I have a picture of my favorite child-the dog!!!</p>

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<p>I use the dog also. The kid discovered that sometimes the photos are hijacked for other purposes and you can end up being on some ad. They can use the generic dog pic, if they like. :)</p>

<p>Be wary about putting to much information about yourself in your profile. The local news station did a story about a scam.</p>

<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/21541063/index.html]Video[/url”>http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/21541063/index.html]Video[/url</a>]</p>

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<p>I think the young people who use Facebook aren’t even trying to manage their personas–they use it almost like a personal diary–but one that can be seen by hundreds of other people.</p>

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<p>My profile picture is of me after hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon - perhaps the only physically strenuous thing I’ve ever done. Love that it may give the (mistaken) impression that I’m in awesome shape or am outdoorsy.</p>

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<p>The below describes what’s telling about the pictures, and I think it’s true. All of my Facebook profile shots show me smiling and either appearing relaxed or doing something like dancing or acting. According to the below, the pictures accurately reflect my extroversion.</p>

<p>A shy acquaintance of mine uses a Facebook photo showing the hunched over back view of someone who isn’t her. </p>

<p>"How participants stood and whether or not they smiled provided the biggest clues about personality. Extroverts apparently smile more, stand in energetic and less tense poses, and appear healthy, neat, and stylish. </p>

<p>While more obvious cues—like wearing a cross or a Star of David—gave viewers information about religiosity, there was also a strange correlation in this study between standing in a relaxed position and being more devout. “I think a lot of people forget that our posture says a lot of things about us,” Naumann says. “Even if we were to put everyone in the same white jump suit, people’s inherent personalities might still come through in how they stand.”</p>

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<p>I think it might be interesting to study this. You could look at various things, and try to figure out what they mean, such as:

  1. Does the person include others in the profile picture? Just one other person or a group?
  2. How often does he change the profile picture?
  3. Is the picture funny?</p>
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<p>My BFF’s son has a new “sweetie”. Her facebook picture shows her almost naked (strategic cover-ups) with her HUGE tattoo showing. My friend is horrified. The reality bears out the picture…</p>

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<p>You know, I think there’s probably something to this.
And I think it’s more than just the pictures.
I have reluctantly joined facebook, and many of the postings seems banal and narcissistic to me. On the other hand, I do like seeing family pics and getting updates on important events.
I personally do not post much. I don’t want to bother selecting what friends see what and I don’t like the idea of broadcasting general info to an entire group. So I’m mostly a lurker - usually go on once every day or two to check it out. I prefer to call or email my friends personally.<br>
My picture is not of me but of something I like.
So, yeah, I’m private and have tested to be an introvert. So I guess that’s consistent. I just don’t get how somebody can have 450 friends. Are they REALLY friends? I guess everybody uses Facebook in a different way…and I have good friends who are adamant that they will never join. Maybe it’s a generational thing…but then again…lots of folks my age are now using it.<br>
I’m much more comfortable on Linkedin…where I have quite a big network but don’t need to share personal info. Even have a smiling pic up there…</p>

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<p>" I just don’t get how somebody can have 450 friends. Are they REALLY friends? "</p>

<p>I have even more FB friends than that. No, most are not close friends. However, they are people I know or have met and like to keep in touch with. I have found FB to be a good way of getting to know better some people I’ve met and like. The people I know with lots of FB friends tend to be people like me who are involved in lots of different activities.</p>

<p>"I have reluctantly joined facebook, and many of the postings seems banal and narcissistic to me. "</p>

<p>It depends on who’s posting. I don’t like banal, narcissistic posts. When people only post about trivia, I make them invisible, a nice option that FB offers. :)</p>

<p>My husband and others keep encouraging me to join Linked In. I’ve passed on that opportunity. It’s too business-oriented and impersonal for me.</p>

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<p>This may have been posted before…interesting.
[Facebook</a> Friends: Too Many, Too Few? | Psychology Today](<a href=“http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brainstorm/200901/facebook-friends-too-many-too-few]Facebook”>http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brainstorm/200901/facebook-friends-too-many-too-few)
Oh boy, I have a lot of work to do to get to 300…I don’t think there are 300 people I know who I can invite!
But I do know that I should probably either get off facebook or make an effort to invite some folks and expand my network. Maybe even post my pic. Right now, I am in that "loser " category…LOL.<br>
I have a good friend who has over 600 friends…but she admits that she would’nt know many of them if she passed them on the street. So I guess I need to expand my definition of a “friend.”</p>

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<p>You can get that number of friends if you are part of a network, such as a college or alumni network. Plus, it’s really no work to add a friend or accept a friend invitation. My FB is an odd collection of people I knew when I was young, people I knew in high school, people I knew in college, former coworkers and some clients. And now I all know what they had for breakfast :-)</p>

<p>I do have to bite my tongue, however, when I see some of the political things people post on FB – I try to stay fairly neutral on political topics. Some people are far more conservative or far more liberal than I ever would have thought. I just found out a client of mine went to Liberty University for undergrad! I knew where he went for grad school, and it doesn’t surprise me that he’s conservative, but that’s a whole different level of conservative, so that’s good for me to know.</p>

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<p>The below is from toneranger’s link.</p>

<p>Interesting about how people view one’s number of FB friends. I tend to think that people with very low numbers of friends simply aren’t that involved with FB. The people I know with lots of FB friends tend to be involved in a wide variety of activities. This includes my introverted younger S – who despite being an introvert still is active in a wide range of activities – and it includes me. Both of us have far more than 300 FB friends. </p>

<p>The person I personally know who has the most FB friends – more than 1,600 – also is one of the most interesting people I know.</p>

<p>Thirtysomething, she was first gen college from a low income family, and now has a doctorate and a consulting business doing training. She scuba dives, swims with dophins, is learning to fly, travels extensively, volunteers extensively, and I see her all over town including at plays, art galleries, and political events including events that she goes to to open her mind (I’m a liberal Democrat, she’s a fiscally conservative Republican, but she still comes to some events hosted by Democrats.). </p>

<p>She often uses Facebook to organize events such as hikes and group meals at her favorite restaurant. </p>

<p>"In research published last year in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (and covered in Psychology Today), college students viewed Facebook profiles that were identical except for the number of friends–either 102, 302, 502, 702, or 902–and rated the target’s social attractiveness (without paying special attention to friend quantity). The number with the best results: 302. Appeal dropped off above and below that.</p>

<p>How can you have, as the authors write, “too much of a good thing?” They hypothesize that “Individuals with too many friends may appear to be focusing too much on Facebook, friending out of desperation rather than popularity, spending a great deal of time on their computers ostensibly trying to make connections in a computer-mediated environment where they feel more comfortable than in face-to-face social interaction.”"</p>

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<p>"
I do have to bite my tongue, however, when I see some of the political things people post on FB – I try to stay fairly neutral on political topics. "</p>

<p>Interesting. I do lots of political postings on FB, and use FB find out lots of info about political causes that interest me. Of course, that means that most of my hundreds of FB friends are flaming liberals like I am, but I get to connect with more conservative people here on CC.</p>

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<p>I love facebook. Many of my facebook friends are not people I’ve met in person. Some are people from internet forums such as this and my athletic forums. I enjoy those people and found it to be a whole new way of having friendships. A number are high school classmates with whom I have reconnected. I’ve got co-workers on there (I’m careful about that one…), family members, friends of my kids (if they friend ME), some icons in my sport who are interesting to follow… I stay away from political topics and, usually, religion, but with a daughter in seminary religion does come up.<br>
It’s fun. It can eat up time. It can get overwhelming. It probably wouldn’t appeal to introverts as much (my husband won’t touch it). Frankly, I find it inconvenient if one of my real life friends is NOT on facebook. It’s simply how communication happens these days!</p>

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<p>Hmmm, my facebook picture is of my car. Probably says a lot about me.</p>

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<p>I am an exterme extrovert. My pic is of me looking shy when I was three. What’s that say?</p>

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<p>I’ve joined facebook. It was a good experience in that I was able to contact some people from my past I really liked and have lost touch with. It’s been a bad one because I friended a male high school classmate I hadn’t seen in years. He’s become very odd. When a friend saw one of his postings, she called me absolutely freaked out by something he’d written on my wall. I had to unfriend him. </p>

<p>I have gotten several messages from folks trying to friend me whose names I don’t recognize. Now a couple are female and maybe I’d recognize their maiden name and they are using a married one. But wouldn’t you think they’d say “I used to by Jane Smith?” I don’t know whether some of these messages are some sort of scam…</p>

<p>I revved up the privacy settings. I haven’t posted a photo. I have fewer than 10 friends. </p>

<p>My kid has over 500. I’d say at least half of them friended my kid. I recognize the names of about 60% of them. A lot are people from kid’s past–people who were elementary, high school, college, grad school and law school classmates. People who were involved in the same intense EC in high school and college. People who acted in the same community theatre as kids and teens. In other words, a lot of people who aren’t good enough friends that my kid would make the effort to keep in touch if things like facebook didn’t exist, but people my kid would be delighted to see at a reunion. </p>

<p>Others are friends and relatives of kid’s new spouse. It’s hard to say no to a friend request from them! </p>

<p>Looking at the friends’ list is sort of a mini “This Is Your Life, _____.”</p>