Selfie-Takers Tend To Overestimate Their Attractiveness, Study Finds

Before you swipe left or right, do you look for more pics of that next possible romance?  If his first pic is of him in a hat and huge sunglasses, I usually think, wow, he really didn't try, and swipe left, or if he has those damn snap chat dog ears on, that calls for a swipe left, too.  Ugh, they ain't cute!  If he's borderline or damn hot, I look for more pics before I do any swiping. 

A news study shows that maybe I shouldn't go digging for more selfies and if I find a lot of selfie pics, that might be a red flag and I need to run.

People who regularly take photos of themselves, or selfies, tend to overestimate their attractiveness and likability to a greater extent, and are seen as more narcissistic by independent observers, compared with non-selfie-takers, according to a study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

A wealth of psychological evidence shows that people have a tendency to perceive themselves as being better than average on a wide range of positive traits, a phenomenon known as “self-favoring bias.” There is also evidence that self-favoring bias is strongest in situations in which one has the greatest amount of personal control. Anyone with a social media account can attest to the popularity of self-taken photos, or selfies. By giving people a great deal of personal control over how they present themselves to the world, selfies may be a prime situation for enhancing self-favoring bias.

Does this mean that if someone has more selfies than food pics on their Facebook, I should look the other way, too? 

A team of psychologists led by Daniel Re, of the University of Toronto, conducted a study designed to compare how self-favoring bias is affected selfie-taking. The sample included 198 college students, including 100 who reported regularly taking selfies, and 98 who reported little or no selfie-taking. Study participants were invited to take a selfie using a smartphone camera, and also had their pictures taken by an experimenter.

They were then instructed to rate each photo based on how attractive and likable they thought their friends would perceive them to be in the photo if it were posted on social media. A sample of 178 independent raters recruited on the internet also rated the participants’ photos for attractiveness and likability, as well as for narcissism.

Both groups, the habitual selfie-takers and non-selfie-takers, showed self-favoring bias by thinking that they would be seen as more attractive and more likeable in their photos than they were actually seen by the independent raters. However, the selfie-takers overestimated themselves significantly more, especially when judging their selfies rather than the experimenter-taken photos. In reality, both groups’ selfies were rated as less attractive than the experimenter-taken photos by the independent raters. They also thought the selfie-takers looked significantly more narcissistic than the non-selfie-takers on the basis of their selfies.

The researchers conclude that habitual selfie-taking may increase people’s susceptibility to self-favoring bias, causing them to overestimate the attractiveness of their photos to a greater and greater extent over time. They suggest that this effect may occur because selfie-takers develop strategies for taking flattering photos of themselves that are not as effective as they believe, or perhaps because positive feedback in the form of likes on social media reinforces an inflated sense of self.

Ironically, practice taking selfies actually appears to contribute to those photos being seen more negatively, in terms of narcissism, at least by some observers. Given these findings, social media users may want to think twice before posting their next selfies. – psypost.org

Is this research a no brainer? If you don't like how you look, you shy away from the other side of the camera lens.  If you are confident that you are a hot piece of flesh, then you snap away.   I don't take selfies.  I don't have the great bod of a model, or the looks of a movie star.  I'd rather take pics of where I am instead of me in front of things while on vacation.  And yes, I do have low self esteem,  so I can see the opposite. 

And yes, not all seflie taking is a bad thing, but it can be overdone.  Or it can be done to set a world record.  Just over two years ago, the following video was created.

Makati and Pasig were hailed as the Selfie Capitals of the World, but the record for most selfies taken in one hour went to Miami, the third selfiest city.

Lifestyle vloggers and openly gay couple Mark E. Miller and Ethan Hethcote broke the Guinness World Record for Most Selfies Taken in One Hour.

Miller and Hethcote took on the challenge to launch the #missionsmile movement.

Taking selfies may seem easy, but the official rules dictate that they have to have a different person for each photo they take.

Miller scoured South Beach for beach-dwellers who were game for a selfie.

In the end, the couple beat the previous record of 50 selfies taken in an hour with a total of 355 selfies (1 selfie for every 10 seconds.) – pacifiqa.com

So if you find a selfie whore, go the other way, but at the same time, if someone is lacking pics, there may be a low self esteem there as well.

Which is worse,  someone with too much self confidence or someone with zero self confidence?

h/t:  psypost.org and pacifiqa.com