This Is What Your Profile Picture Says About You

Science just took Facebook stalking to the next level...

This Is What Your Profile Picture Says About You

by Emily Giblett |
Published on

What made you choose your current profile picture? Even if you thought it was just because it looked nice, the chances are that the real reason can tell people a lot more about you than you might think.

In a new study by the University of Pensylvannia, researchers analysed the Twitter profile pictures of 66,000 users, estimating their personality by what they tweeted. They also conducted interviews with 434 users to categorise behaviour based upon five personality traits.

With the evidence showing strong trends between personality and profile pic, this could well be your answer to filtering out the fuckboys on tinder.

Here’s the lowdown on what your profile pic says about you:

Group Shot

If your chosen image has several people in it, the chances are you’re an extrovert. Yup, a regular Chatty Kathy who loves to be the centre of attention and the life and soul of the party.

**Bright and in focus **

If your profile picture is of ‘high aesthetic quality’ (high contrast, sharpness and saturation) you are likely to have an ‘open’ personality. This means you’re open to emotion, sensitive to beauty and up for new experiences.

The open group is also the most likely to have things other than faces in the picture (steady) like views and objects. This means that you don’t care about following the crowd. You do you.

Blurry and colourful

If the picture is full of colour but a bit blurred or out of focus, you’re likely to display agreeableness. Agreeable people value getting along with everyone and tend to be pretty good listeners. You make people feel at ease and according to Wikipedia, you’re tender minded. Aww.

Dark, simple and showing only your face

Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re neurotic. Users who display neurotic personality traits are generally stressed out, upset and irritated easily.

Well-framed, smart looking

If this is you, it’s likely you’re the conscientious type. Your attention to detail is impeccable and you love order. You love to plan ahead and your profile picture is probably perfect LinkedIn material.

I don’t know about you, but I’m off to change my black and white profile pic for something a little more colourful..

**Like this? Then you may be interested in: **

Why Do We Get So Obsessed With Likes On Social Media?

In Defence Of Being On Social Media. All Day, Every Day!

Apparently Social Media Is Actually Making Us Share Our Views Less

Follow Emily on Twitter @emgiblett

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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