Selfies reflect actual personality – Just like photos or short videos in standardized lab conditions

Abstract

Social media sites are overflowing with millions of selfies, because people increasingly share what they do and who they are with the rest of the world. We examined whether self-expressions based on selfies elicit enhanced, consensual and accurate interpersonal perceptions compared to commonly employed laboratory conditions. Perceived narcissism was relatively higher and conscientiousness lower when ratings were based on selfies. This effect did not extend to the accuracy of ratings: Across all conditions, unacquainted observers agreed with each other and their ratings were correlated with a criterion measure of target personality. Except for agreeableness and self-esteem, accuracy correlations were somewhat higher when ratings were based on selfies. Randomization-based exploratory lens-model analyses were conducted to bolster the interpretation of our results.