Do you know that, for most part, all it takes for others to judge you on Facebook is your profile photo?
A new study reveals so, and only when your profile picture reveals something different than their image of you, people will take the extra step to look at what you are writing.
The findings come from two studies conducted at Ohio State University. Brandon Van Der Heide, lead author of both, conducted the study with Jonathan D’Angelo and Erin Schumaker, graduate students in communication at the university.
“If your profile photo fits what they expect, observers may be unlikely to look very closely at the rest of your profile – they have already decided how they feel about you,” said Brandon Van Der Heide. “But if your photo is not quite normal – either positively or negatively – people are going to pay a lot more attention to what you wrote.“
In the study, college students viewed a mock Facebook profile of a person who was supposedly a fellow student. The profile included a photo and a written “about me” statement.
In the first study, participants viewed one of four profiles:
- A photo of a person shown socializing with friends and a text that read, “I’m happiest hanging out with a big group of friends“, both suggesting an extrovert.
- A photo of a person alone on a park bench and a text that read, “I’m happiest curled up in my room with a good book“, both suggesting an introvert.
- Photo suggesting an extrovert and the text an introvert.
- Photo suggesting an introvert and the text an extrovert.
Participants were then asked to rate how extraverted they thought the student in the profile was, on a scale of 1 (least extraverted) to 7 (most extraverted) based on the photo and text.
The researchers found that photo mattered more than the text in deciding whether the person was an extraverted or an introvert.
In the second study, 84 college students viewed one of the photos or read one of the text used in the first study, and then rated the person’s extraversion or introversion. The results show that participants who read the introverted text rated the person as significantly more introverted than those who saw the introverted photos, while there was no significant difference in the rating between photo and text for extraversion.
While the study was based on Facebook, the researcher suggests that the results can be applied to all other social networking websites.
The results of their study appear in a recent issue of the Journal of Communication.
Do you also judge others based on their profile picture or photos? How do you usually judge other on Facebook?
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