How Do Profile Pictures Reveal Personality?
Everything you post on social media is a window to your personality — but especially your profile pictures.
We often choose our profile and cover pictures randomly, but this random choice is not random. We don’t post our pictures, but we post our personality.
What we post gives a glimpse of our personality traits and mood swings. If you know what does a profile picture say about someone’s personality, you can guess accurately how he is feeling, what are his interests, and how does he behave in his life.
After reading this article look closely at profile pictures — people taking a selfie in the backdrop of mountains, with celebrities to attract attention, laughing out loud with friends, during a walk in a park, while scuba diving, doing exercise in a gym, and when doing prayers. All such pictures are saying something about their interests.
Not only interests, but you can also extract their personality traits: whether someone is extrovert or introvert, conscientious or disorderly, open-minded or closed-minded, agreeable or disagreeable, neurotic or emotionally stable.
Extrovert or Introvert
If your friend has posted this kind of picture as his cover photo, what do you guess? The bearded person at the center smiling, dancing, and entertaining with the other three — is he an extrovert or an introvert?
Most likely an extrovert. Posting group shots is a typical trait of extroverts. Introverts may also enjoy with their friends or group of colleagues but they don’t like the center of attention and are less likely to post group shots.
Now notice this smiling lady, walking straight with broad smile on her face, wearing red with combination of other bright colors, and flying dyed hairs- she is comfortable in getting attention of the photographer.
Extroverts don’t like dull and dark, they like everything that shows energy and passion. Bright colors, many decorations, alterations in a dress to attract attention, face with strong expressions, and powerful body language are the signs of extroverts.
What is your guess about this picture of J.K Rowling?
This is purely an introvert’s picture. Wearing black color, keeping her arms circled around her body, a stressed smile on her face, and limited use of jewelry and other embellishments shows her introverted tendencies.
Remember! celebrities may seem to be extroverts as they are used to of public attention. Most of them have learned how to behave in public.
Read here conclusions of research on correlation between profile pictures and personality .
Neurotic or Emotionally Stable
What’s your guess about this picture?
A girl turned away, hiding her face and looking to sunshine. She doesn’t want to face the people but is expecting things to turn good — this indicates she is depressed as well as hopeful.
If any of your friends is frequently posting such pictures with some element of sadness, hiding himself, far alone in the field, you can guess he is neurotic.
Remember! emotionally stable people can also post such pictures when they are in a bad mood. But frequently posting or keeping them for a long time is a sign of neurotic personality.
Now let’s guess about this picture.
This girl, though turned her eyes down and slightly covered her face with hairs, doesn’t indicate any sort of emotional instability. Her picture shows her inner confidence and her pose is deliberate with mental presence. She isn’t smiling nor she is serious, but she is slightly naughty and playful.
Conscientious or Disorderly
Conscientious are focused and organized persons. They choose where to take their picture and which one to post on their profiles. They adjust their pose, control their expressions, and keep everything tidy.
Now let’s see this picture.
Though seem spontaneously taken, this picture is thought out. From hairs, glasses, pull over, shirt, blazer to wrist watch everything of this man is tidy. The backdrop is also clean and decently furnished.
Remember! nobody likes to take pictures in the cluttered environment — people who grade low on conscientiousness can still look tidy in their pictures.
Agreeable or Assertive
Agreeable people cooperate. Their postures reflect dependence.
In this picture, the girl sitting on the chair has a submissive posture — both hands clenched over her legs and smiling to show agreement. Not asserting, she looks receptive and passively connecting.
But the girl standing has definitely an assertive and confident posture.
Remember! agreeableness doesn’t mean you are mentally open or receptive to ideas or experiences.
Open or Closed
Openness is a curiosity for new experiences.
Your friend who has displayed a picture playing golf but haven’t change it over the years — isn’t open to the experience. But the other one who frequently posts pictures attending events, playing different games, and visiting fun places — is open to the experience.
Open people care about aesthetics and display their artistic sense through their pictures. Their pictures can show vivid imagery, beautiful scenery and creative ways of doing work.
Concluding Notes:
Be cautious when judging personality from profile pictures. This science is interesting but has flaws.
And never rely on a single picture to judge anyone’s personality. Personality is more about constancy and context of behaviors.
Take your personality development test.
