Whether you’re using Tinder, Plenty Of Fish, Grindr or what-have-you, the most important thing is to have a great pic in order to get any potential love interest’s attention.
There are still – STILL! – some folk out there who are breaking some cardinal rules, such as ‘don’t post headless torso pics of yourself’, ‘try to keep gym selfies to a minimum’, and ‘if all of your pictures are group shots then yes we know you have friends, but we’re not going to play Guess Who just to figure out who you are.’
Plus, if you’ve got someone more attractive than you in your group pics, then we’re just going to hope it’s them and will be disappointed when it’s not.
Anyways, while we’re stressing over finding just the right primary picture, it turns out we shouldn’t be doing it at all, as the best person to do this job for us is a complete stranger.
Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia put together a study titled Choosing face: The curse of self in profile image selection, and found that when you picked your own profile picture, it was likely to get a less favourable reaction from the masses than those chosen by complete strangers for you.
And it wasn’t just for dating profiles, as it turns out strangers are better equipped at finding you a more professional photo of yourself for LinkedIn, or a more well-rounded likeable selection for your Facebook profiler.
Lead author of the study Dr. David White said: “Our results demonstrate that people know how to select profile pictures that fit specific networking contexts and make positive impressions on strangers: dating images appear more attractive, and professional images appear more competent.
“Previous work has shown that people make inferences about an individual’s character and personality within a split second of seeing a photograph of their face, so our results have clear practical implications; if you want to put your best face forward, it makes sense to ask someone else to choose your picture.”
So there you have it. Wanna get dates with strangers? Let strangers do the work for you!
