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Online vs. Offline Self: Who is the Real You? | New Age Creators

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I recently made my way down to the DMV to get my driver's license replaced. Since I'll be carrying this photo ID around with me for the next 8 years, I wanted to make sure my hair looked nice, my makeup was done and that I looked picture perfect.

I was feeling pretty good about myself until the camera flashed and I got a look at my picture and cringed, "I look like that?"

Whether it's a group picture, passport photo or candid shot a friend took of you, we've all had similar reactions to our own pictures. But why is that?

Thankfully, science comes to the rescue to explain why our pictures don't look like we expect.

Your profile picture can make or break your online connections. Research has found people make their first impression of you within 100ms of seeing your photo!

Choosing the right profile picture matters because different photos of you send different messages. Princeton University Researcher Dr. Alexander Todorov found that changing your profile picture can drastically change the first impressions people make of you. In his study, he took slightly different pictures of the same person and asked participants to rate them for various characteristics like intelligence, trustworthiness and attractiveness. He found even slight variations could change people's perceptions of all of those traits.

The challenge is how do you make sure you choose the right profile picture?

Simple answer: you need to enlist the help of others. Here's why:

Our Pictures Don't Look Like Us

An interesting new study found that the pictures we choose to represent ourselves aren't accurate depictions of what we look like. In fact, strangers are better at picking pictures that "look like us" than we are.

Dr. David White conducted a study where participants downloaded 10 pictures of themselves from their Facebook page and rank them from most to worst likeness. He then had a group of strangers try to match up the pictures to a short webcam video of each person.

The strangers ended up picking a different set of "good likeness" pictures for each participant than the participants chose themselves - with 7% more accurate identification.

Dr. White stated,

"It seems counter-intuitive that strangers who saw the photo of someone's face for less than a minute were more reliable at judging likeness."

But this makes sense: even though we see our own faces everyday, multiple times a day, our existing memory representations of ourselves actually interfere with our ability to choose images that accurately portray our current, true appearance.

Your Face is the Wrong Way Around

Our existing memory representations of ourselves see ourselves in the mirror. So we tend to choose and like pictures of ourselves where our features are reversed like that. Enter: . We're used to seeing ourselves in the mirror, so when that image is reversed, it doesn't look quite right.

This is known as the mere-exposure effect -the more familiar we are with something, the more we like it. We are unfamiliar with seeing ourselves head-on, like how friends or strangers view us, so we don't like the way we look.

We all know ourselves to look a certain way: our hair is parted on the right, our left eye squints just a bit when we smile and we have a beauty mark on our left cheek. When we see a picture of ourselves from the opposite perspective, none of our features are where we're expecting them to be. It makes us feel uncomfortable-the picture is us, but it doesn't look like us.

You're Not as Attractive as You Think You Are

Okay, I know this sounds harsh, but let's go the science. In a joint between researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Virginia, researchers had participants come to a lab and have their picture taken with a neutral expression. They then made several copies of the pictures and edited them to make the participants look more or less attractive. A few weeks later, the participants came back to the lab and were asked which one of their photos was the original, unedited one. The majority of the participants believed that an enhanced picture was their original, indicating that people see themselves as more attractive than they really are.

Interestingly, this effect was not the same when participants judged strangers' photos. In this case, the majority of people chose the unedited or a photo that was edited negatively as the stranger's original picture.

Seeing yourself as more attractive than you actually are isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives you confidence that makes your appearance and presence more attractive in ways that natural good looks can't do. shows that people can pick up on your confidence in your photos and perceive you as more attractive, likeable, and competent as a result.

Strangers Have a Different Vision of Attractiveness

Not only do people view themselves as more attractive, they are also unable to judge their own attractiveness. An Australian had participants submit twelve headshots and decide which ones made them look the most and least of the following traits:

They then had the participants rate each other's pictures on the same characteristics. After comparing the results, they found there was almost no overlap between what individuals thought were their best pictures and what others thought, revealing that what we think of as attractive can vary.

There are two ways you can overcome this cognitive quirk and identify your best profile pictures:

1) Get feedback from other people. Before uploading a new profile picture, pick three or four options and ask other people which one they like most. If you are choosing a profile picture for LinkedIn or an online dating site, tell the individuals that you're going for a professional/attractive look so they know how to judge you.

Pro tip: This strategy will be much more effective if you choose acquaintances or strangers, not friends, to judge your pictures. Your friends think you are an awesome person and are around you frequently which causes them to have a favorable bias towards you, similar to the one you have towards yourself. They also likely know what looks make you feel the best - not the most professional , attractive, competent etc.- and may feel inclined to say they like the photo that they know you like the best even if it is not the most ideal one.

Acquaintances and strangers on the other hand, typically don't have a favorable bias toward you and they don't know you well enough to be aware of your preferences.

The easiest way to get stranger feedback is to use the site Photofeeler . Upload your photos and strangers will rate on different traits depending on if you plan on using them for online dating , professional or social sites. Photofeeler's algorithms automatically normalize your scores to give you statistically significant results for all the traits you are seeking feedback on.

Alternatively, you could ask co-workers you're not close with, mutual friends and other people you don't know well for opinions that may not be as uniform but are still better than your own.

2) Choose photos that look like people you find attractive. If you don't feel comfortable seeking profile picture advice from people you don't know well, look for profile pictures of people that best match the image you want to create for yourself. Whether that's competent, sexy, , etc. Identify what it is about their pictures that makes them look that way and choose a profile picture that shares those characteristics.

This is better than solely looking through your pictures because we see other people's photos more objectively. However, it is still much less effective than getting stranger feedback because your bias toward yourself may trick you into believing your favorite photo looks more like your comparison attractive person's picture than it actually does.

Don't know where to start? Research shows these features improve your photos:

Face the camera: This mimics the body language strategy of fronting - directly facing people - which conveys respect to the people who look at your photo.

Squinch: Slightly squinting your eyes prevents you from looking wide-eyed and and makes you look more attractive according to research.

Tilt your head: This is the universal sign of engagement and subtly shows people that you're open to making connections.

Smile, don't smirk: A lot of people smirk in their profile pictures without realizing that smirking is the universal facial expression for and conveys that you think you are better than other people. On the flip side, a genuine smile with your eye muscles engaged makes you look warm and approachable.

Look for people with profile pictures with those characteristics as a baseline for attractiveness and see if there are any additional traits from your favorite person's photos that you can mimic.

What Does this Mean?

Contrary to what you may believe, you're not the most un-photogenic person in the world, you're just not used to seeing yourself the way other people see you. I promise, you look normal in the group picture, it's still your face in that passport photo and you're just not used to the angle your friend used to take that candid pic of you.

Keep taking baller selfies if that's what you prefer, but maybe in time you'll finally get used to how your face looks the way everyone else sees it.

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I recently made my way down to the DMV to get my driver's license replaced. Since I'll be carrying this photo ID around with me for the next 8 years, I wanted to make sure my hair looked nice, my makeup was done and that I looked picture perfect.

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The Greatest Showman Cast - This Is Me (Official Lyric Video)

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Dont think to much of yourself .. be humble

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Dont think to much of yourself .. be humble

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To persuade