Sedgewick Jennifer R, Flath Meghan E, Elias Lorin J
Department of Psychology, University of SaskatchewanSaskatoon, SK, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2017 Apr 21;8:604. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00604. eCollection 2017.
When taking a self-portrait or "selfie" to display in an online dating profile, individuals may intuitively manipulate the vertical camera angle to embody how they want to be perceived by the opposite sex. Concepts from evolutionary psychology and grounded cognition suggest that this manipulation can provide cues of physical height and impressions of power to the viewer which are qualities found to influence mate-selection. We predicted that men would orient selfies more often from below to appear taller (i.e., more powerful) than the viewer, and women, from an above perspective to appear shorter (i.e., less powerful). A content analysis was conducted which coded the vertical orientation of 557 selfies from profile pictures on the popular mobile dating application, Tinder. In general, selfies were commonly used by both men (54%) and women (90%). Consistent with our predictions, a gender difference emerged; men's selfies were angled significantly more often from below, whereas women's were angled more often from above. Our findings suggest that selfies presented in a mate-attraction context are intuitively or perhaps consciously selected to adhere to ideal mate qualities. Further discussion proposes that biological or individual differences may also facilitate vertical compositions of selfies.
在拍摄自拍照以展示在在线约会资料中时，人们可能会直观地调整相机的垂直角度，以体现他们希望被异性如何看待。进化心理学和具身认知的概念表明，这种调整可以向观看者提供身体高度的线索和权力印象，而这些特质被发现会影响择偶。我们预测，男性会更多地从下方拍摄自拍照，以使自己看起来比观看者更高（即更有权力），而女性则会从上方角度拍摄，以使自己看起来更矮（即权力较小）。我们对一款热门移动约会应用程序Tinder上资料照片中的557张自拍照的垂直方向进行了内容分析。总体而言，男性（54%）和女性（90%）都普遍使用自拍照。与我们的预测一致，出现了性别差异；男性的自拍照更多地从下方倾斜，而女性的自拍照更多地从上方倾斜。我们的研究结果表明，在吸引伴侣的情境中展示的自拍照是直观地或可能是有意识地选择的，以符合理想伴侣的特质。进一步的讨论提出，生物学或个体差异也可能促进自拍照的垂直构图。
