(Newswire.net — January 12, 2015) — Assistant professor of Communication at Ohio State University, Jesse Fox and a graduate student at Ohio State Margaret Rooney, conducted a study, which showed guys who frequently are posting selfies online, scored higher on measures of narcissism and psychopathy on tests.
Guys, however, who edit their selfies before posting, scored even higher up the scale in narcissism and self-objectification. According to a study, they prioritize their appearance over anything else, which could indicate psychotic behavior.
“It’s not surprising that men who post a lot of selfies and spend more time editing them are more narcissistic, but this is the first time it has actually been confirmed in a study,” Jesse Fox, lead author of the study, told Medical News Today.
Researchers said women were excluded from the study due to the dataset. 800 men aged between 18-40 were asked to complete a standard questionnaire for antisocial behaviors and self-objectification. The results of the study are published online in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
“Most people don’t think that men even do that sort of thing, but they definitely do,” Fox told MNT, adding that ‘Self-objectification may become a bigger problem’ with the ever increasing use of social media.
Published data, however, does not imply that men who edit their photos before publishing, are likely to be psychotic.
“That makes sense because psychopathy is characterized by impulsivity,” Fox said. “They are going to snap the photos and put them online right away. They want to see themselves. They don’t want to spend time editing,” Fox explains.
Fox explained that editing photos is related to higher levels of self-objectification, which involves valuing yourself primarily by your appearance, in preference to other positive traits, and self-objectification has been rarely studied in heterosexual men, she said.
“We know that self-objectification leads to a lot of terrible things, like depression and eating disorders in women,” Fox says. “With the growing use of social networks, everyone is more concerned with their appearance. That means self-objectification may become a bigger problem for men, as well as for women.”
Fox, agrees, however, that the results of the study do not indicate men, who post numerous selfies, are in fact narcissists or psychopaths. All men scored within the normal range of behavior – just with higher than average levels of these particular antisocial traits.
The same research is currently being conducted with women that suggest the findings in this research also apply to women, and men hardly can wait to compare the data.