ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 31 January 2017 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00082 Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 January 2017 | Volume 8 | Article 82 Edited by: Piotr Sorokowski, University of Wroclaw, Poland Reviewed by: Konstantinos Chorianopoulos, Ionian University, Greece Ståle Pallesen, University of Bergen, Norway *Correspondence: Bojan Musil bojan.musil@um.si Specialty section: This article was submitted to Human-Media Interaction, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology Received: 15 September 2016 Accepted: 13 January 2017 Published: 31 January 2017 Citation: Musil B, Preglej A, Ropert T, Klasinc L and Babi ˇ cN ˇ C (2017) What Is Seen Is Who You Are: Are Cues in Selfie Pictures Related to Personality Characteristics? Front. Psychol. 8:82. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00082 What Is Seen Is Who You Are: Are Cues in Selfie Pictures Related to Personality Characteristics? Bojan Musil 1 *, Andrej Preglej 1 , Tadevž Ropert 1 , Lucia Klasinc 1 and Nenad ˇ C. Babi ˇ c 1, 2 1 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia, 2 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Construction IT Centre, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia Developments and innovation in the areas of mobile information technology, digital media and social networks foster new reflections on computer-mediated communication research, especially in the field of self-presentation. In this context, the selfie as a self-portrait photo is interesting, because as a meaningful gesture, it actively and directly relates the content of the photo to the author of the picture. From the perspective of the selfie as an image and the impression it forms, in the first part of the research we explored the distinctive characteristics of selfie pictures; moreover, from the perspective of the potential reflection of a selfie image on the personality of its author, in the second part we related the characteristics of selfie pictures to various personality constructs (e.g., Big Five personality traits narcissism and femininity-masculinity). Important aspects of selfies especially in relation to gender include the tilt of the head, the side of the face exhibited, mood and head position, later related also to the context of the selfie picture. We found no significant relations between selfie cues and personality constructs. The face-ism index was related to entitlement, and selfie availability to neuroticism. Keywords: selfie, self-presentation, social media, selfie coding, personality assessment INTRODUCTION Developments in mobile information technology, digital photography and social networks have stimulated the formulation of new research agendas in the field of human computer interaction, computer mediated communication and cyber-psychology. In particular, self-presentation as an aspect of behavior facet has considerable potential to interact with new communication technologies. In the context of self-presentation, the medium of photography, and in particular the self-portrait as a subtype of photography, is particularly interesting. The popularity of this kind of photography has resulted in a new word: “selfie.” This became the word of the year in 2013 (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). Some researchers link the popularity of the selfie to the global proliferation of mobile phones containing a camera and their integration with social networks (SNS) (Gunthert, 2014; Senft and Baym, 2015). However, the technology itself does not determine behavior; therefore, we should understand selfies as more than merely technological artifacts. Instead, selfies could be understood as a means of communication, as symbolic gestures with their own purpose (Senft and Baym, 2015). The technical understanding of a photograph as a mechanical imprint of physical reality should be replaced by its cultural form, taking into account a variety of purposes and meanings (Lister, 1995).