Selfies (digital self-portrait photographs taken with a smartphone or webcam) are now ubiquitous. Whilst self-portraiture in art has a long history, its prevalence as a vernacular photographic genre is novel (Walker, 2014; Marwick, 2015), and growing: use of the word "selfie" increased over 17,000% between 2012 and 2013 (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). Though selfies are undoubtedly about the self, ". . . they long for – require even – sharing to be considered "true" selfies" (Hess, 2015, p. 1631), thus selfies are uploaded to social media like Facebook and Instagram. This public sharing of selfies is very much the norm, with 17- to 47-year-old Polish participants posting up to 650 selfies per month on social media sites (average 14.01 posted per month for females; 7.62 posted per month for males; Sorokowska et al., 2016).

The selfie phenomenon was catalyzed by the advent of the digital smartphone. Because the smartphone's front-facing camera provides a means for beholding oneself as the image is recorded (Walker, 2014; Frosh, 2015), people can exert a much higher degree of control over the way they self-represent than previously available. The fact that digital cameras provide photographs immediately, with no costs for film, means that selfies can be taken repeatedly, with the best carefully chosen, edited, and then uploaded to social media. The pose depicted is thus far from accidental (Lindell, 2017); every selfie available for public view on social media was first consciously selected and approved by the selfie-taker (Saltz, 2014). Although there is currently no academic research quantifying selfie-taking behavior, a recent market research survey conducted by OnePoll (N = 2000) found that females aged 16–25 spend over 5 h a week (48 min per day) taking selfies, with an average of seven selfies being taken for each 'perfect selfie' uploaded to social media sites (Strick, 2015). Not surprisingly then, selfietakers perceive themselves as more attractive and likable in their selfies than in photographs taken by other people (Re et al., 2016).

As creating and sharing a selfie can be conceived as "an act of self-representation," (Walker, 2014, p. 12), posing orientation in selfies has been examined to determine how selfie-takers self-represent. Such investigation is motivated by previous research that has established posing asymmetries in painted and photographic portraits: people are more likely to adopt a left than right cheek pose (LaBar, 1973; McManus and Humphrey, 1973). A number of different theories have been put forward to account for the left cheek bias. For example, accounts based on the effect of reading and writing direction suggest that readers of left-to-right languages show a left cheek bias, whereas readers of right-to-left languages instead show a right cheek bias (e.g., Pérez-González, 2012). The Spatial Agency Bias offers an alternate theory, suggesting that figures' roles in artworks, whether as agents or receivers of action, guide their pose orientation. According to this account, passive portrait poses favor left cheek poses because they emphasize the absence of agency (Suitner and McManus, 2011). Recent analysis of moving images appears consistent with this proposal, finding that the lead male actors in action films do not show a left cheek bias (Bode et al., 2016). This finding is also consistent with the emotion-based account of the left cheek bias favored by the present study. Because the left side of the face is predominantly controlled by the emotion-dominant right hemisphere (Patten, 1996; Demaree et al., 2005), the left cheek is more emotionally expressive (Nicholls et al., 2004). Consequently, people intuitively offer the left cheek when asked to pose for a photo expressing emotion, and the right cheek when posing for a photo that conceals emotion (Nicholls et al., 1999). Consistently, viewers perceive models in left cheek poses as more emotionally expressive and open than identical models in right cheek poses (Nicholls et al., 2002; see Lindell, 2013b, for review).

Research confirms that the left cheek bias extends to selfies. Bruno and Bertamini (2013) first investigated selfie posing biases experimentally, finding that over 45% of participants (predominantly university student sample) adopted a left cheek pose when asked to take a selfie using an iPhone's frontfacing camera (33% right cheek pose; 23% midline frontal pose), with proportions consistent across genders. Subsequent selfie-taking investigations in schoolchildren (aged 9–16 years), and a community sample of adults, similarly confirmed the left cheek bias for both male and female single-subject selfies (Bruno et al., 2014, in press). Though Lindell (2017) reported a midline (49.8%), rather than left cheek (26.5%), posing bias across genders in a general population adult sample, the discrepancy from previous investigations is argued to reflect the conservative criterion for coding midline poses adopted [Lindell's midline pose category encompasses three of Bruno and Bertamini's (2013) pose categories: "slightly left," "frontal," "slightly right"; see Lindell (2017), for discussion]. Overall, the research suggests that like other types of portrait, selfie-takers favor left cheek poses.

Critically, the left cheek bias for selfies does not simply reflect a mechanical artifact: neither participant handedness nor the hand used to capture the image influences selfie pose orientation (Lindell, 2017). Instead, the left cheek bias observed for selfies appears consistent with that observed for painted (McManus and Humphrey, 1973) and photographic (LaBar, 1973) portraits of others, and is argued to reflect the sitters' unconscious preference for displaying the more emotive left cheek (see Lindell, 2013b; Bruno et al., 2015, for discussion).

In keeping with experimental investigations of selfie-taking, examination of cheek biases in 3200 selfies uploaded to SelfieCity (an online selfie database, with images drawn from Instagram) also found a left cheek bias for standard selfies (selfies in which the selfie-taker points the camera toward themselves; Bruno et al., 2015). For mirror selfies, in which the selfie-taker poses in front of a mirror and takes a photo of their reflection, the posing bias reverses to a right cheek bias. As the mirror reverses left and right, a right cheek bias for mirror selfies indicates that the subjects adopted left cheek poses in front of the mirror, akin to the right cheek bias typically found in painted self-portraits (see Lindell, 2013a). Thus across selfie types, Bruno et al.'s (2015) SelfieCity study indicates that both male and female selfie-takers tend to pose offering their left cheek.

Previous investigations of posing orientation in selfies have all sampled a single selfie from multiple different participants (Bruno and Bertamini, 2013; Bruno et al., 2014, 2015, in press; Lindell, 2017). Whether the individual selfie-taker similarly shows a left cheek bias within his or her own corpus of selfies remains to be determined. Intra-individual investigation of selfie posing biases appears worthy of consideration because it illuminates the degree of consistency in posing orientation, determining whether selfie-takers repeatedly favor a preferred pose, or switch between the three pose types: left cheek, midline, and right cheek. Moreover, such investigation sheds light on the generalizability of the left cheek bias previously reported for selfies, based on samples comprised of multiple single selfies. The present study was thus designed to expand the selfie posing bias data by assessing intra-individual consistency in posing biases. An overall left cheek bias within an individual selfie-taker's corpus would be in keeping with the left cheek bias previously observed

across multiple subjects; an overall right cheek or midline bias, or a pattern in which the selfie-taker alternates evenly between the three posing options in their selfie corpus, would indicate that intra-individual patterns show a marked departure from those previously observed across individuals. Given that previous selfie investigations have found no difference in selfie posing biases between males and females (e.g., Bruno et al., 2015; Lindell, 2017), no gender effect was anticipated in the present investigation.

Selfies were sourced from Instagram: a free mobile application compatible with both iOS and Android operating systems. Instagram allows users to upload photographs (particularly selfies), manipulate them using filters, and share them with other people who may then comment on, and/or "like" the images (Marwick, 2015). There are over 500 million active Instagram users, uploading more than 95 million images per day1 . Users can set their accounts to 'public' or 'private'; only public accounts were included in the present investigation. At the time of writing over 275 million selfies had been uploaded to Instagram for public viewing using the hashtag "#selfie," allowing the identification of images that users explicitly identified as selfies. Only singlesubject selfies were sampled.

# MATERIALS AND METHODS

#### Selfie Sourcing

Selfies were sourced by searching Instagram using the #selfie. Single-subject selfies were identified, with the first 100 male and 100 female single-subject selfie uploaders selected as participants; the #selfie feed was refreshed to load more #selfie images until the full sample of male and female participants was collected. The most recent 10 single-subject selfies for the each of the 200 participants were then identified in each participant's Instagram feed, resulting in a total sample of 2000 selfies. The duration of time over which participants uploaded 10 single-subject selfies to Instagram ranged from <1 day (two participants uploaded 10 single-subject selfies to Instagram in fewer than 24 h) to 590 days (M = 92.20 days; SD = 117.13 days).

# Selfie Coding

Each selfie was coded for the participant's identity, selfie type (normal; mirror), selfie-taker's sex (male, female), and pose orientation (left cheek, right cheek, midline). The coding criterion used to determine posing orientation was conservative: selfies that unambiguously presented one side of the selfie-taker's face to the camera were classified "left" or "right." In keeping with the method previously described by Bruno and Bertamini (2013) and Lindell (2017), selfies that depicted the subject in a pose that could not be immediately classified by eye were first enlarged to approximately 16.5 cm × 21 cm. The distances from the center tip of the subject's nose to each side of his/her face were then measured to determine posing orientation: (left > right = left cheek pose; left < right = right cheek pose). Any difference of <2 mm was recorded as a midline pose (see Lindell, 2017).

# RESULTS

Reliability analyses indicate that selfie-takers show a reasonable degree of internal consistency in their selfie pose selections: Cronbach's α = 0.720 (female participants: Cronbach's α = 0.712; male participants: Cronbach's α = 0.725). Overall, there were more left (N = 779) and fewer midline (N = 535) selfies than would be expected by chance (expected N = 666.7; right cheek pose N = 686; please note that "left" and "right" always refer to the selfie-takers' anatomical cheek offered to the camera or mirror). Comparing only left and right cheek poses indicates that selfie takers show a left cheek bias: 53.17% left cheek selfies; 46.83% right cheek selfies. **Figure 1** illustrates the percentages of left, right, and midline selfies for male and female selfie-takers.

The number of left, right, and midline selfie poses for each participant were calculated to examine intra-individual consistency in pose orientation across 10 selfies. Given the three posing options (left cheek, midline, and right cheek pose), five or more selfies in one pose orientation was classed as an overall bias toward that pose orientation, being higher than the frequency expected by chance (3.33/10). Participants whose selfie poses were evenly distributed, with no more than four selfies in any of the three pose categories, were classified as having no overall bias. Similarly, three participants who had five selfies in each of two pose categories, and no selfies in the third category, were included in the no overall bias group. Only 16 participants showed no overall bias. The vast majority of participants (N = 184) showed an overall bias across their 10 single-subject selfies favoring one of the three pose orientations: left cheek bias mean 6.61 left cheek poses/10 (SD = 1.37); midline bias mean 6.54 midline poses/10 (SD = 1.59); right cheek bias mean 6.70 right cheek poses/10 (SD = 1.50). Of the participants who showed a very strong bias, with 8 or more out of their 10 selfies in one pose orientation, 20 had a left cheek bias (mean 8.50 left cheek poses/10, SD = 0.61), 9 had a midline bias (mean 8.89 midline poses/10, SD = 0.93), and 14 had a right cheek bias (mean 8.86 right cheek poses/10, SD = 0.77).

The observed frequencies of overall left, midline, and right cheek biases were tested against a null model that assumes that the three posing categories (left, midline, right) are equally probable. The model thus assumes the frequencies expected by chance: 0.333 for each of the three pose categories (as 16/200 participants showed no overall bias, the null model's chance N = 184/3 = 61.33). Results revealed that the number of participants exhibiting an overall left cheek bias was higher (N = 82), and an overall midline bias was lower (N = 39), than would be expected by chance [χ 2 (2) = 15.141, p = 0.001; please refer to **Figure 2**]; the frequency of an overall right cheek bias was consistent with that anticipated by chance (N = 63). Comparison of overall biases for females and males indicates that frequencies for both groups differed from those anticipated by chance [females: χ 2 (2) = 12.549, p = 0.002; males: χ 2 (2) = 7.032, p = 0.030; please refer to **Figure 2**]. However, it could be argued that a null model with equiprobable frequencies for overall left, midline, and right cheek biases does not necessarily reflect the probabilities of selfie poses, the range of rotation angles included

1http://www.instagram.com/press

anatomical cheek offered to the camera or mirror.

in the 'midline' category being more restricted than those of the 'left' and 'right' categories.

A pair of repeated measures logistic regressions were thus conducted. In the first analysis, midline poses were compared to left and right poses to assess the factors that determine whether people favor midline over asymmetric selfie poses. Repeated measures logistic regression modeled the relationship between portrait orientation (midline, left/right) and the predictor variables sex (female, male) and selfie type (normal mirror), controlling for the repeated measure of selfie-taker identity. Results indicated that neither sex [χ 2 (1) = 0.820, p = 0.820] nor selfie type [χ 2 (1) = 1.876, p = 0.171] influenced selfie pose orientation. The interaction between sex and selfie type was similarly non-significant [χ 2 (1) = 0.297, p = 0.586].

A second repeated measures logistic regression was then performed to examine the factors that influence preferences for asymmetric selfie poses only; midline poses were removed from the analysis. The model assessed the relationship between portrait orientation (left, right) and the predictor variables sex (female, male) and selfie type (normal mirror), controlling for the repeated measure of selfie-taker identity. Results indicated that whilst sex [χ 2 (1) = 1.368, p = 0.242] did not predict pose orientation, selfie type proved a highly significant predictor [χ 2 (1) = 14.061, p = 0.000]. For normal selfies, left (N = 641) and right (N = 638) cheek poses were similarly frequent, whereas for mirror selfies, left cheek (N = 138) poses were more frequent than right cheek poses (N = 48; please refer to **Figure 3**). The interaction between sex and selfie type was not significant [χ 2 (1) = 0.088, p = 0.767].

# DISCUSSION

Research has established that the left cheek bias for painted (e.g., McManus and Humphrey, 1973) and photographic (e.g., LaBar, 1973) portraits of others is similarly evident in selfies (e.g., Bruno and Bertamini, 2013). As previous investigations of selfie posing biases have sampled a single selfie from multiple different participants, whether individual selfie-takers consistently favor their 'best side' when taking selfies, and whether a left cheek bias is evident intra-individually, was not known. The present study reveals that the vast majority of selfie-takers show an overall bias, repeatedly favoring one pose orientation (left cheek, midline, or right cheek). Critically, more participants showed a

left cheek bias within their own catalog of selfies than would be expected by chance; the left cheek bias previously observed across individuals is present intra-individually. Analysis comparing left and right cheek selfies and controlling the repeated measure of selfie-takers' identity indicated that while sex did not predict selfie pose orientation, the left cheek bias was stronger for mirror, than normal, selfies. Overall, these results are in line with previous reports in confirming a left cheek bias for selfies. Moreover, they indicate that selfie-takers tend to consistently adopt one pose orientation, presumably favoring their best side.

Examination of the 10 most recent selfies participants uploaded to Instagram confirms that individual selfie-takers consistently prefer one pose orientation. Ninety-two percent of the sample showed an overall posing bias, with 41% favoring their left cheek, 31.5% preferring their right cheek, and 19.5% repeatedly posting midline selfies. Given that only 8% of selfietakers showed no overall bias, the tendency to repeatedly adopt a preferred pose appears to be the norm for selfie takers. Importantly, the number of participants showing an overall left cheek bias was significantly higher than expected by chance, indicating an intra-individual left cheek bias for selfies that complements the previously reported left cheek bias across individuals (Bruno and Bertamini, 2013; Bruno et al., 2014, 2015, in press). The greater frequency of an overall left cheek bias was similarly consistent at the upper end of the bias spectrum. Of the 43 participants who showed a very strong bias toward one pose in their selfie corpora (8 or more out of 10 selfies in one pose orientation), 46.5% had 8 or more left cheek selfies, 32.6% had 8 or more right cheek selfies, and 20.9% had 8 or more midline selfies. Given that selfies show the world one's subjective self-image (Souza et al., 2015), the greater than expected proportion of participants showing an overall left cheek bias suggests that selfie-takers intuitively favor the more emotionally expressive self-representation communicated in left cheek and midline, rather than right cheek, poses (e.g., Nicholls et al., 2002).

The intra-individual consistency in pose choice (α = 0.72), and consistency in the magnitude of the intra-individual bias (overall left cheek bias: mean 6.61 left cheek selfies/10 selfies; overall midline bias: 6.54 midline selfies/10 selfies; overall right cheek bias: 6.70 right cheek selfies/10 right cheek selfies), suggests that whilst selfie-takers repeatedly favor a preferred pose, they occasionally switch pose orientations. Whether this is done consciously, to avoid monotony, or unconsciously, potentially reflecting state-based differences in selfie-takers' mood, is presently unknown. Moreover, whether selfie posing biases influence the number of 'likes' the selfies garner ('likes' being currency in social media, with selfies generally capturing 1.1–3.2 times more likes and comments than other types of images posted on Instagram, Souza et al., 2015) remains an open question.

Across the total sample of 2000 selfies, midline selfies were less frequent (26.75%) than either left cheek (38.95%) or right cheek (34.30%) selfies. This tendency to favor lateral, rather than head-on, selfie poses has been repeatedly reported in previous lab-based (Bruno and Bertamini, 2013; Bruno et al., in press) and real world (Bruno et al., 2015) investigations. Whilst research indicates that midline portrait poses are perceived as being just as emotionally expressive as left cheek poses (Nicholls et al., 2002), Lindell (2017) suggested that midline poses are less frequently adopted for a simple reason: they appear less flattering (e.g., driver's license, passport photo). Tips for posing for the "perfect portrait" and the "perfect selfie" regularly include avoiding facing the camera head on in a midline pose, unless one is aiming to look bigger; instead, adopting a 3/4 or 2/3 turn toward the camera is encouraged because it introduces more angles, highlights the cheekbones, and makes the subject of the photo appear slimmer (e.g., Manning, 2011; Olsen, 2012). As the subjects of selfies simultaneously serve as their own photographers, they are in the

position to take multiple images and try out multiple poses to find the best (and potentially the most flattering to one's selfconcept, Döring et al., 2016), before uploading the chosen selfie to social media. This may explain the smaller proportion of midline selfies observed in the present investigation, however, research examining the relationship between selfie pose orientation and perceived emotionality, attractiveness, masculinity, or femininity, is clearly needed to assess this speculation.

Controlling for the repeated measure of selfie-taker identity, analysis comparing left and right cheek poses indicated that selfie type (normal, mirror) predicted pose orientation, revealing a stronger left cheek bias for mirror than normal selfies. Bruno et al. (2015) found a similar pattern in their examination of the SelfieCity database (selfies drawn from Instagram), arguing that this reflects differences in the mechanics of selfie taking. Most selfie-takers capture their selfies by holding the smartphone in their dominant hand (Lindell, 2017). In mirror selfies the smartphone is typically held centrally, near the body (Bruno et al., 2015), and when held with the right hand, may be placed slightly right of midline. Thus presuming that the majority of the sample is right-handed (a reasonable presumption, given the near-universal preference for the right hand, Corballis, 2014), this makes left cheek poses easier to adopt in mirror than normal/standard selfies (Bruno et al., 2015), potentially resulting in the higher proportion of left cheek poses observed. This argument is necessarily speculative because although motor biases (including handedness and hand used to capture the selfie) do not influence posing biases for normal selfies (Lindell, 2017), research has yet to investigate the influence of motor biases on mirror selfie pose orientation.

The absent effect of participant sex on pose orientation is also consistent with previous selfie investigations (Bruno et al., 2015; Lindell, 2017). Though inspection of the present data suggests a stronger left cheek bias for females than males (see **Figure 2**), sex was not a significant predictor of pose in either of the logistic regression analyses. Both Bruno et al. (2015) and Lindell (2017) similarly found that selfie pose orientations were not affected by participants' sex (sex was not examined as a factor in Bruno and Bertamini, 2013; Bruno et al., 2014, in press), suggesting that posing biases in selfies deviate from those observed for portraits of others. The stronger left cheek bias for females typically reported for portraits of others (e.g., McManus and Humphrey, 1973) is compatible with an emotion lateralization account of the left cheek bias (see Lindell, 2013b, for review). As females are more emotionally expressive (e.g., Kring et al., 1994), they are more likely to intuitively pose offering the more emotionally expressive left cheek.

The fact that sex did influence selfie pose orientation in the present study or previous investigations (e.g., Bruno et al., 2015; Lindell, 2017) could reflect an effect of the genre: males may feel more comfortable expressing emotion when capturing their own image in a selfie than when posing for another, especially when encouraged to pose "as you really are" [as instructed in Lindell's (2017) investigation]. Equally, the lack of a sex effect for selfies could reflect changes in contemporary gender expectations and the characteristics of the population who upload selfies to Instagram for public consumption (both the present study and Bruno et al., 2015, used Instagram-based selfie samples). Sorokowska et al. (2016) found that higher levels of exhibitionism and extraversion characterize people who post selfies more frequently, irrespective of sex. One may speculate that the (typically young) males uploading selfies to Instagram are less constrained by social mores, and thus are more willing to express emotion, than males posing for professional portraits in previous generations (e.g., McManus and Humphrey, 1973). In keeping with this argument, recent research assessing emotional expressivity in college students found no difference between males' and females' levels of emotional expressivity (e.g., Lü and Wang, 2012), thus the lack of a sex difference in posing biases in the present study remains consistent with the emotion lateralization-based account of the left cheek bias. Further research examining whether males' and females' personality and emotional expressivity predict selfie pose orientations is needed to confirm this speculation.

The selfies sampled in the present study were explicitly identified as selfies (#selfie) and uploaded to Instagram by the selfie-takers for public viewing. Thus, like Bruno et al.'s (2015) selfie investigation, the present study has excellent ecological validity. It is therefore encouraging that the results observed in laboratory-based investigations of selfie-taking (e.g., Bruno et al., 2014, in press) match those found using these realworld samples. This consistency in findings is a clear indicator of the robustness of the left cheek bias for portraits, being evident across painted (e.g., McManus and Humphrey, 1973) and photographic (e.g., LaBar, 1973) portraits of others, and in both lab-based (e.g., Bruno et al., in press) and real-world (e.g., Bruno et al., 2015) samples of selfies. The present study confirms that the left cheek bias also manifests within an individual's selfie corpus, with more people consistently adopting a left cheek pose than either of the other posing options. Given the effort exerted in taking and retaking selfies to find the perfect angle (Hess, 2015), with young women discarding six selfies for each selfie uploaded (Strick, 2015), such findings imply that there is something very special about the left cheek. Previous research indicates that left cheek poses are perceived as more emotionally open and expressive than right cheek poses (Nicholls et al., 2002), and we know that selfie-takers perceive themselves as more attractive and likable in their selfies than in other photographs (Re et al., 2016). Whether left cheek selfies induce a more positive impression of the selfie-taker in other perceivers remains to be determined.

# AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

AL designed the study, analyzed and interpreted the data, and wrote the paper.

# REFERENCES

fpsyg-08-00246 February 17, 2017 Time: 18:4 # 7

**Conflict of Interest Statement:** The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Copyright © 2017 Lindell. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

# Presenting Your Best Self(ie): The Influence of Gender on Vertical Orientation of Selfies on Tinder

Jennifer R. Sedgewick, Meghan E. Flath and Lorin J. Elias \*

Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

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.

Edited by: Nicola Bruno, University of Parma, Italy

#### Reviewed by:

Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, State University of Applied Sciences in Konin, Poland Theodoros Kostoulas, Université de Genève, Switzerland

> \*Correspondence: Lorin J. Elias<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### Specialty section:

This article was submitted to Human-Media Interaction, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

Received: 03 November 2016 Accepted: 03 April 2017 Published: 21 April 2017

#### Citation:

Sedgewick JR, Flath ME and Elias LJ (2017) Presenting Your Best Self(ie): The Influence of Gender on Vertical Orientation of Selfies on Tinder. Front. Psychol. 8:604. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00604 Keywords: selfies, posing, height preference, sexual dimorphism, power, grounded cognition, attraction, online dating

# INTRODUCTION

When creating an online dating account, choosing a profile photo becomes a thoughtful process (Ellison et al., 2006), as it can predict the success of initiated contact (Hitsch et al., 2006). This is particularly true for the most currently used mobile dating application, Tinder (SurveyMonkey Intelligence, 2016), due to its emphasis on the profile photo; that is, its format promotes users to make rapid judgements based on physical attractiveness, a primary determinant in the early stages of mate selection (Li et al., 2013; Fletcher et al., 2014).

Curiously, mobile camera self-portraits or "selfies" are often used for the profile's main image; 57% of men and 90% of women from our sample of Tinder users chose this method of representation. By considering evolutionary theories of attraction and grounded cognition, how the selfie-taker vertically orients the camera may be from an angle which perceptually manipulates qualities that are attractive to the opposite sex (e.g., height, perceptions of power). Specifically, the current study explores how heterosexual men and women vertically portray themselves relative to the viewer—from above, or from below—for selfies displayed on Tinder.

Attraction to vertical cues of physical height are largely suggested to emerge from humans' sexual size dimorphism. Males, on average, tend to exceed females in height (Gray and Wolfe, 1980; Ruff, 2002), thereby masculinity is strongly associated with the expression of tallness (Jackson and Ervin, 1992). However, a sizeable stature may also serve as a physical cue for females to other evolutionary advantages such as dominance, social status, and the ability to attain resources (Buss, 1989, 1994; Fiske, 2004). Women from Western cultures consistently demonstrate this attraction to tall men as reported from surveys of ideal mate characteristics (Pierce, 1996; Courtiol et al., 2010; Yancey and Emerson, 2014). Furthermore, the male-taller norm is evident from investigations of actual height differences between couples (Gillis and Avis, 1980). Women's robust height preference illuminates why taller males tend to report more sexual partners (Frederick and Jenkins, 2015) and reproductive success (Pawlowski et al., 2000; Nettle, 2002a) than their shorterstatured counterparts.

The literature on height preferences of men seeking women demonstrate a less stringent ideal, as men report a significantly weaker preference for respectively shorter women (Pawlowski, 2003; Fink et al., 2007). Research examining real-life data of online dating behavior revealed that men made first-contact emails to women of average height 43% more than women taller than 6′ 3, whereas women initiated contact with men of above-average height 65% more than shorter men (Hitsch et al., 2006). The preference for average height similarly corresponds to the stature of women with the most reproductive success (Nettle, 2002b), though this success is comparatively lower than that of taller men (Nettle, 2002a). The decreased importance of women's height is perhaps surprising given that men value external qualities for potential mates more so than women (Regan et al., 2000; Olivola et al., 2009). However, height is an attribute unrelated to female fertility (Nettle, 2002b), effectively decreasing this cue to represent any evolutionary advantage.

Although physical height is a significant feature of mate selection, this cue is absent from Tinder's profile layout unless explicitly stated by the user in their profile's tagline. Alternatively, the profile photo may be spatially manipulated to emulate the appearance of height either by orienting the camera from above or below the vertical axis, thereby exploiting the perception of the viewer to appear taller or shorter than the photographic subject. Research examining the effect of facial head-tilt on judgments of gender have found that pictures of faces with an upwards head-tilt, thus being perceived from below, are perceived to be more masculine, and faces tilted-downwards, so from an above perspective for the viewer, as more feminine (Main et al., 2010). These directionalities of head-tilt are parallel to ratings of facial attractiveness (Burke and Sulikowski, 2010; Sulikowski et al., 2015). Habitually learned perceptions of faces arising from height differences are proposed to guide these perceptions (DeBruine et al., 2006), though a complementary theory is proposed from the area of embodied cognition.

Grounded theories of cognition pioneered by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) posit that abstract concepts, such as power, are mentally associated with vertical spatial orientations (i.e., up is perceived as powerful and down, powerless; Barsalou, 1999). This association is exhibited by the English language, whereby common idioms of power and submission are vertically positioned: one has control over someone or be under their control, rise or fall from power, or be of high ranking or the low man on the totem pole (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p. 16). Considering this knowledge, Meier and Dionne (2009) predicted that the attractiveness of men's and women's portraits would depend on their spatial congruency with power; specifically, males are a proxy for "up" due to masculine trait preferences related to power (i.e., dominance, high social status) and for females, a lack of power (i.e., faithfulness) corresponding with "down." As predicted, men rated women's portraits as more attractive when identical photos were presented at the bottom of a computer screen (vs. top), whereas women were more attracted to images of men at the top of the screen (vs. bottom).

The directionality of the power metaphor with gender suggests a clear parallel with the literature from evolutionary psychology; "up" or tallness is signified with masculinity, and "down" or being shorter indicates femininity. However, as previously stated, height is not always an available cue in an online dating environment. Therefore, we propose that when choosing the focal point of the profile—the first profile picture individuals may intuitively know to select an image where the vertical angle of the camera is consistent with how they want to be presented to the opposite sex: for men, from below to appear larger and dominant (i.e., powerful), and for women, from above to look smaller and submissive (i.e., less powerful). Due to the control from the self-display of the smartphone's frontal camera, an individual can easily manipulate this angle by taking a selfie, thus appearing taller or shorter relative to the viewer. We chose to explore strictly selfies for this reason, and because of the increased likelihood that the selfie was taken explicitly to portray attractiveness.

The purpose of the current study is to compare the vertical spatial orientation of men's and women's selfie profile pictures from Tinder, to which we predict that men will more often choose selfies oriented from below (vs. above), and women will depict selfies more often from above (vs. below). The current study will contribute to research on human attraction by exploring if physical preferences reported from previous studies are embodied by individuals in a realistic mate-attraction setting. Further, the study will inform how men and women represent a vertical orientation for selfies, a contrast to the lateral exploration of this media phenomenon (Bruno et al., 2015, 2016; Lindell, 2015).

# METHODS

### Sampling

A total of 962 profile photos were collected from Tinder. From this total were 508 profiles of women ranging from 18 to 44 years of age (M = 24.43, SD = 4.7), and 454 profiles of men between the ages of 18–56 (M = 30.5, SD = 8.39). Standard selfies informal self-portraits portraying only the selfie-taker (Bruno et al., 2015)—were then parsed from the total. Mirror-selfies were also excluded (26 men, 13 women), because altering the vertical camera position does not affect the relative perspective of the model to the same effect as non-mirror selfies. Our final data set comprised of 665 selfies, whereby 247 were from men's profiles and 457 were from women's. Selfies accounted for 54% of men's and 90% of women's profile pictures.

As previously specified, Tinder was an ideal online dating platform due to its current popularity and because of the layout's emphasis on the profile photo; only the first name, age, name of employer, and one picture is displayed as users "swipe" to explore Tinder profiles. Thus, the decision to "swipe right," or approve permission of contact by another user is largely founded by physical appearance, as Tinder only presents profiles of users specified from the account's search features (i.e., gender, age range, proximity in kilometers). Collection of the images are compliant with Tinder's privacy policy (Tinder Inc and Privacy Policy, 2016). Analysis of this collection was not subject to review by the University of Saskatchewan's Research Ethics Board (REB); the Standard Operating Procedures from our Human Ethics Policies states that data derived from observing publicly available media does not require REB review provided that no individuals' information may be identified (Research Ethics Office, 2012).

For the study, two Tinder profiles were created—one of a man seeking women, and one of a woman seeking men. To access enough profiles for a sufficient data set, the "Discovery Settings" were set to include Tinder users over the age of 18, within 160 km from the University of Saskatchewan campus, and toward the opposing gender of our profile's user. At that point we could view the profiles of each targeted gender, to which we coded profile images until there were no other users available within our demographic interests. Images were collected on May 10th, 2016.

#### Coding

The vertical orientations of the models within the selfie sample set were coded by six research assistants (three males, three females) blind to the hypotheses of the study. Our rationale for assessing selfies' vertical orientation using human scoring rather than an objective measurement was motivated by two factors: (1) to understand how individuals experience the portrait's subject relative to themselves, and (2) because of the inability of Facial Recognition Software to detect the degree of head-tilt due to obscure photographic compositions, poor image resolution, or occluded views of the face (e.g., hair, sunglasses).

Assistants were seated at eye-level to a desktop computer and presented with the following instructions:

"Please say which vertical location you think you are relative to the person in the picture—above them, below them, or if they are at an equal level to you"

To decrease the coding time from the large sample set, assistants verbally indicated their relative spatial judgment for each photo while the primary researcher coded their selection on a separate computer. Poses oriented from above were coded as +1, poses from below as −1, and a straight pose as 0 (i.e., no obvious head-tilt; see **Figure 1** for examples of each pose).

The posing choices for all assistants were then compiled in a spreadsheet for further comparison. The directionality of portrait orientation for each selfie was determined to be from above, below, or equal if there was agreement among four of the six raters. Images with less than four agreements were discarded prior to analysis; this equated to 95 images (14%) and with a moderate inter-rater agreement (Altman, 1999) determined using Cohen's Kappa, κ = 0.4, (95% CI, 0.035–0.044), p < 0.001. Our choice to only include images with at least four agreements was due to the large number of central posing choices reported by assistants on images with an otherwise adequately reported directional bias.

### RESULTS

Frequencies of the spatial orientation from the selfie sample suggests that distinctly vertical compositions of the camera were commonly used by both men and women, as profile photos with an above or below orientation were presented in 55.1% and 42.1% of pictures, respectively (see **Table 1** for all spatial frequencies). To determine if there was a difference between posing orientation depending on gender, a one-way ANOVA was conducted. However, the ANOVA's homogeneity of variance assumption was violated as indicated by the Levene's test, F(1, 554) = 13.55, p < 0.001; alternatively, a Welch's ANOVA was used. A significant difference between groups was revealed, F(1, 398.4) = 24.94, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.03, demonstrating that men oriented the camera more often from below (M = −0.213, SD = 0.644) than women (M = 0.089, SD = 0.644) in selfies presented on Tinder (see **Figure 2** for proportional differences).

To examine if the directionality of men's and women's poses were significantly different from zero (i.e., a straight pose), two one-sample t-tests were computed. The analyses corresponded with our predictions; men oriented the camera more often from below, t(206) = −4.291, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.598, and women, more often from above, t(348) = 2.577, p = 0.01, Cohen's d = 0.276. Taken together, the results illustrate the contrast between how men and women choose to spatially represent themselves in a mate-attraction context.

# DISCUSSION

Selfies exhibited in online dating profile photos were predicted to vary by vertical camera angle depending on the sex of the individual. Our results revealed that profile photos of men and women users of the mobile application, Tinder, exhibited opposing vertical biases; the camera's perspective was presented more often from below for men, and above for women. These findings simultaneously demonstrate a mechanical bias of selfies within a mate attraction context, as profile photos were not only chosen, but also taken by the Tinder user.

#### TABLE 1 | Frequency and percentage of posing.

below perspective. The portraits are modeled by a research assistant to maintain confidentiality of the sampled Tinder users.

An effect of manipulating a selfie's vertical spatial dimension is that it creates the illusion of a height disparity between the model and the viewer. The findings of the current study suggest that individuals are intuitively or perhaps consciously aware of this phenomenon, as the composition of profile photos were consistent with the height ideals of the opposite sex. Specifically, men with selfies oriented from below facilitate the perception of tallness, a feature robustly reported from women's mate preferences (Pierce, 1996; Courtiol et al., 2010; Yancey and Emerson, 2014). By contrast, women's prevalence of selfies taken from overhead conveys relative shortness to the viewer, a smaller yet significant height preference reported by men (Pawlowski, 2003; Fink et al., 2007).

Emphasizing this sexual dimorphism (Gray and Wolfe, 1980; Ruff, 2002) may serve to activate assumptions of features that are evolutionarily attractive to the opposite sex. As reported from cross-cultural research by Buss (1989, 1994), tall men are commonly associated with protection, high social status, and access to resources, whereas shorter women are perceived to symbolize faithfulness and subordination. A comparable theory comes from the area of grounded cognition, though its emphasis on verticality is its link to perceptions of power (Barsalou, 1999). This association derives from the phenomenon proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) that vertical space is a proxy for power due to its mental representation—powerful is up, less powerful is down (Schubert, 2005). Due to average height differences, men physically tower over women, therefore alluding to a perceived power differential. Research has found this metaphorical transfer to influence attraction; Meier and Dionne (2009) demonstrated that men rated women's portraits as more attractive when presented at the bottom of a computer screen (vs. top), whereas the alternative was found for women viewing men's portraits. Although attractiveness was predicted by its spatial presentation rather than height, we propose that grounded theory is a complementary explanation rather than a central one due to the extensive evidence on height preferences and mate selection.

In addition to manipulating height preferences, we speculate that other physical features related to men's and women's attractiveness can be enhanced by a selfie's camera angle. For men, a broad jawline is a sexual dimorphism (Weston et al., 2007) that is similarly referenced to masculinity. Facial-width has been found to correlate with both perceptions (Alrajih and Ward, 2014; Mileva et al., 2014) and self-reported (Lefevre et al., 2014) dominance, and is a physical preference considered by women for short-term relationships (Valentine et al., 2014). Taking a picture from below thus serves the purpose of creating an illusion of a pronounced jaw, as it obscures the size of the jaw relative to the face. By contrast, women may choose to take a photo from above to distort the head in relation to body size, accordingly deemphasizing a feature commonly misrepresented by women—their weight (Engstrom et al., 2003; Toma et al., 2008). An above camera angle would therefore reduce not only the perceived physical height of the woman, but also to flatter their physical frame. Aside from the conscious effort for women to conform to contemporary trends of body ideals, capturing a physically appealing figure can also implicitly signal fertility health (Jungheim et al., 2013), a biological advantage which is more strongly linked to reproductive success for females than height (Nettle, 2002b).

For the current study, subjective measurements of vertical camera angle were ideal to validate how individuals perceived themselves relative to the portrait's model (i.e., taller than or shorter than the model). Consequently, the vertical orientation was only possible to be categorically quantified (i.e., above, below, or central) as opposed to a continuous variable (i.e., degree of vertical angle measured). A resulting trade-off is that we could not compare the extent of vertical exaggeration, only its distinct directionality. An additional short-coming was that unreliable agreements of selfie-composition between raters led to 14% of discarded data, a consequence that could have been eliminated from an objective measurement (e.g., facial-analysis software). Upon inspection of the discarded stimuli, however, it is possible that the variability of posing choices may be due to assistants' sensitivity to report a neutral rather than directional pose, as the data points failed to meet our selected agreement standard often displayed an even split between one vertical directionality and a central pose. The results of the current study therefore capture humanly perceivable differences rather than small deviations of camera angle.

An additional limitation is from the nature of using a content analysis, which is that we have restricted access to fruitful information of the Tinder users. A variable of interest for future examination is the photographic experience of the selfie-taker. Individuals with knowledge of photographic techniques may take more selfies from above, as this perspective is considered as a more flattering presentation of a face (Phillips, 2006). This knowledge may be similarly learned through experience taking selfies. Research has shown that women upload selfies to photosharing applications such as Instagram (Sorokowska et al., 2016) more often than men. Women's increased experience taking selfies may be an additive variable for their predominant use of the above camera-tilt.

Future direction should also explore how individual differences modulate the vertical position of selfies. Conformity

#### REFERENCES

to stereotypical gender roles may predict the ideal portrayal of oneself, such that those with higher conformity may choose to exhibit themselves as taller (more masculine) or shorter (more feminine). Research by Bogaert and McCreary (2011) found that men with higher conformity to masculine norms conveyed a larger disparity between their self-reported and actual height. Men's gender conformity is also found to negatively correlate to the height of ideal female partners (Swami et al., 2008). The literature regarding gender norms and height for women is negligible, further insinuating the importance of men's height. However, women who desire to conform to perceived societal norms are more likely to misreport their weight (Larson, 2000). If our hypothesis regarding selfies as a means of deemphasizing weight is truthful, conformity to gender roles may also act as a modulating variable.

In conclusion, the present study provides novel insight on how human mate preferences correspond to mate-attraction behaviors. Our research demonstrates that when taking a selfie for presentation in a mate-attraction context, individuals choose to spatially orient themselves in a manner that is congruent with the opposing sex's height preferences; that is, from below to appear taller for men, and from above to portray relative shortness for women. This phenomenon may arise due to individuals initiating consciously-known selective cues of attraction, or from individual differences that warrant further exploration. The current findings contribute to a greater understanding of how evolutionary and conceptually grounded mechanisms can facilitate behavior in modern dating strategies and for capturing techniques of modern self-portraiture.

# AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

JS designed the study. JS and MF conducted research. JS analyzed data. JS and LE wrote the manuscript.

### ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was financially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Buss, D. M. (1994). The strategies of human mating. Am. Sci. 82, 238–249.

integrative review of the literature. J. Midwifery Womens Health 48, 338–345. doi: 10.1016/S1526-9523(03)00281-2

**Conflict of Interest Statement:** The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Copyright © 2017 Sedgewick, Flath and Elias. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

# Self in Art/Self As Art: Museum Selfies As Identity Work

#### Robert Kozinets1 , Ulrike Gretzel1 \* and Anja Dinhopl2

1 Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2 Laboratory for Intelligent Systems in Tourism, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Selfies, digital images characterized by the desire to frame the self in a picture taken to be shared with an online audience, are important reflections of the contemporary self. Much extant psychological research on selfies has taken a pathologizing view of the phenomenon, focusing on its relationship to narcissism. Our investigation seeks to contribute to a holistic, contextualized and cultural perspective. We focus on the context of museums, places where art, history, education, and culture merge into the selfie taking behaviors of patrons. First, we explore theory salient to our topic of selfie taking, finding selfies to be an important way to construct ongoing series of narratives about the self. We use concepts of identity work, dramaturgy, and impression management to understand it in this light. We relate embodiment within the museum to the selfie's performative acts and expand upon notions that emphasize and distinguish the aesthetic elements present in many aspects of everyday life. We also question the ability of the museum selfie to destabilize. We also explore the contextual effects of mimicry and social norms. After describing our ethnographic and netnographic method, we investigate the museum selfie phenomenon. We begin with some observations on the extent of selfie-taking in contemporary culture as well as its evolution. Then, we consider selfies as a type of dynamic art form. Our analysis identifies a range of different types of museum selfies: art interactions, blending into art, mirror selfies, silly/clever selfies, contemplative selfies, and iconic selfies. Considered and studied in context, the museum selfie phenomenon reveals far more than the narcissism of the sort explored by past psychological research. The museum provides a stage for identity work that offers an opportunity for the selfie to be used not only for superficial performances but also in the pursuit of more profound self-reflection and its communication. Our ethnographic exploration of the selfie sees it as more than a quest for attention but less than a genuinely destabilizing social force. Selfie taking is complex and multidimensional, a cultural and social act, a call for connection, an act of mimicry, and part of people's ever-incomplete identity projects.

Keywords: selfie, museum, identity, embodiment, performance, aesthetic consumption, self-presentation

# INTRODUCTION

If our photographs are reflections of the way we see the world, selfies are reflections of the way we see ourselves. Yet they are more than mere self-reflection. They are intended for wider audiences, as if they were a form of art. As Iqani and Schroeder (2015, p. 408) explain, "an instructive starting point for thinking about the historical context of today's selfie is the artistic self-portrait.

#### Edited by:

Piotr Sorokowski, University of Wrocław, Poland

#### Reviewed by:

Ioanna N. Koukouni, Independent Researcher, Athens, Greece Jonathan Schroeder, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA

> \*Correspondence: Ulrike Gretzel<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### Specialty section:

This article was submitted to Human-Media Interaction, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

Received: 17 November 2016 Accepted: 24 April 2017 Published: 09 May 2017

#### Citation:

Kozinets R, Gretzel U and Dinhopl A (2017) Self in Art/Self As Art: Museum Selfies As Identity Work. Front. Psychol. 8:731. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00731

In the West, self-portraits emerged as an important visual genre in and around the 16th century, typified by painters such as Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt. These painters used selfportraiture to enshrine themselves as artists, as well as to reveal the inner depths of their character". Carbon (2017) uses an art history perspective to explore this artful element of selfies. He finds that selfies aim to communicate and express complex, multidimensional cultural messages similar to those of selfportraits from the domain of artistic painting have done for centuries (see Schroeder, 2002, 2013). Selfies "reveal something about the creator in particular, but also something about humans in general" (Carbon, 2017, p. 17). This connection between photographs, art, communications, and the self are key elements of our investigation. Contemporary selfie taking is a complex, enculturated, and multidimensional phenomenon. To genuinely understand it in all of its complexity, the field must study it with a myriad of different investigative approaches. Hence, we contribute to this multidisciplinary discourse with a cultural approach and ethnographic methodology.

Selfies are public reflections of the way we view and present ourselves, an intriguing combination of inward and outward looking. Their pervasiveness has been facilitated not only by networked technology and devices such as front facing cameras and selfie sticks, but also by the internalized social conventions that make the capture and sharing of self images desirable and acceptable (Larsen and Sandbye, 2014). That these conventions are shifting is evidenced by the changing and amorphous definitions of what constitutes a selfie (Hess, 2015; Senft and Baym, 2015). Sorokowski et al. (2015, p. 124) define selfies as photographs "of oneself (or of oneself and other people), taken with a camera or a camera phone held at arm's length or pointed at a mirror, that [are] usually shared through social media". This fundamental notion captures the core elements of the selfie phenomenon. However, that phenomenon is constantly changing as the practice evolves. Some literature now adopts a broader definition to accommodate group selfies, partial selfies of body parts, timers, selfie sticks, and highly manipulated photos facilitated by app technologies such as Snapchat. Rather than confining the selfie phenomenon to a particular technology or genre of photograph or video, we follow the broad definition of Dinhopl and Gretzel (2016, p. 127), which identifies selfies as "characterized by the desire to frame the self in a picture taken to be shared with an online audience".

Psychological research on selfies has emerged as a vital and growing sub-field. Psychology research has explored motivations for selfie-posting (Pounders et al., 2016; Sung et al., 2016), age and gender differences in posting selfies (Dhir et al., 2016), and self-esteem based effects of selfie posting (Wang et al., 2017). Much of this research has frequently taken a pathologizing perspective on the phenomenon, focusing on the relationship between narcissism and posting selfies (e.g., Fox and Rooney, 2015; Lee and Sung, 2016). In particular, by focusing on extremes of high selfie posting behavior and viewing the activity in an excessive, individualistic, and decontextualized manner, psychological research may be obscuring some of the most interesting aspects of the phenomenon. Indeed, like Internet and social media consumption itself, psychology research has linked selfie production to shallow relationships, lack of intimacy, loneliness, anorexia, risks to mental health, and a general lack of mental well-being (Adamkolo and Elmi-Nur, 2015, pp. 22–24).

Recent psychological research has begun to offer more nuanced views of the selfie phenomenon. For example, Sorokowski et al. (2015, p. 125) find that the measures of narcissism are "significantly and positively correlated with" the posting of selfies on social media sites, and also that the "link between narcissism and selfie posting is stronger among men than women". However, another study found that posting selfies is a fairly common practice on social media sites, becoming "a typical way of communicating with others" and generally not related to narcissism (Barry et al., 2017, p. 7). Qiu et al. (2015) picture-coding scheme for selfies presents a psychological framework for image content analysis of selfies. The authors included facial expressions and position of the self as variables and categorized location as public or private. Their study emphasized the importance of context for representation in selfies. These results, along with the shifting definition of selfies, point to a dynamic and complex phenomenon which is increasingly embedded in contemporary communications.

We believe that an alternative approach would be useful in recontextualizing selfie taking away from pathologies and toward an alternative view. Relevant to this view are historical approaches such as those of Schroeder (2002, 2013), Iqani and Schroeder (2015), and Carbon (2017). The view we propose is that selfie taking is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon embedded in a wider set of evolving contemporary social practices. Drawing inspiration from the work of Rounds (2006) and Burness (2016), we chose to examine selfie taking in the context of contemporary art museums.

Museums, obviously, are sites in which art, culture, and photography have a long history. Museums are also, it turns out, important sites of "identity work" which encompasses the psychological "processes through which we construct, maintain, and adapt our sense of personal identity, and persuade other people to believe in that identity" (Rounds, 2006, p. 133; see also Howard, 2000). Museums have been found, perhaps unsurprisingly, to be an increasingly important site for selfie taking behavior. For instance, Blühm (2016) discusses how the management of the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands has been altered by social media and the rise of selfie taking. Burness (2016, p. 95) provides an extensive overview of the museum selfie phenomenon, and quotes poet laureate Ken Goldsmith as saying that the Mona Lisa and other iconic artworks have become "wallpaper for selfies". She finds the moral panic surrounding potential damage to artwork from careless selfie takers at museums to be prevalent. Given the aforementioned importance of the selfie's connections to art and also the need for a more contextualized understanding of a phenomenon that has been largely studied as the isolated and decontextualized behavior of narcissistic individuals, we find the museum setting ideal for an identity work-focused investigation of the selfie.

By locating it in a specific public place, one that combines history, education, and culture, we embed our understanding

of selfie taking in a broader, more cultural, and more social direction than past psychological research. Respectfully extending the museum scholarship emphasis of Rounds (2006) and Burness (2016), we bring a deepened psychological perspective to the contextualized phenomenon of the museum selfie. We begin our investigation with a look at several relevant theories. First, we extend a Lacanian "mirror stage theory" perspective (Lacan, 1977), taking its interlinked notions of self image, maturity and visual development in a technological direction. We consider whether the hall of mirror effects of our devices might reveal something about the regressive possibilities of contemporary adult identity. Does selfie taking, studied in context, act merely to elevate the self, or to provide a complex amalgam of self and setting, as Dinhopl and Gretzel (2016) suggest in their contextualized study of travel related selfie taking? In summary, our perspective seeks a cultural viewpoint on selfie taking, considering it to be a set of social practices intimately linked to the most intimate of pursuits: identity work.

Psychological impression management theory posits that people are inclined to create and share impressions of themselves which are biased in the direction of their desired identities (Markus and Nurius, 1986). Similarly, the sociologist Goffman (1959) emphasized the importance of self-presentation strategies to control impressions of the self, often also highlighting the role of factors and contexts external to the individual. Schau and Gilly (2003), Belk (2013) and a range of other researchers have described and analyzed the self-presentation related motives that individuals bring to their digital communications. Murray (2015) portrays selfies as effective outlets of self-definition, creative forms of self-fashioning, and therefore powerful means of selfexpression. In Belk's (1988, 2013) "extended self " perspective, selfies represent digital possessions that play an important role in establishing and signaling identity. A recent investigation by Pounders et al. (2016) found that "consumers were motivated to post-selfies to convey a positive self-image". Findings from this study also revealed that desired images included looking happy, having fun and projecting a positive physical appearance. Our identity work investigation complicates this perspective. What messages are conveyed by selfies taken with art? Is this mere happiness and beauty, or might it be something more? More importantly, what are the social and cultural contexts in which selfie taking in general might be more productively viewed?

The paper proceeds as follows. First, we explore theory salient to our topic. We examine theory linking identity and consumption, museums and embodiment, the aesthetics of consumption, performance and staging, and mimicry and social norms. Then, we offer some elaboration of our ethnographic and netnographic approach to the contextualized study of museum selfies. The next section presents our findings, which center upon a categorization of the different types of selfies we observe being taken in art museum contexts. Finally, we offer a concluding section that discusses the implications of our findings. Our results may have useful implications to help psychologists and others scholars of the selfie develop a more multifaceted view of selfies than is exhibited in the current pathologizing literature.

# LITERATURE REVIEW

The dichotomized view of selfies as authentic expressions of identity and self-absorbed distortions persists throughout most of the scholarship on the topic. Carbon (2017) positions selfies as artifacts in a long history of self-portraits in art while Wendt (2014) more cynically sees them as parodies of portraits in the social media age, exemplified by artificial poses such as "duck face". Jones (2002) argues that the selfie is an inflated performance of the self. Similarly, Levin (2014, p. 20) describes selfies as "portraits of the self in the act of self-portrayal," emphasizing the practice rather than the outcome. Wendt (2014) emphasizes that visual social media encourage selfie-taking, animating users to create infinite versions of themselves through selfies, and keep users continuously engaged with images of themselves. Others conceptualize selfies as means of communication that afford a transformation of a personal experience into a shared one (Molz, 2012).

What does seem clear is that selfies are a means by which individuals can insert images of themselves into communications in a way never before possible. Our discussion of selfies is thus influenced by a perspective that views them as communicative aspects not only of individual identity, but of individual aspects of the networked self (Papacharissi, 2010). Online selves influence one another. They are ever more carefully curated (e.g., social media users delete posts that do not receive the desired number of likes in order to not taint their social media identity), which spurs a quest for the extraordinary and high scrutiny of what is shareworthy (Dinhopl and Gretzel, 2016). Rettberg (2014, p. 35) offers the most fully realized view of this highly interconnected and highly contextualized sense of the selfie. Her work connects the selfies with visual identity, time lapse photography, and changes in digital profile pictures to argue for an embedded view in which "digital self-presentation and self-reflection is cumulative" and part of an ever-evolving progressive series. This view accords well with the identity work and art emphasis of the museum selfie.

# Identity Work Involving Objects and Places

Identity emerges from "a dialectic between internal identification and external ascription" (Howard, 2000, p. 375). It is the mediating function between what is inside the self and what is outside, between the agent who chooses to act and the structures that provide the opportunities for acting, alternatives among which actions may be chosen, and the consequences of acting. Our identity work, the generator of our individuality, "is not so much a state to be achieved as a mode of life to be pursued" (Appiah, 2006, p. 5). Identity work, like serial selfie taking, is processual. Identities and profile pictures always exist as works in progress.

Consumer culture theoreticians Ustuner and Holt (2007, p. 51) use the term "identity project" to refer to the self-narratives

that people form as they continuously develop their identities by projecting "the constructed past into the imagined future". According to them, people selectively update the narratives they tell themselves and others about their lives and who they are "as they interpret and incorporate the real twists and turns [that occur] as their lives progress" (p. 51). This continuous act of story building and storytelling seems highly salient to our contemporary culture (Mick and Buhl, 1992). Cultural communications such as art, fashion, and advertising symbols are used as sources of 'symbolic resources' by people, who seek in them "new ideas and better concrete versions of old ideas with which to advance their [identity] project" (McCracken, 1987, p. 122). In this research, we build on the notion, also developed by Kozinets et al. (2004) that physical spaces and objects are also used as symbolic resources in contemporary identity projects. As Burness (2016, p. 115) states, museum selfies "point to the social role that objects play in the lives of our visitors and the important role that museums have in facilitating those relationships".

Rounds (2006) suggests that visiting a museum can simultaneously serve both the construction and signaling of identity. Museums allow visitors to associate their self with something that is larger than themselves. According to Rounds, museum visitors can transfer the special aura of importance that the displayed objects hold onto themselves. Hromack (2014) makes a more traditional possession-related and "extended self " type argument (cf. Belk, 1988), claiming that selfies are a gesture of ownership, a way of owning the art through its image. Selfies allow individuals to weave museum objects into their own identity. Foster (2014, p. 4) states that "taking a good selfie requires that both the creator/subject and the viewer look carefully at the artwork or artifact, granting a new perspective and a personal connection to a potentially lifeless object". Also, museums as physical and cultural locations provide opportunities to both confirm existing identities and explore alternative selves; they are spaces of identity enactment. Mukherjee et al. (2015) describe museum spaces as offering psychological affordances that facilitate the directing, shaping, scaffolding and (re)producing of the psyche. Falk (2006, p. 151) also underlines the deep connection between identity and museum visitor experiences, basing his contextual viewpoint on the multiple selves view that "all individuals enact multiple identities, many of which are situational and constructed in response to a social and physical context". Pekarik et al. (1999) highlight the introspective quality of museum experiences and therefore the opportunity to reflect not only on what is seen but also on one's identity in relation to the museum displays.

Selfies often contain props. Brand-related selfies are "a nodal point" where the consumer's own attempt to create their identity and share its positive impressions meet the corporate interest in managing the official impressions of the brand (Rokka and Canniford, 2016). This intersection potentially destabilizes both consumer-generated and corporate brand impressions (Hess, 2015). In their study, which centered upon people's sharing of selfies with champagne brands, Rokka and Canniford (2016) find that the framing and tone of brand-related selfies resemble consumer generated advertising. People put themselves and the brand together. In this case, they borrow from the champagne brand's meanings, but also, by sharing it with their network of friends and followers, they lend it social meanings of their own.

Commercial impressions of corporately controlled brands might be quite different from cultural impressions of ostensibly civic artistic works. We might ask if the combination of museum, person, art, and selfie is also a destabilizing force. Does it destabilize the artwork by publicizing it, reproducing it, cheapening it, and reducing its ineffable Benjaminian aura? Does it destabilize personal identity, and perhaps also the innately narcissistic tendency of the selfie practice? Does it do this by moving the focus away from the person, the expression, and the present time to the museum setting, the art work, the cultural legacy, and historical time? Rounds (2006) and Burness (2016) seem to conclude with a sanguine view that museum selfies are stabilizing forms of self-expression inspired by museum objects, a means of discovering and asserting one's sense of self. In this paper, we will explore further these conflicting notions of psychological destabilization and stabilization. We will investigate not only if museum selfies are a destabilizing force, but also whether or not the frame of destabilization holds up to scrutiny. Throughout, we will interrogate whether museum selfies signal something about the meaning and purpose of being at the museum. Do they reveal something significant about art, contemporary identity, and the experience that brings the two together?

#### Museums and Embodiment

Identity is implicitly linked with the body and, in this study, we explore the concept of lived embodied experience in museums. The study of embodiment, the combined conscious and unconscious sense of being physically present as a body in a particular space, has gained ground as an important concept in the social scientific study of experience (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999). The role of the body in lived experience seems central to the understanding of selfies. For instance, Adamkolo and Elmi-Nur (2015, p. 21) found that women tilted their head by 150% more than men in their shared selfies, a result which they related both to gender imbalance as well as to expressiveness, sexual provocativeness, and "moral decadence and abuse".

In museum selfie research, studying the position of the body in regards to artwork has been an important concern (Larson, 2014; Burness, 2016). The museum, in this literature, is a type of consumption experience in which the entire body moves through space. As Falk (2006, p. 126) avers, the museum "visitor is maintaining or building identity" by being "actively engaged in using the social and physical context of the museum to make personal meaning". Past research finds a strong relationship between museum visitation and notions of embodiment (Joy and Sherry, 2003; Burness, 2016). Museum goers "succumb to experiences" (Joy and Sherry, 2003, p. 261) in which the museum and its art act as "a background" and "a stage for what is seen" (ibid: 264).

In our research, museums act as stages for the entire embodied self, rather than merely being sites subjected to the visitor gaze. Museum experiences and selfies both are highly personalized, embodied and felt practices (Warfield, 2014; Burness, 2016).

Taking selfies is a personalized way of moving through the museum. This personal, social, and physical meaning-making is an important focus of our investigation.

# Consumption of Aesthetics

Another way to think about selfie taking in the museum is to relate it to the consumption of aesthetics. Leder et al.'s (2004, p. 489) perspective on art is that the "cognitive processing of art produces affective, often positive and self-rewarding aesthetic experiences". Aesthetics, the philosophies of art and beauty, are a school of philosophy dealing with concepts of order, harmony, and beauty in the material world. What these philosophies have in common is "the idea that aesthetic experience is central to a life of higher order; that is, aesthetic experience is distinguished from the material aspects of life and privileged because of its importance in human development" (Venkatesh and Meamber, 2006, p. 20). In this case, selfie taking in the museum could be understood as an aesthetic pursuit, perhaps relating to the ability of art's harmonious visual properties to enhance self images and self expressions of those who utilize them. Alternatively, perhaps the museum selfie acts out an intention to disrupt or destabilize the stodgy museum setting and ossified artwork by turning it into a mundane backdrop, thereby adding a level of contemporary disharmony to art's more balanced visual impression.

These notions of harmony and disharmony as well as stabilization and destabilization build upon the notion that there are aesthetic elements present throughout many of the ostensibly mundane aspects of everyday life. Historically, people's participation in the arts was not perceived as an element of their ordinary day-to-day existence. However, Venkatesh and Meamber (2006), following many eminent scholars have suggested that art and everyday life are interlinked. Art, these scholars assert, has wrongly become a privileged term. In fact, "the artificiality of the separation between 'high art' and popular culture" has become increasingly apparent "as global media and information technologies accelerate the correspondence between the domains of art, popular culture, and commerce" (Venkatesh and Meamber, 2006, p. 24). Not only do everyday experiences have aesthetic qualities, but we can also conceive of aesthetics as playing a critical role in the creation and expression of contemporary personal identity (Venkatesh and Meamber, 2008; Schroeder, 2013; Iqani and Schroeder, 2015; Carbon, 2017), and thus as a cultural element, a defining "code" of current identity projects (Rounds, 2006). Our investigation seeks to broaden and develop Venkatesh and Meamber's (2008, pp. 51–52) conception of people as "aesthetic subjects" who view not only everyday experiences and artistic products in an aesthetic sense, but who fluidly transfer aesthetic impressions from artistic surroundings to their own captured photographs of themselves. It also seeks to understand the viewpoint and implications of the creative and artistic notion that people become the "aesthetic objects" of their own selfies.

### Performance and Staging

Following the dramaturgical framing of Goffman (1959, p. 62), who noted the value of "dramatically inflated actions" such as museum selfie taking, we can productively view the phenomenon as a type of performance that occurs upon a particular sort of stage. Placing deliberate staging at the center of their typology of selfies, Presi et al. (2016) separate brand selfies based on the level of staging. Past research on museums finds many instances of visitors using the physical surroundings as a place of performance (Joy and Sherry, 2003; Kozinets et al., 2004; Hollenbeck et al., 2008). Prompted by cues in the built environment around them, individuals visiting these spaces strike poses in the act of playing and in the sense of informal performing for one another (Kozinets et al., 2002, 2004; Joy and Sherry, 2003).

In museums and in selfies, people perform their identities before one another as cultured, cultural beings (Falk, 2006; Rounds, 2006). With his notion of "enactments," Rounds (2006) combines notions of embodiment and identity with the idea of museum consumption. The museum, he says, "offers a perfect setting for public performance of identity. It is a space designed for the display and performance of meaning. Visitors take advantage of that character to enact their own identities, borrowing for those identities a bit of the aura of special importance held by the objects on display" (Rounds, 2006, p. 142).

Larson (2014) describes how the Sugar Baby art installation in Brooklyn is utilized by visitors and their cellphone cameras. The 75-foot tall white female sphinx with a "Jemina-like face" and massive exposed breasts (p. 505) provided an almost irresistible backdrop for photographic engagement, and specifically selfie taking. Reflecting on the complex motivations for such observed behaviors by "fashionable young women, black and white" (p. 506), Larson (2014) writes that there is "some deep human trait. . .some need to insert 'the self' into every situation" (p. 511). She concludes that the art work stands somehow above this effrontery and intrusion: "She is bigger than life. She has absorbed every insult that has come her way and has transcended it" (ibid). The disruptive social transgressions and disruptions inherent in the performance of the artist, the art, and the art viewer have powerful psychological implications for our understanding of the phenomenon. In our research, we seek to study how people perform with art and capture their performance for particular purposes.

# Mimicry and Social Norms

A closer examination of the contextual effects of being in museums holds an important place in understanding selfie taking behavior. As Dimberg et al. (2000) note, mimicry is an unconscious and automatic process that is subjectively experienced as too strong for suppression. Chartrand and Bargh (1999) show that mimicry has strong adaptive effects: it creates liking and help to achieve an affiliation objective. Using the term "Chameleon effect" to refer to "non-conscious mimicry of postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction partners. . ..," Chartrand and Bargh (1999, p. 893) see mimicry as an essential and important part of human social existence. However, Bourgeois and Hess (2008) find that mimicry does not require close relationships with interaction partners and, in fact that it can act as a powerful social cue and a signaling behavior.

Selfies are not only a social artifact but also a social practice (Senft and Baym, 2015). In the museum setting, parts of the surroundings are structural and aesthetic, such as the building and the collection of art, and part of the situation is composed of the social surroundings, which, as Belk (1975, p. 159) elaborates, constitute "other persons present, their characteristics, their apparent roles, and interpersonal interactions". In the museum setting, these social surroundings might also include the sociotechnical aspects of other museum visitors taking selfies. In our research, we explore the embedded nature of selfie taking as a natural way in which people "do museums"—and much else. In response to this radical change, museum policies are moving toward providing more participatory experiences to accommodate the social trend of selfie-taking (Johnson et al., 2015). In our investigation, we inquire about the collective behavior of selfie taking in museums, particularly around certain exhibits or in certain places. We examine our field sites as situations or surroundings, and look for evidence of mimicry and for the establishment of contagious social norms of selfie taking practice.

# METHODOLOGY

Cultural psychology has long had "an affinity" with ethnographic methods based in a combination of participation and observation (Miller et al., 2003). Because our study is interested in a multidimensional, dynamic, complex, and contextual understanding of the selfie phenomenon, we found the use of ethnographic methods entirely appropriate to our psychological investigation. We used ethnographic methods to collect data on museum visitors and their selfies in North America, Europe and South America, and extended this approach into the online realm with the method of netnography. We briefly describe these approaches and their use in our study in the following section.

### Ethnography and Netnography

Ethnography is the established and venerable technique of cultural investigation which originated in the field of anthropology. Netnography is a specific adaptation of ethnography designed to maintain ethnography's cultural approach and apply it to the study of online social interactions and experiences (Kozinets, 2015). Found useful in a range of studies in social sciences fields (Bengry-Howell et al., 2011), including psychology (e.g., Orsolini et al., 2015) netnography "links to a human consciousness project most closely aligned with gestalt psychology, cyber-psychology, and the anthropology of consciousness" (Kozinets, 2017, p. 382). Netnography adds novel procedures and research practices to the traditional routines of anthropology (Kozinets, 2002) that include locating sites and topics using search engines and handling large digital datasets with a combination of automated and manual techniques (Kozinets, 2015).

As qualitative research applied to questions of cultural psychology, ethnography and netnography help us to focus on data and analysis showing how psychological and behavioral tendencies can be understood through a deep investigation of their cultural underpinnings. Applied to a psychological phenomenon like museum selfie taking, ethnography and netnography reveal contexts of art, culture, expression, and self-representation that link to wider cultural phenomena such as media, technology, and fashion that influence the manifest behaviors. It therefore combines micro and macrolevel collection and analysis of data in a study which shows the inseparability and co-constitution of selves, identities, identity projects, social networks, and cultures.

## Data

We focused our ethnographic observations on art museums as the most visually oriented genre of museums. Prolonged and deep as well as online and offline engagement with the phenomenon served as the key determinants of our selected research approaches. We not only collected primary data but also immersed ourselves in media accounts of selfie-taking in museums. Offline participant observation involved visits to the Broad Museum and LACMA in Los Angeles, California, the Pace Art and Technology Gallery in Palo Alto, California, and the Inhotim Museum in Brazil during 2016. During these visits the researchers observed selfie-taking at the museums and engaged in selfie-taking themselves, seeking out popular selfie spots within the museums that had been identified through online searches as well as prior observations at the museums. We shared these selfie images on our social networks, and kept field observations and reflective notes regarding their consequences, thus deepening our understanding of the internal processes and motivations of the behavior.

The online data collection efforts were focused on the social media platform Instagram because of its visual focus, posting to a public domain and extensive use of searchable hashtags. Searches were conducted in October 2016 and encompassed searching for related hashtags as well as location tags for particular museums. The search started with the general #museumselfie hashtag (29,139 posts) and continued with the museums that were included in the participant observation component of the research (#broadmuseum, 20,279 posts; #LACMA, #532,061 posts, #inhotim, 144,346 posts; #pacegallery, 27,863 posts as well as the respective location tags for these museums). The search was then expanded to include two museums that were prominently featured in the #museumselfie posts: the Louvre and the Musée D'Orsay in Paris (#louvremuseum, 136,853 posts; museedulouvre, 167,107 posts; #museedorsay, 98,584 posts; #dorsaymuseum, 1,136 posts). In recognition of the prominence of selfie-taking in connection with specific museum objects/exhibitions, the search also included #monalisa (504,733 posts) and #infinityroom (22,236 posts). Screenshots were taken of those posts that were images of the self (they had to include at least parts of the body in evidence). These screenshots included the hashtags and photo description as well as the visible comments. For each search, the most recent posts (up to 1 week prior to the search date) were investigated. In its entirety, our data set consisted of our observations, photographs, field notes, reflexive notes, downloaded photographs and screenshots.

# Coding and Analysis

fpsyg-08-00731 May 6, 2017 Time: 15:45 # 7

The research followed a hermeneutic interpretive approach aimed at identifying emerging themes by iteratively circling back and forth between data and interpretation, from site to text. Visual and other semiotic data analysis techniques (Kozinets, 2015) were used on the corpus of fieldnotes, images that were created and collected, as well as on the textual descriptions of the Instagram posts.

#### Findings

We begin with some observations on the extent of selfie-taking in consumer culture as well as its evolution. Google Trends shows that selfie as a search term emerged in December 2012. Instagram currently features 277,724,072 posts that are tagged with the hashtag "#selfie". That museums play an important role in facilitating selfie-taking becomes apparent through the extensive use of the selfie subcategory hashtags "#artselfie" (36,426 posts on Instagram) and #museumselfie (29,139 posts). Google Trends indicates that museumselfie as a search term emerged much later than the general selfie term, namely in January 2014. This was likely spurred by the creation of the first Museum Selfie Day in January 2014, an annual online event in which many museums participate and that encourages individuals to postselfies taken in museums on Twitter or Instagram. This shows that selfie-taking in museums is not only a widespread but also a persistent phenomenon that engages 1000s of individuals on Instagram alone. The significance of the selfie-taking in museums phenomenon to practitioners is reflected in curatorial museum scholarship such as by Larson (2014) and Burness (2016). On a pragmatic level, it is apparent in the so-called "selfie museums" in Southeast Asia that present art objects especially selected for their suitability as selfie backgrounds (Nationalpost.com, 2015).

That selfies serve as important digital possessions for the extended digital and networked self becomes evident through the existence of the basic museum selfie that portrays the face of the person in front of museum objects/art. The museum object is clearly delineated from the person and often appears in its entirety in the picture. Significance is seemingly transferred to the self through proximity, and both art object and personal image are prominently featured. What is important is that this selfie communicates a very intimate, personal relationship with the art. No other museum visitors are visible and the descriptions often read something like "Vincent and me". These selfies tangibilize the museum experience and make it possible to ascribe a fleeting moment in time visibly and irrevocably to one's self. Because they are uploaded to the publicly accessible Instagram platform, they are not only a digital possession but also serve as an important piece in the online narrative about the self which must be read in the entire context of a person's posting behavior on the medium to be fully comprehended in context.

Beyond this expected, general museum selfie type, which did not occur as frequently as we were expecting, the data analysis and observations revealed a multitude of other categories that contribute to identity projects in different ways. We describe and explain them in the following sections.

# Selfies As Art

Selfie-taking as an aesthetic consumption experience and the self as an aesthetic object come into play in a variety of ways in the selfies taken at museums. First, we find evidence for the "art as wallpaper" selfie as suggested by Goldsmith in Burness (2016). In these selfies, fragments of artwork form the background for close-up views of the self. The art serves one purpose only: beautification of the self that is portrayed in the selfie. Abstract art and big installations, as for example prominently displayed in the Inhotim museum in Brazil, lend themselves particularly well to these kinds of selfie projects, and the purpose of art as art (rather than as stage or backdrop) appears destabilized. Second, we identified selfies that strive to be artistic and therefore identify the selfie-taker as an artist. These selfies are different from others in that they play with light, camera angles and unique perspectives, and echo more closely than most other analyzed selfies the standards of self portraiture described by Carbon (2017).  Rarely do the creators of these more artistic selfies look directly into the camera, as is the conventional practice. Instead, the subjects of these selfies are deliberately posed and framed to seem more like traditional portraits.

# Performances of the Self in Museums

Several types of selfies emerged from the data that pertain to two types of performances of the self. First, there is the embodied person performing for the camera (and for physically present other persons) in the museum context. Second, there are extended performances of the self that are shared in online communication spaces, and manifest through additional performance details such as captions, titles, comments, and hashtags. One selfie genre relates to interactions with the art. Poses held by statues or figures in paintings are replicated by the selfie-takers, sometimes pretending to touch the art—a practice that, as Burness (2016) emphasizes, is strictly forbidden and widely feared by museum curators and staff.

Blending into the art is another specific sub-genre facilitated by the exhibits. For example, inserting oneself into projected images at the Pace Gallery allows the art to appear on one's body/face. The Infinity Room at the Broad Museum as well as the Urban Light installation at LACMA and several other smaller exhibits allow visitors to locate themselves as physically present inside the art installation or art work. Being located inside the art seems to encourage additional performances and trigger the need to see and show oneself performing, which is satisfied through selfie-taking and sharing. One of the selfies we found in this sub-genre had a poignant descriptor: "We are part of the art".

Another type of selfie that fits within this group is the mirror selfie. Mirrored objects in museums (whether they are curated museum objects or simply reflective surfaces such as polished glass tables) act as magnets that attract selfie-taking performers. These visual watering holes bring museum visitors thirsty for reflection face to face with their own images, prompting a

need to capture and share that moment of unexpected selfdiscovery. Mirrors also make it possible to show off more of the self without having to use a selfie stick (which are devices that artificially extend one's reach and that are often prohibited in museums). Due to these qualities, museum objects that have mirrored surfaces appear very prominently in museum selfies. However, they are far less prominent in the actual, physical space of the museum than their prominence in selfies might suggest. The argument that object significance can be transferred to the self through the selfie does not, therefore, apply to these cases. One object that appears frequently in the Louvre selfies, for instance, is a baroque commode with a mirror. Clearly, what is being communicated here has less to do with the object itself or its baroque origins than with its surface. Yet, as we will see, although they like to present surfaces used to simply reflect, many museum selfies are far from superficial.

One type of performance that appears in museum selfies is the silly/clever selfie. Making funny faces or striking particularly silly poses adds individuality and makes the selfie unique, thus increasing its social media share-worthiness. It allows selfietakers to express their personality and show off. These selfies are often accompanied by particularly clever or funny descriptions. For example, one burly, smirking young man poses in front of the Mona Lisa and captions his selfie, "One of these faces is worth one billion dollars!!" A couple posted a picture of themselves and used the caption, and its hashtags, to tell a deeper story: "Vicky and I at the Louvre. There's a kinda famous painting behind us , #MonaLisa #ThisMuseumIsHuge #ThePaintingIsNot".

In a more physical form of silliness, many people pose in front of the Louvre's pyramid with their outstretched hands, as if touching the apex of the pyramid with one fingertip. One, with a man grabbing the pyramid playfully and a young girl mugging surprise, was simply captioned "Gotcha!" In many of these photographs, selfie takers assume a performative stance, "playing to the moment" and spotlighting what is unique about the place, the object, the situation, the time, and, of course, themselves, in ways that might be otherwise difficult to perform in the "flow of routine life" (Rounds, 2006, p. 142).

We also found that other museum patrons provided selfie takers a comfortable and respectful berth when they were framing, posing, and shooting their self-portraits. Writing in a time before the rise of selfies, Rounds (2006, ibid) describes an eerily familiar scene: the museum viewer "strikes a contemplative pose" and "other patrons respond in kind, moving as if in response to an invisible choreographer, avoiding intrusions between patron and painting, signaling respect for the aesthetic experience in progress". That such observations of general museum behavior bear such an uncanny similarity to the occurrences that happen around selfie taking in our study points to the aesthetic linkage between selfie taking and art appreciation. At the level of cultural psychological reality as embodied in the movement of people around one another in museum spaces, art and selfie seem to be intertwined.

Another type of very common performance reflected in the selfies is the performance of contemplation. These selfies show the self from behind, looking at the artwork. This selfie type is often accompanied by a more profound type of statement in the description.   Others write similarly reflective captions: "Life is made of small moments like these"; "If only, sometimes, time would just stand still, in the exact moment you want it to"; "Time is a storm for which we have no umbrella"; "A photograph is a fragment of time that will never return". The identity communicated through the use of such captioned selfies is introspective and rich with a sense of transcendent meaning. The spiritual type of identity work conveyed here is one of an appreciation not only of art, but of the aesthetic moments that art brings and of the precious, transitory pleasures of life itself. These contemplative and beautiful posts, where faces are indistinct or absent and captions seek to capture and communicate universal truths to a potentially limitless audience, seem far from the extant stereotype of the superficial and narcissistic selfie.

Performances of the self in museums seem to involve concentric circles of stages, from the micro-stage of the object to the exhibit to the museum space itself and even beyond, with many selfies being taken outside of museums. As observed by Hromack (2014), selfie-taking assigns greater significance to gallery spaces than ever before. The core of these stages is allowing the self to be the focus of the gaze. However, these gazes can be complex and the selves can be ironically positioned rather than self-centered. One photograph featured a young man with a red beard who resembles Van Gogh posing in front of the iconic artist's self-portrait and challenging viewers in the caption to "Spot the difference". A woman posed next to a Greek statuary encourages viewers to identify "Which one is the work of art?" Many selfies are taken in general museum areas, not featuring any particular object except the self, as if to state, more clearly than in any other selfie case: "I am in the museum, therefore I am the art".

#### Iconic Selfies

Iconic selfies suggest the strong influence of social norms and established social behaviors. Burness (2016, p. 99) celebrates the individualistic aspect of museum selfie taking, positing that it constitutes an "individual's performance of self, [in which] identity is performative as a social role is selected" from a range of available roles [italics in the original]. Truly, the possibilities are endless for performance and creativity in a space that celebrates artistry and innovation. Yet our analysis of the netnographic data finds a disheartening conformist similarity and consistency in the many of the selfies taken at museums. Their similarity is based not only on the location but also on the poses taken and the perspectives portrayed. Through our netnographic analysis, which paid attention to similar hashtags, times, and places, we

were able to see social mimicry enacted online. When someone took a selfie in a particular place, others often felt compelled to do exactly the same. Part of the identity work then may not only be establishing the self as unique and creating personalized narratives but, importantly, also to show that one did the museum as one is supposed to do it. One stands in line obediently at the Louvre, in order to get close to the Mona Lisa. Once close, one turns one's camera upon oneself, frames the masterpiece in the background, and takes the selfie. Then, one moves along for the next selfie taker. Mimicry also allows one to establish the self as immersed in a social world of significance and meaning, a consocial experience in which a temporary connection is made with others, to be extended online.

From this perspective of the social self emerges the notion of the iconic museum selfie. The Mona Lisa selfie is the most prominent example of this category. Not only has it been advocated by celebrities but also extensively written and blogged about. One blogger writes: "Everyone else looked at her backward. So I did, too". It has become so ubiquitous that selfietakers now have to try to make it special in order to make it share-worthy, e.g., by trying to have nobody else in the selfie, which is almost impossible. Another example of an iconic selfie is taken in front of the clock in the Musée D'Orsay.  Some try to individualize with strange poses or photos shot from different angles. Most simply pose in the same manner before the giant clock which leads out to the sky.

Another example is technologically driven rather than spatially cued. One of the latest developments in the museum selfie genre is a selfie taken using the Snapchat app to swap faces with those portrayed in famous paintings. Whether extraordinary or not, the iconic selfie has to be taken in order to complete the museum visit. The sheer amount of iconic selfies appearing on Instagram for the particular museums provides a glimpse at how long the selfie-takers had to wait to be able to snap the particular picture of themselves. This fact suggests how important it must be, and how much the internal pressure to conform to standard must feel for them to include the iconic selfie in their self narratives, to perform the identity work, and to feel a sense of completion of their visit to the museum.

# Selfie-Taking as an Embodied Museum Experience

As indicated by our extensive data about performance, selfies turn museums into playgrounds. Selfies encourage physical engagement with museum objects. They involve poses, contorting the body in order to get the selfie poses right, waiting in line to get to the important work of art, walking through the museums with cameras, and walking around other visitors who are taking their selfies. Although some of this action is detectable in the posted selfies themselves, most of it was directly observed during our museum visits. Selfies encourage a certain consciousness of the body and its placement in space. Which body parts are framed as part of the selfie becomes an important decision in the selfie-taking process. The entire self, body, mind, and even spirit seem involved in the aesthetic process of selfie museum taking and sharing.

### DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

In our investigation of museum selfie taking we find reflections not only of individuals and their identities, but of consumer culture, the ways it is changing, and the ways that it destabilizes patrons, museums and art. First, the performance of selfie taking destabilizes the experience of being a body in a museum filled with art. The body is tethered to technology, holding the phone. The body bends and leans to get better angles, find more flattering light, more favorable positions. The body becomes an object to be photographed along with the art. In some sense, the body is led through the museum by a more overwhelming project than merely seeing the art in the gallery: the identity project of representing the self in the act of being-in-the-gallery and the even more important one of somehow asserting that the self is as worthy of art-like status as the art.

This phenomenon does not seem to reflect only the narcissism of the sort explored by researchers such as Fox and Rooney (2015), Sorokowski et al. (2015), and Lee and Sung (2016). Many posts did not feature the selfie poster's face, many contained the back of the head while the person viewed or admired the art, many featured only a silhouette. The addition of a rich context and the cultural data and analysis provided by our method allows us to recontextualize the selfie back into human cultural life and propose an alternate and multidimensional view of the phenomenon as identity work and, indeed, identity work which is fragmentary and always somehow frustratingly incomplete.

Our findings reinforce past conceptions of selfies as important forms of collective communications (Molz, 2012) and a way to build, assert, and curate lasting narratives of the self (Papacharissi, 2010; Dinhopl and Gretzel, 2016) that contribute to an ongoing process of social media-assisted identity work (Rettberg, 2014). However, we extend these conceptions by showing the complexity and variety of ways that people use museum selfies as a part of their identity projects. As our many examples of museum selfie taking in action demonstrate, there is little doubt that physical spaces and objects such as sculptures and paintings, and museums themselves, are used as symbolic resources to build ongoing narratives of the self, just as brands are (Rokka and Canniford, 2016). Art works and museum spaces become props, background material, and stages upon which individuals act out the experiences that give their identity its uniqueness and their life its meaning.

Further, we find that the combination of museum, person, and selfie may amplify and complicate the ostensibly destabilizing forces of art, museums and their patrons. Notions of art viewers using art and their own aesthetic power over it to transcending the authoritarian powers of museum have a long basis in the history of art. To provide only one example, the panoramic size of Monet's Water Lilies was intended by the artist to challenge the limited wall space and thus to allow viewers to contest the authority of the museum, and in some sense to breach the boundaries separating art from its audience (Ames, 1992). To

use a more recent example, the Sugar Baby installation posed a powerful question to art patrons about their willingness to turn art into a background stage and sacrifice their own "sense of selfawareness when addressing an art object," according to Larson (2014, p. 505). The art and the installation sought to destabilize the urge to photograph oneself against it, to "use" the gigantic Jemima figure in this way and reinforce her link to the suffering and abuse of black women. The artist and her brilliant work of art deliberately play on contemporary norms of selfie taking to destabilize power perceptions: "Walker is thus effortlessly able to prove to us that all those old power relationships from the time of slavery have not lost their sting, nor their roots in human selfcenteredness. She sets up the conditions, and if you are alert, you see yourself and your reflection, and you may have learned something" (Larson, 2014, p. 506). For most people observed by Larson, however, nothing is learned.

Hence, museums are not simple places for learning about and enjoying art, they have always been contested spaces where we are goaded to realize something about ourselves. The many profound and spiritual statements about time which appear in selfies featuring the Musée D'Orsay attest to the undiluted power of art to inspire self-reflection. These museum stages therefore provide much more than an opportunity for superficial performance and conformist mimicry.

Our ethnography and especially our netnography of museum selfies tells a nuanced story about contemporary aesthetics. The practices we observe include enactment of the urge to put one's self into the artwork, to shoot into shiny surfaces, to line up behind others and to collect the expected photographs of famous art works. Alongside the enactment of these typical urges, we also see how commonplace are attempts to subvert the art by making silly or idiosyncratic expressions in front of it. In the end, the acting out of these anti-authoritarian impulses seems like a predictable attempt to destabilize art's authority. Networked digital technology seems poised to empower these efforts, to unleash a creative, individual, and aesthetic self as never before. Yet, for the most part, as our portrait of the conforming patron within the artistic environment attests, this creativity goes unrealized. The art, like Sugar Baby, remains spiritually pure, aesthetically untouched, never fully apprehended. Its surface reflection may be captured, digitized, and shared, but its true depths remain unplumbed, blurred out of focus by the cellphone's public gaze. Patrons' use of smartphone technology seems to change everything in the gallery, but it actually challenges nothing. Rather than the celebratory conclusion of Burness(2016, p. 115) who finds that "visitors engaging in self-representational social photography are paying the ultimate compliment to museums by weaving museum objects into their identity," we must take a much more balanced view.

Our investigation thus broadens and develops Venkatesh and Meamber's (2008, pp. 51–52) conception of individuals as "aesthetic subjects" who view everyday experiences and artistic products in an aesthetic sense. Complicating their rather harmonious view of the aesthetic self, we see members of the public actively at work, struggling with their identities as social and creative beings, unable to fully realize either one. Their attempts to transfer aesthetic impressions from art works to their own captured photographs of themselves are always incomplete in themselves, always only snapshots of a much longer narrative that they continuously construct on social media. This sense of needing to do something beyond being with the art is exacerbated and proliferated by the public spaces of museums, where patrons observe each other posing and getting into line before certain art works. Every museum becomes a stage, as we have seen. Every museumgoer becomes not only the "aesthetic object" (Venkatesh and Meamber, 2008, p. 52) of their own selfie, but a performer within their own documentary project of selfie taking. And yet, as Karwowski and Brzeski (2017) also find, many of them are ill-equipped to provide meaningfully creative output.

Every artwork is in some way a selfie, every photograph of course reveals its taker. It also can reveal its takers' abilities and inabilities. Selfie taking, after all, is not merely a manifestation of the mirrored self-questing for its own sense of identity. It is also a social act, a call for connection, a response to competition, and act of mimicry. Our findings reveal how ubiquitous smartphone cameras and networking technology blur the way people understand the connection between museum art and their own self-portraiture. These technologies and behaviors allow people to use special locations, such as art galleries and museums to express aspects of themselves and borrow particular cultural meanings, such as the aesthetic sophistication of art.

 Once upon a simpler time, many of these galleries existed to elevate art in a serious and educational spirit. Now, they are transforming under economic pressure to accommodate the playfulness of patrons. The fact that museums like the Groninger, curators like Blühm (2016), and artists like Kara Walker, the creator of Sugar Baby, must respond to this tension, points to the significant role of the museum selfie in the identity project of the art museum patron. In the field of psychology, and beyond, we would be wise to continue to explore the varying contexts and multidimensional aspects of this rich and powerful phenomenon, what it tells us about the notion of the self in contemporary society, and what it portends about where the sense of contemporary selfhood is heading.

#### ETHICS STATEMENT

The study was exempt as the participant observations were focused on the researchers' own experiences, only took place in public spaces and did not involve any direct interactions with subjects. The online component of the research used only publicly available posts and did not report individual data in the manuscript.

### AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

RK contributed to the theoretical framing, analysis of the data, as well as creation of the entire final document. UG and AD were

responsible for the data collection and analysis. AD contributed to the literature review. UG was involved in all sections of the paper.

## FUNDING

Funding for this paper was provided by Internal Research Grants accorded to the Jayne and Hans Hufschmid Chair of Strategic Public Relations and Business Communication at the University

## REFERENCES

of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

#### ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We would like to acknowledge Ms. Morakot Ditta-Apichai's role in sparking our interest in the topic of selfie museums and her contribution to the initial literature review.

Lacan, J. (1977). Ecrits, A Selection, trans. A. Sheridan. London: Tavistock.

**Conflict of Interest Statement:** The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Copyright © 2017 Kozinets, Gretzel and Dinhopl. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.