1 . When you create a social networking profile, a photo is almost always required.     1     One of the reasons is that it says much more about you than you might think, according to a study published in the journal Cyberpsychology Behavior, and Social Networking.

    2     The factors that shape people’s ratings of our attractiveness based on profile photos are complicated—they don’t just take things at face value. So what really influences people when making oneself look good?

Researchers studied 104 college students by showing them various photos of the same user on a social network.     3     One is social cues, which the study’s authors defined as personal and social information about the user that could be gathered from the photo. The other is congruence (一致性), which was measured in terms of the positivity of comments associated with each photo.

Photos with social cues that revealed more about the user were rated highly in terms of physical attractiveness.     4     What’s more, the researchers noted, the tone of the comments had more effect on attractiveness ratings than did social cues present in the photos. “When other people’s comments are incongruent with the self-presentation,” the authors wrote, “participants were less likely to perceive (察觉) the profile owner to be more popular than when there is congruence, regardless of the amount of social cues present in the profile.”

So your profile photos don’t necessarily have to be model-like. Photos that show your social relationships or hobbies are actually more important for your attractiveness. And if you want to build up a certain image, keep an eye on the comments being left on your social networking profiles.     5