Conceived and designed the experiments: OC NT. Analyzed the data: OC HK. Wrote the paper: OC HK NT MN. Collected the data: RC DM NB ET.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
It is now standard practice, at Universities around the world, for academics to place pictures of themselves on a personal profile page maintained as part of their University’s web-site. Here we investigated what these pictures reveal about the way academics see themselves. Since there is an asymmetry in the degree to which emotional information is conveyed by the face, with the left side being more expressive than the right, we hypothesised that academics in the sciences would seek to pose as non-emotional rationalists and put their right cheek forward, while academics in the arts would express their emotionality and pose with the left cheek forward. We sourced 5829 pictures of academics from their University websites and found that, consistent with the hypotheses, there was a significant difference in the direction of face posing between science academics and English academics with English academics showing a more leftward orientation. Academics in the Fine Arts and Performing Arts however, did not show the expected left cheek forward bias. We also analysed profile pictures of psychology academics and found a greater bias toward presenting the left check compared to science academics which makes psychologists appear more like arts academics than scientists. These findings indicate that the personal website pictures of academics mirror the cultural perceptions of emotional expressiveness across disciplines.
In 2010, Lindell and Savill
That the two sides of the face are unequal in their emotional expressivity is an observation first attributed to Darwin, who noted in those around him a tendency to move the muscles on the left side of the face more than the right side of the face when expressing emotions
Interestingly, this difference in neuro-anatomy creates a bias in the way people pose for photographs. When people are asked to pose for a photograph that will be used as a family portrait they tend to present their left cheek to the camera. Conversely, when people are asked to pose for a photograph that will be used as their official portrait as an eminent scientist, they tend to present their right cheek to the camera
So, if people posing for photographs showing their right cheek are more likely to be classified as science students and people posing for photographs showing their left cheek are more likely to be classified as arts students
Academic Unit |
|
|
|
|
English | 292 | −.51 (.13) | 14.81 | <.0001 |
Fine Arts | 102 | −.29 (.21) | 1.97 | .16 |
Performing Arts | 84 | −.31 (.23) | 1.85 | .17 |
Psychology | 324 | −.52 (.13) | 16.98 | <.0001 |
Chemistry | 424 | −.01 (.11) | <.000 | .994 |
Mathematics | 367 | .049 (.12) | .17 | .68 |
Engineering (referent) | 1560 |
Sex alone was a significant predictor of face posing angle, correctly predicting 58.5% of the cases (
In this study we analysed the portraits of 5829 academics presented on their publicly accessible University profile page, to investigate whether scientists present themselves in their stereotyped role as objective rationalists and conceal their emotion by presenting the right cheek to the camera and conversely whether academics in the arts allow their emotions to be more visible by showing the left cheek. The results demonstrate that there is a clear difference in the way academics in the sciences and the arts present themselves to the world: scientists, including Engineers, Chemists and Mathematicians, tend to show the right cheek more than English academics. Thus scientists reduced the visibility of their emotions while English academics promoted the visibility of their emotions
This difference between Chemistry and English academics is consistent with the findings of Lindell and Savill
This difference between our results and those of Lindell and Savill
Interestingly, our results for academics in the Fine Arts and Performing Arts did not show the same bias toward presenting the left cheek shown by English and Psychology academics. This finding warrants further investigation. One explanation is that academics in the Fine Arts and Performing Arts are particularly familiar with the history and theory of portraiture, either as producers of portraits or as sitters. As such, it is possible that academics in the Fine Arts and Visual Arts are affected in the selection of their portrait picture by factors unconsidered by other academics. More research will be required to investigate this particular finding.
Our results also showed that sex alone was a significant predictor of face posing with male academics tending to show the right cheek and female academics tending to show the left cheek. However, Lindell and Savill
That the sitter does not have complete control over their pose in a photograph is a perennial problem in research using sourced portraits
In this study we have shown that there are clear differences in the way academics in the sciences and arts present themselves in their publicly accessible University profile picture. Mathematicians, Chemists and Engineers tend to show the right cheek, thus reducing the observable emotionality, while English and Psychology academics show the left cheek, exacerbating the expression of emotion. Further research will be required to determine the consequences of this face posing preference. For instance: are student ratings of professors higher for academics who show their left cheek in their profile picture because they engender a feeling of approachability? Or, are academics who show the right cheek cited more because they are thought by other academics to display a more critical rationality? So, academics be warned: we present ourselves to our students and colleagues in our profile pictures and the way we do so may reveal more about ourselves than we think.
Portraits of academics were sourced from official university web sites of the 200 Universities listed in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2010–2011
Universities were excluded if the website for academic staff was not in English. Individual photographs were only included if the full face was clearly visible and if they were free of any additional people or objects (e.g. laboratory equipment or books) in the foreground. All drawn or computer generated pictures were excluded. In order to determine which cheek was shown by the posing angle of each academic, portraits were classified as having only the left, right or both sides of the nose visible. Two assessors rated each picture with a high inter-rater reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .972). Pictures which the assessors rated differently were reviewed and a consensus was reached. The sex of the academic was also recorded.
Some University departments allow their staff to choose the picture that is posted on their home page while other departments use a professional photographer. Since the photographer may also influence the posing angle shown
Of the 5829 faces rated, 3168 were posing with either the left or right side of the nose visible and were used in the analyses. To investigate the relationship between academic unit and face posing angle, logistic regression was used with cheek showing (left, right) as the outcome variable and academic unit (English, Fine Arts, Drama, Psychology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Engineering) as the predictor variable. As Engineering had the largest sample size it was used as the referent to provide greater power to detect differences. Sex was used as a co-variate.