Key to Attractive Facebook Profile Pictures: Social Cues and Compliments

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If your Facebook profile picture is accompanied by comments from friends telling you how lovely you are, others are likely to agree with them.

That's according to a study by researchers at the University of Missouri who also found that pictures revealing information about who you are and what you do might make you seem more attractive physically, professionally and socially.

The same was true for photos with many positive comments ("Such a beautiful girl, my friend!") compared with pictures accompanied by negative comments ("Maybe put less makeup next time?").

"People tend to rely more on other-generated information than self-generated information when forming impressions," researcher Seoyeon Hong, a University of Missouri doctoral student in journalism, said in a statement. "In other words, opinions of other people matter more than the target person's own self-presentation."

To present oneself in a positive light, Hong recommends posting profile pictures with positive social cues and monitoring friends' comments.

"Positive comments are very helpful, but negative remarks can be very damaging, even if they are silly or sarcastic," she said.

The research was published in the July issue of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

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Megan Gannon
Megan Gannon
Live Science Contributor
Megan has been writing for Live Science and Space.com since 2012. Her interests range from archaeology to space exploration, and she has a bachelor's degree in English and art history from New York University. Megan spent two years as a reporter on the national desk at NewsCore. She has watched dinosaur auctions, witnessed rocket launches, licked ancient pottery sherds in Cyprus and flown in zero gravity. Follow her on Twitter and Google+.