How smart does your profile image look? Estimating intelligence from social network profile images

TL;DR

This study investigates how Facebook profile images can be used to predict users' actual and perceived intelligence using automated image analysis, revealing biases and implications for privacy.

Contribution

It introduces a method to predict measured and perceived intelligence from profile images, highlighting misleading cues and stereotyping effects.

Findings

Automated features can match human accuracy in intelligence estimation.

Certain features like smiling and glasses influence perceived but not actual intelligence.

The study reveals biases in perceived intelligence based on profile image cues.

Abstract

Profile images on social networks are users' opportunity to present themselves and to affect how others judge them. We examine what Facebook images say about users' perceived and measured intelligence. 1,122 Facebook users completed a matrices intelligence test and shared their current Facebook profile image. Strangers also rated the images for perceived intelligence. We use automatically extracted image features to predict both measured and perceived intelligence. Intelligence estimation from images is a difficult task even for humans, but experimental results show that human accuracy can be equalled using computing methods. We report the image features that predict both measured and perceived intelligence, and highlight misleading features such as "smiling" and "wearing glasses" that are correlated with perceived but not measured intelligence. Our results give insights into inaccurate stereotyping from profile images and also have implications for privacy, especially since in most social networks profile images are public by default.