We’ve all got a best side for selfies. And now, science agrees.
Taking the perfect selfie comes down to more than just knowing your angles – it’s about always making sure you’re snapped from your “best side”.
As it turns out, we’re not alone either when it comes to the belief our faces have a good side, according to a new study.
Study lead Annukka Lindell, a senior lecturer in experimental neuropsychology at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, delved into what drives us to favour a certain side by examining over 2,000 selfies on Instagram tagged with the #selfie hashtag.
Her findings, published in Frontiers in Psychology, revealed 41 per cent of the faces surveyed posed with their left side turned towards the camera. 32 per cent preferred their right side, 20 per cent looked at the camera straight on, and 8 per cent didn’t pose at all.
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“Ninety-two percent of the sample showed an overall posing bias,” Lindell wrote in the study. “Given that only 8 per cent of selfie-takers showed no overall bias, the tendency to repeatedly adopt a preferred pose appears to be the norm for selfie-takers.”
Lindell also put forward her research supports the idea of a “left-cheek bias” when posing for photos, not so much based on the belief we have “good side”, but more its hardwired into our thinking.
“Because the left side of the face is predominantly controlled by the emotion-dominant right hemisphere [of the brain], the left cheek is more emotionally expressive,” she wrote.
“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.”
