In this day and age, pretty much everyone takes selfies, or at least has taken a selfie at some point. While objectively there isn’t anything wrong with this, a new study conducted by the Ohio State University suggests that men who take a lot of selfies actually score higher in narcissism and psychopathy than men who only take a few selfies.
A study surveying the social media habits of 800 men confirmed with science what we’ve always known in our hearts—if you constantly take a bunch of selfies and post them online, you might have some mild psychological issues. A research project, conducted at the Ohio State University, straddles the line between “no duh” and “well, that’s disturbing” with its findings. The lead author, Jesse Fox, says that the study proved that self-taking dudes, who also spent time editing their front-facing snapshots, scored high for narcissism. Ok, not particularly surprising. However, guys who posted lots of selfies, but didn’t really spend time editing them, showed signs of above average psychopathy. But it’s not like if you take photos of yourself you’re immediately a crazy ax murderer. These levels of narcissism, self-objectification, and psychopathy were within average means and not diagnosed disorders, says Fox. In fact, a little bit of psychopathy isn’t necessarily a bad thing for your Tinder profile.