Seeing
is definitely believing when it comes to our social network or personal website
pages. We pick the most promising snapshot from our portfolio and there it is
for our world image. OK it may not have been taken this week, or even this
year, but it’s how we should look.
Academics
are an interesting subset of the species, dedicated as they are to study,
seeking after truth and eschewing the razz-ma-tazz of the commercial world, so
I was drawn to the survey of the profile pictures of over 5,800 academics by
the large team of Churches et al from
the U of South Australia and Flinders U that popped up in last weeks Public
Library of Science (1,2).
Being
from the psychology schools, the authors weren’t setting up a beauty contest,
but were checking which they decided was their best face to put forward – their
left side or their right side. With no agents to advise, they had to fall back
on their own base instincts. Gender bias will come into it, how could it not?
But the big surprise is the two-culture split a la C.P.Snow.
That’s
right! Arts guys are lefties and science guys are righties. In English, and the
Performing Arts the women favored the left cheek forward. In chemistry, Math,
and Engineering, the photographer had definitely to be on their right side.
With
men, the arts were not so clear-cut. Performing arts guys plumped right.
Interestingly, in Fine Arts those of either gender persuasion went right.
Perhaps the activities in the fine arts these days are more technical with
installations etc.
The
one that fascinated me was the psychologist group. The females were very
definitely in the arts camp with a strong preference for the left side. Perhaps
teasing out a patients inner feelings and dosing them with empathy is an art
form.
In
contrast male psychologists tend right and this leaves me to wonder if they
really want to be measuring people’s responses quantitatively, and viewing
patients more as lab rats for experiments, than mending them.
- http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0038940
- http://www.improbable.com/2012/07/19/left-v-right-how-academics-face-pose-on-the-web/
