Skip to main content

Correction to: Choosing face: The curse of self in profile image selection

The Original Article was published on 14 April 2017

Correction to: Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (2017) 2:23 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-017-0058-3

When carrying out further analysis of the rating and image database associated with our publication (White et al., 2017), we detected a data processing error. After a detailed investigation and re-analysis of the dataset, we found that this error affected participant rating data matrices in the ‘Internet calibration’ analysis presented in the bottom two panels of Fig. 2 in the main manuscript.

The corrected summary data are shown in Figure E1, and the corrected text associated with statistical tests performed on these data is reported in this analysis below. We have also updated the full analysis of these data in Additional file 1.

This error does not change any of the main results in the study and nor does it affect our conclusions. The main effects reported in the manuscript are strengthened relative to the published report (published ηp2 for main effect of self/other selection = 0.020, corrected ηp2 = 0.026). There are some changes to the qualitative pattern of the interaction between trait and profile picture context type (facebook, dating, professional). In the published paper, these interactions were reported in Supplemental Material (Additional file 1) as they were of marginal interest and unrelated to the main result reported in the paper.

Although the main pattern of results is unchanged, this error may impact users of the image and rating dataset that we made available for future work. We are aware of two research labs that have used this dataset and have contacted them advising of the situation. Additional files 3 and 4 that contained affected rating data have also been replaced with the corrected versions on the url associated with the original publication. We hope that researchers will continue to use this corrected version to explore the relationship between image variation and facial first impressions in their work.

Fig. E1
figure a

Corrected results from the Calibration experiment. The data in the upper panels remain unchanged from the original publication, but the data in lower panels has changed subsequent to correction


Corrected text for paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Calibration Experiment, Results section (corrected stats in bold italics):


Own and Internet calibration scores were analyzed separately by mixed ANOVAs with between-subject factor of Selection Type (self, other) and within-subject factors Context (Facebook, dating, professional) and Trait (attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, competence, confidence). For own calibration, the main effect of Selection Type was non-significant, F (1,202) = 1.48, p = 0.25, ηp2 = 0.007, with high average calibration between image selection and positive social impressions for both self-selected (M = 0.509; SD = 0.319) and other-selected photographs (M = 0.543; SD = 0.317). For Internet calibration, the main effect of Selection Type was significant, F (1,202) = 5.50, p = 0.02, ηp 2 = 0.026. Critically, there was greater calibration between image selection and positive social impressions for other-selected (M = 0.234; SD = 0.327) compared to self-selected photographs (M = 0.161; SD = 0.336).

Interaction between Context and Selection Type was significant for own rating calibration, F [2, 404] = 4.16, p = 0.016, ηp2 = 0.020, reflective of higher calibration for other-selections compared to self-selections in professional (F [1, 202] = 5.73, p = 0.018, ηp2 = 0.028) but not Facebook or dating contexts (all Fs < 1). However, neither of these interactions were significant for Internet calibration, meaning that the benefit of other people selecting profile images for internet ratings was consistent across contexts and traits (both interactions Fs < 1).

In general, interactions revealed that traits were aligned to network contexts, such that attractiveness tended to calibrate most with social and dating networks and competence and trustworthiness to professional networks (see Additional file 1 for full details of this analysis).

Reference

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David White.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Additional file 1

. Full description of analysis in the Calibration experiment.

Additional file 3

. Raw rating data from Calibration experiment.

Additional file 4

. Spearman's rho scores from Calibration experiment.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

White, D., Sutherland, C.A.M. & Burton, A.L. Correction to: Choosing face: The curse of self in profile image selection. Cogn. Research 6, 55 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00320-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00320-2