Jesse Singal flags a study that shows how the slightest differences between two photos of the same person can dramatically influence how people perceive them:

In … one of the study’s experiments, subjects were told they were choosing a photo to be used on a résumé for a high-salary position, a dating website, Facebook, a mayoral campaign poster, or a headshot for the role of a villain in a film. They were then given five photos of the same individual and asked which one would be best for the task at hand. … Look at Image 2 and Image 4. They’re almost identical, and yet just about everyone saw the former and said, “Yep, villain,” while hardly anyone said that of the latter.

So maybe we’re right to obsess over our profile pictures after all:

So what should you keep in mind when you’re choosing which photos to use for your various social-media personalities? The researchers didn’t really get into it in this study, but on the dating-site front, at least, there’s some surprisingly substantive (and entertaining) data-mining research on the subject over at OKCupid.

The Dish covered those OKC findings here.