Consider for a moment some seminal achievements in the history of art: the portrait of a man in red chalk, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci; a collection of Pablo Picasso’s self-portraits showing evolution of his artistic style; or a dozen of Vincent van Gogh’s self-portraits, with their famous mirror-like character. Now, let us switch to XXI century with its new technologies, smartphones, Facebook posts, and Twitter tweets. And here’s the point: would Leonardo, Picasso, or van Gogh be selfying instead of self-portraying today? Do selfies hold any creative value or should they be perceived exclusively as a proof of narcissism and vanity (Sorokowski et al., 2016)? These provocative questions inspire our endeavors presented in this article.

This paper explores the selfie phenomenon, but does not focus on Leonardo’s or Picasso’s selfies. Even if some links and regularities between artists’ self-portraits and naïve people’s selfies were indeed established (Bruno and Bertamini, 2013, but see also Suitner and Maass, 2007), our intention is – by no means – to equate selfies with self-portraits. We focus on a complex, yet understudied relationship between selfie posting and creative behaviors in their mundane forms. Instead of asking about van Gogh’s selfies, we explore the direction and strength of the link between creative activity and achievement on the one hand and the intensity of selfie posting on the other. What are the theoretical connections – if any – between creativity and selfying that make any empirical links plausible at all? Should we consider taking and posting selfies as even a potentially creative behavior, or quite the opposite, as a proof of algorithmic, repetitive, and unoriginal activity characterized by a low level of social value? We explore these questions further in this introduction. First, however, we briefly review the state of the art in selfies research, specifically highlighting the findings that informed our inquiry. Next, we present the benefits of analyzing selfies as a situated phenomenon and the need of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in selfies research.

To paraphrase Hermann Ebbinghaus’ famous saying, selfying has a long past, but only a short history. The first selfie was likely taken in 1840 and is attributed to Robert Cornelius: an American amateur photographer and Charles Wheatstone: an English inventor. However, only recently selfies have gathered popularity thanks to the growing availability of smartphones with the reversed camera option (Dhir et al., 2016). Consequently, also scholarly works on selfies flourished only in the last decade searching for predictors of selfie posting (Sorokowski et al., 2015) or demographic differences between people posting more or fewer selfies (Dhir et al., 2016).

Although selfies are becoming more and more popular among social media users, it does not mean they are common. Quite the opposite: a recent summary of the selfiecity project¹ (Tifentale and Manovich, 2016) estimated the number of selfies in all social media sites at only 4% of all photos posted. A look at scholarly works on selfies confirms these estimations; indeed, selfies’ distribution is usually very skewed, with a huge majority of users declaring taking none or only a few selfies, and a clear minority selfying intensively. Such distribution forms an analytical challenge, as typical regression or correlation-based techniques are not robust enough to deal with non-normal distribution. Poisson models or log-transformations are required to handle such a pattern effectively.

Previous studies bring a list of well-corroborated findings regarding selfies. Not surprisingly, selfies were found to be more typical for younger than older social media users (Dhir et al., 2016). Females post more selfies than males (Dhir et al., 2016), although this effect seems to be moderated by selfie type: while selfies that present only a single person are indeed more common among women (Sorokowska et al., 2016), in the case of selfies with a partner or friends, differences are less profound.

What are the personality predictors of selfie posting? Previous studies established a number of selfies’ correlates, but usually these links are, at best, mediocre. Among big five personality factors (McCrae and Costa, 1997) only extraversion seems to be related to selfying, but the effect size of this link is weak (Sorokowska et al., 2016). Indeed, previous studies had found extraversion to be related to general Facebook activity, which, in turn predicts posting photos (Correa et al., 2010; Gosling et al., 2011). The remaining Big Five traits, i.e., agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience seem to be unrelated to selfying, although future studies would benefit from a more facet-or-aspect-level analysis of personality in this respect (DeYoung et al., 2007).

Previous studies have also examined a range of other personality-related characteristics as selfying’s predictors. For instance, it was hypothesized that self-esteem may influence the intensity of selfie-posting, yet previous studies bring equivocal findings – while some researchers (Nadkarni and Hofmann, 2012) posit that higher self-esteem should translate into more intensive presentation in social media, others demonstrate that lowered self-esteem leads to a more intensive social media practices (Mehdizadeh, 2010). A recent large investigation (Sorokowska et al., 2016) found self-esteem to be unrelated to selfie posting – the one and only positive relationship (r = 0.19) was observed among males whose self-esteem was correlated with own selfie posting – a relationship between posting group selfies or selfies with a partner was unrelated to self-esteem in either males or females.

Likely, the most promising line of research in the selfie literature focuses on the dark personality characteristics as its predictors. These studies include exhibitionism (Sorokowska et al., 2016), histrionic personality (Sorokowski et al., 2016), or narcissism (Sorokowski et al., 2015). Consistently with the predictions, in several studies people who posted selfies were found to be higher in narcissism, exhibitionism, and histrionic personality. Two things, however, are important to note. First, the effect size of the links observed was usually tiny. A large sample size made these correlations or regression coefficients statistically significant, however, with coefficients in their 20s there is a lot of room for exceptions. Second, the positive links between narcissism-related traits and selfying were much more consistent among men than women. Hence, paradoxically, although females are more intensive selfie takers and posters, we know less about the causes of their selfying.

Finally, almost all recent studies on selfies have utilized cross-sectional designs (see Guazzini et al., 2016, for an exception). Participants are usually asked how many selfies they posted on social media or how intensively they are usually selfying. We believe, however, that the most promising research strategy is to analyze selfies as a situated phenomenon. Are people selfying because they are narcissistic or because they are in a place and a moment that they would like to share with their friends? Or perhaps both? Aren’t situational factors – moment-to-moment or day-to-day activity – at least equally as important in explaining the phenomenon of selfie posting? In the study, we present below, we decided to explore this opportunity and focus on selfies as a changeable phenomenon that differs from day to day. Among potential daily predictors of selfying, we see the role played by creative activity. Yet, why and how can creativity be related to selfies? We discuss this issue below.

Creativity is understood as a human capacity that allows people to produce ideas and artifacts that are both novel and appropriate. Although creativity scholars often omit the explicit definition of their main construct of interest (Plucker et al., 2004; Silvia, 2014), two aforementioned elements: novelty (originality) and value (usefulness, quality) are perceived as critical definitional criteria for creativity: ingredients of the so-called standard definition of creativity (Runco and Jaeger, 2012). Several additional criteria of creativity were proposed, including surprisingness (Simonton, 2012), esthetics and authenticity (Kharkhurin, 2014); potential (Corazza, 2016); or – long before – transformational power and condensation of meaning (Jackson and Messick, 1965). The last six decades of research within cognitive and personality psychology have also established several traits predictive of creative thinking and problem solving. It was demonstrated that intelligence forms an important, perhaps even necessary, yet not sufficient condition of creativity (Silvia, 2015; Karwowski et al., 2016). Similarly, the role of certain personality traits, mainly openness (Feist, 1998), but also psychoticism (Eysenck, 1995; Acar and Runco, 2012) has been replicated by different labs. Regarding motivational characteristics, there is a widely held consensus that intrinsic motivation is fruitful for creativity (Amabile, 1996), although rewards and extrinsic influences may be conducive to creative thinking as well (Eisenberger et al., 1998; Byron and Khazanchi, 2012). The role of creative self-efficacy – or more generally – creative self-beliefs, has been demonstrated as well, showing how creative self-efficacy, creative personal identity (Jaussi et al., 2007), creative metacognition (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2013), and creative mindsets (Karwowski, 2014; Karwowski and Brzeski, 2017) explain a significant portion of variability in creative efforts, activities, and achievements. Last but not least, two distinctions are relevant for understanding creativity. The first distinguishes between creative potential and creative activity or achievement. Creative potential is a complex and multifaceted category of cognitive processes and personality, including divergent thinking (Baer, 2014), creative imagination (Dziedziewicz and Karwowski, 2015), openness to experience (Silvia et al., 2014), or curiosity (Karwowski, 2012). Creative activity denotes time and effort put into different domains: be it science, art or everyday creativity. Finally, creative achievement denotes observable and socially recognized accomplishments – published poems, received patents or awards – all the way to the Pulitzer or Noble Prize. Another relevant distinction differentiates levels of creativity: a personal insight typical for mini-c creativity, via little-c creative solutions important for everyday problem solving, to Pro-c – creative activity in professional activity, and all the way to Big-C creativity: eminent form of creative achievements (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009).

How could creativity and selfying be related? One line of reasoning would put narcissism as a bridge between them. As we already highlighted, narcissism predicts selfying, at least among men. But although the links between creativity and narcissism have been hypothesized for decades (Raskin, 1980), empirical evidence is, at best, equivocal. While some studies demonstrated consistent and robust links between narcissism and self-reported creativity (Furnham et al., 2013; Jonason et al., 2015; McKay et al., 2016), the relationship between narcissism and divergent thinking, creative problem solving (Goncalo et al., 2010), or creative achievement (Jonason et al., 2015) is weaker and less consistent. Therefore, although the relationships “creativity-narcissism” and “narcissism-selfying” may lead to expecting associations between creativity and selfying as well, this rationale is not void of problems.

Covariance of creativity and selfying is also easily inferred from a long tradition of studies that utilize the autophotographic methodology. Autophotography, described in the writings of Ziller and Lewis (1981), Ziller and Rorer (1985) and Ziller (1990/2000), asks participants to take a set of photos that describe their identity and respond to the question “who are you”? Crucially for our argument here, in dozens of investigations Dollinger et al. (1996) and Dollinger and Dollinger (2003) demonstrated fruitfulness of autophotography for studying creativity. They convincingly profiled less creative individuals as those who portray themselves in one-dimensional ways, while observing that more creative people’s photo-essays are not only different, but also much more integrated (Dollinger et al., 1996; Dollinger and Dollinger, 2003). Dollinger described these more metaphorical and esthetically sensitive photo-essays as individualistic, and found consistent correlations between individuality and creativity. It is important to note, however, that for Dollinger a selfie is an antonym rather than synonym of highly individualistic photo-essays. As Dollinger (2017, p. 347) put it: “If selfies are included in photo essays—selfies as they are usually portrayed in the media—they would likely result in a low score on individuality/richness.” Although indeed, typical selfies seem to be more imitative and algorithmic than metaphorical and esthetically appealing, this claim is yet to be empirically examined. This is not exactly our aim here, however: as we have mentioned above, it is not our goal to analyze selfies’ content. Instead, we explore the dynamic links between day-to-day creative behaviors and selfying.

To estimate the level and factors that stand behind intra-individual variability in selfying, we decided to conduct a diary study instead of running the most common cross-sectional studies. Such microlongitudinal approach allows for including within-person predictors such as day-to-day activity as well as several between-person variables, i.e., cognitive abilities, creative achievement or demographic controls. We are primarily interested in the scope of day-to-day variability in selfying, but also in the role played by day-to-day creative activity in different domains and previous creative achievement (measured as a between-person variable) for selfying. We hypothesize that creative activity in art-related domains, and – especially – an activity typical for everyday behavior in spheres related to social media – like blogging or taking photos, will predict the intensity of selfie posting.

We proceeded with data analysis in three steps. After an initial overview of descriptive statistics and correlations between variables, we reduced the number of within-person variables using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Then, we estimated the level of within-person (day-to-day) and between-person variability in selfying as well as its situational and individual predictors.

Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations between Level-2 (between-person) variables are presented in Table 1, while Table 2 shows descriptive statistics for Level-1 (within-person) variables.

Posting selfies (aggregated across all days of the diary study) was positively linked to the intensity of Facebook usage, Pearson’s r = 0.30, Spearman’s ρ = 0.34, previous creative achievement (in the case of raw CAQ score r = 0.30, ρ = 0.13; in the case of log-transformed CAQ r = 0.24; ρ = 0.13) and negatively to the level of intelligence, r = -0.18; ρ = -0.25 (all ps < 0.05). Although these initial findings are in line with our expectations, they tell us little about intra-individual-day-to-day variability. Therefore, in the next step we focused on within-level analyses.

Is selfying really so common as media seem to suggest? Is it driven primarily by selfiers’ psychological characteristics or is it rather situation-dependent? Is selfie posting related to creativity, and if yes, then how? This diary study explored these questions with the aim of looking at the selfies phenomenon from a slightly different angle than previous research did. More specifically, we were interested in selfies’ dynamic and intra-individual rather than between-individual predictors. Although the findings of this study generally replicate those of previous research, at least some of our results may form an extension of this line of inquiry.

Similarly as in previous research³ (see Tifentale and Manovich, 2016; also Sorokowski et al., 2016), our study confirms that selfying, especially intensive selfying, is a rare phenomenon. Despite its growing popularity and media attention, a vast majority of social media users do not post selfies at all. Across the 2 weeks of our investigation, only 13% of all participants declared posting selfies, with a clearly skew distribution: even those who selfied, did it once or twice in 2 weeks. That pattern has both methodological and substantial implications. Methodologically, controlling for this severe skewness is necessary to obtain unbiased estimates. Substantially, an extremely small group of intensive selfie-takers forms a challenge for understanding this niche better. Future studies, then, should apply comparative designs focused specifically on intensive selfie takers.

Consistently with our expectations, the day-to-day variability of selfie posting was visibly (in this investigation: two times) higher than its between-person variance. In other words, to understand selfying, we should focus on the dynamic, situational factors rather than (or at least equally to) on stable, psychological characteristics. This finding seems logical; after all, people are often selfying to share their special moments with others or show places they visit. Indeed, we were able to demonstrate that selfying was more profound on weekends than on weekdays and when people spent more time on Facebook. Interestingly, though, daily creative activity within the domain of widely understood art-related activities and especially during everyday creative activities was positively linked to the intensity of selfying. Those who painted, blogged, or composed music posted more selfies the day they engaged in creative activity. Creative activity in science-related spheres was unrelated to selfying. The creativity-selfying association was also visible on a person level – those social media users who had higher creative achievement selfied more than those with little or no achievement. At the same time, however, intelligence negatively linked to selfying and qualified the relationship between creative achievement and selfying – only among people with an IQ-equivalent of up to about one-standard-deviation-above-the-mean was this link significant.

The links we observed obviously require replication and a sound theoretical explanation. Here, we discuss some plausible, even if a bit speculative explanations of obtained associations with the hope to inspire future investigations. More specifically, we see four potential mechanisms that may stand behind the relationships obtained and that should be more thoroughly examined in future studies.

The first argument for the links between creative activity and selfying may stem from previously discussed correlations between narcissism and creativity (Goncalo et al., 2010) and narcissism and selfying (Sorokowski et al., 2015). Although previous studies provided mixed findings regarding the narcissism-creativity association, we believe that this possibility should not be ignored. Creativity requires an authentic rather than hubristic pride (Damian and Robins, 2013), but more narcissistic, hubristic pride may also associate with creativity under certain conditions. For instance, Damian and Robins (2013) showed that in the condition of anger, creativity and hubristic pride were positively related. Therefore, future studies would benefit not only from controlling for participants’ narcissism in creativity-selfying studies, but also from measuring narcissism in a more detailed way, including its facets, to uncover more subtle relationships.

The second potential mechanism and line of future inquiry is related to emotions as factors responsible for – or at least qualifying – the relationship between creativity and selfying. Previous studies, including those based on EMA (Silvia et al., 2014; Conner and Silvia, 2015), demonstrated that everyday creative behavior is linked to positive, active emotions. Such associations were also hypothesized in the theory of everyday creativity (Richards et al., 1988) and are generally widely accepted in the psychology of creativity (Silvia et al., 2014, but see also Baas et al., 2008, 2011). Therefore, one may expect positive emotions to stand behind both creative activity and selfie posting. It should be noted, however, that although the relationship between creativity and positive emotions is likely reciprocal, creativity theories perceive emotions as a cause of creativity rather than vice versa. It is striking, because in the case of selfie posting the opposite direction seems more plausible. Therefore, it is positive emotions that lead to selfie-posting rather than selfie-posting building positive emotions even if such a hypothesis cannot be fully refuted so easily. So future studies, ideally longitudinal or microlongitudinal, may want to examine the extent to which positive emotions mediate the relationship between creativity and selfie posting or whether it is creative activities that mediate the relationship between positive emotions and selfying. Eventually, it is obviously possible as well that positive emotions and creativity predict selfie posting independently from each other.

The third possibility may consider selfying as a natural consequence or even epiphenomenon of the higher level of activity caused by openness and extraversion and consequently plasticity: the personality meta-factor they form together (DeYoung, 2006). Previous studies consistently confirmed that openness is critical for creative functioning (Feist, 1998; Puryear et al., 2016), while the role of extraversion is much more prominent in the case of self-reported creativity-relevant characteristics, such as creative self-efficacy (Karwowski and Lebuda, 2016). Therefore, it could be argued that selfying is a sub-product of higher activity and a search for different activities and hobbies (Wolfradt and Pretz, 2001). This expectation, however, is weakened by inconsistent and usually weak correlations between selfying and personality. Although indeed, extraversion does predict selfie posting, openness is usually unrelated to selfying. Again, future researchers may want to include an even wider measurement of openness – not only including its aspects (DeYoung et al., 2007), but also specific types of openness (Kaufman, 2013; Kaufman et al., 2015) that predicted creativity in previous studies. As these types of openness differently predicted creative behavior across domains, we are approaching the final point: the issue of domain-specificity versus domain-generality of creativity.

Thus, the fourth point may highlight the domain-specific relationship between creative functioning and selfying. Indeed, in our study we found a robust relationship between selfying and everyday creativity, significant and weaker links between selfying and art-related creative activity, and virtually no relationship between selfie posting and scientific creativity. At the between-person level, although selfying was positively related to the total score of the CAQ, its relationship with intelligence was negative. It suggests that while some forms and domains of creativity – mainly art-based and everyday – may be positively related to selfie posting, other – science-related – are either unrelated or even negatively related to selfying⁴. Scientists and artists differ in terms of their personality (Feist, 1998); different personality traits predict creative achievement in art and science (Kaufman et al., 2015). Even if selfies themselves are rarely artistically creative, artistic activity was positively related with selfying. Again, this opens an intriguing opportunity for future studies. What makes art-related creativity related to selfie posting? Is it a matter of personality characteristics of people who engage into artistic activity or perhaps selfies are still sometimes creative? This question becomes even more important if we keep in mind the role of such everyday activities as blogging, taking photos, or designing new clothing items for selfie posting. There are good reasons to believe that selfying, together with these activities, may form a specific syndrome of behavior, a more typical one for young people and not void of creative elements.

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of The Maria Grzegorzewska University with written informed consent from all subjects. All subjects gave informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by The Maria Grzegorzewska University Institutional Review Board (decision number 128-2016/2017).

MK planned the whole study, performed statistical analyses, and drafted the manuscript. AB co-analyzed the results and provided a critical overview of the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.