It’s difficult to get a real sense of the actual person. You mostly get their version of them, sort of like a highlight reel.

And with people sometimes carefully crafting their response or reply, its not always easy to know what kind of personality they have, or what they’re really like.

Considerations include things like whether the person is smiling, holding a pet, flirting with the camera and more. One of the surprising results of the study was that women who take photos using what’s referred to as the “Myspace angle” – a self-photo taken at an overly-flattering and enhancing angle—is very successful for female users.

Online Dating Photos

And while younger men that posted shirtless photos faired well, that response level dropped as the age increased. Another interesting point made was that women who posted photos with a pet didn’t receive a lot of response, but guys that did were to get almost as many as those with shirtless photos.

You can read more on the study here.