Science: Men who share selfies online more likely to be narcissistic psychopaths.

We’ve long suspected that men who stretch out the arm for a selfie (or ten) are more likely to be fully up themselves.

But now science says it is indeed so.

A study surveying the social media habits of 800 men confirms that men who constantly take selfies and post them online show high traits of being narcissistic psychopaths. Interestingly, the same correlation between being an egomaniac crazy person is not there for women who love a reverse-camera shot of themselves.

The American study revealed that selfie-loving guys who spend time editing and filtering their faces scored way high up on the charts for narcissism. Narcissism is a legitimate psychological disorder where the suffered has an inflated sense of how important they are within the world, crave constant admiration and cannot feel empathy properly.

And men who went for quantity over quality – posting lots of selfies but not being choosy about the angle or filter – showed signs of above average psychopathy.

The man behind the research, Jesse Fox says the results aren’t altogether surprising but that it’s the first time the link has been confirmed in a study.

But do not fear if you are dating or married to a selfie taker – the results don’t mean that selfie slaves are necessarily going to eat your liver with fava beans and a chianti.  These men scored within the normal range of behaviour, just with higher than average levels of these anti-social traits.

The study found a marked difference between men that filtered the crap out of their photos (narcissist) and those that just whacked them up as they were (psychopath).

“That makes sense because psychopathy is characterised by impulsivity. They are going to snap the photos and put them online right away. They want to see themselves. They don’t want to spend time editing,” she said.

Whereas narcissism is marked by a belief that you’re smarter, more attractive and better than others, but with some underlying insecurity. Hence the Valencia filter – making your face look more attractive since 2010.