Selfies are everywhere on social media. Research has focused only on who is posting selfies and has not addressed the audience members viewing selfies. This study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the judgments people make of selfies posted on Facebook. Using an online experiment, we test how including a selfie on a Facebook status update changes people's appraisals of narcissism, message appropriateness, and social attraction. We also consider how the valence and intimacy of the status update text interplay with the selfie to change social judgments. Participants rated posts with selfies as more narcissistic and inappropriate, and less socially attractive. Selfie evaluations also depended upon the valence and intimacy of the status update text. Gender of the selfie poster did not influence evaluation of posts. One implication from these results is that posting selfies on social media may lead to negative judgments about the poster.

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Existing theories within interpersonal (IPC) and intergroup communication (IGC) have not yet explained when online interactions are initially intergroup in nature, interpersonal, or both. We address this undertheorized conundrum—which is particularly challenging as more communication occurs on social media, in which a multitude of goals may converge—by proposing the dual-process model of interpersonal–intergroup communication (IPC–IPG). Focusing on both the situation and a multiple goals perspective, this model can help explain where on the interpersonal–intergroup continuum online interactions fall. The ability to understand and articulate the antecedents and processes that may guide initial interactions can enhance future work by providing a mechanism through which to theorize which set(s) of theory may be most applicable to explain or predict a communicative situation and its outcomes.