I wish I knew the answer to your question.  I am an introvert and it is a joke in my family (but true) that if I am at an event and sit down, often nobody comes to sit by me.  It must be some sort of non-verbal message, but I have no idea what it is.  :-)

It is a bit off the face, but widening this to visual expression of extroversion and self-esteem, I use

1) Twenty Photographs Tests. The number of self-representing photos and the number of people in the photos probably relates to extroversion.

2) Auto-portraiture. In children size may relate to self-esteem and extroversion but in students, females drawn themselves fairly small and cute.

3) Collage expressing life

4) Japanese Smile scale (non-validated) which correlates with RSES

5) Japanese Poise and Bodily Manners scale (non validated) which correlates with social adaption more than RSES

6) A two frame comic completion scale which shows positivity (about 75% positive) among verbally humble Japanese but close to zero internal validity.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nihonbunka/16151767650

I attempt to assess visually expressed self esteem among Japanese

I would also be interested in using the flashed face distortion effect

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nihonbunka/18673844346/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT9i99D_9gI

Using ones own face as well. I guess that the degree of distortion of ones own face would co-vary (positively or negatively I am not sure) with extroversion, and or visual self-esteem.

 Hi Mitch,

That is a fabulous question! I don’t know that I understand the ‘salient social motives’ part, but I would have thought that the use of thin-slice methodology might be a useful way to capture the preference for extraversion. For instance, in the study below by Oveis et al. (2009), they used children’s smile intensity in a posed photograph and found that it correlated with parental measures of the children’s extraversion. This would be one way to start the process: What kind of differential preference might be shown for photographs with more salient smiles (as a visual marker for extraversion?)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2886851/pdf/nihms200471.pdf

Oveis, C., Gruber, J., Keltner, D., Stamper, J. L., & Boyce, W. T. (2009). Smile intensity and warm touch as thin slices of child and family affective style. Emotion, 9(4), 544.

kindest regards,

Christian