As a member of Stack Overflow and Super User with over 500 reputation on each, I have the privilege of reviewing content in the Triage (SO only) and First Posts queues. Basically, I am presented with a fountain of questions and answers that have a strong chance of being unacceptable in some way and therefore worthy of moderative action.
One thing I have noticed is that users who have their avatar set to something involving the French flag - in support of the victims in Paris - tend to produce lower-quality content. (Context for future readers: there were several serious terrorist attacks in Paris a week or so ago.) By "lower-quality content" I mean that the question shows little research effort or says in so many words "give me the code", or that the answer is a guess or actually a comment.
Now, I know that content sent into these review queues is mostly from new users, and it makes sense that newly registered users with the chance to set their avatar for the first time would be more likely to set it to something than existing users would be to change it. I'm not convinced, however, that the phenomenon is that simple.
My guess is that there's a negative correlation between being thinking/analytic/StackExchange-material and being the type of person to set one's avatar to this and that in support of the cause du jour. People of the latter kind prioritize feeling, and there's probably a "fitting in" political correctness motivation there too. Armchair activism makes those of a certain personality type feel like they've done something, while thinkers (for which StackExchange is built) actually need to do the thing. Therefore, thinkers - producers of quality content - help the cause in meaningful ways, or just remain disengaged from the events if they're not interested.
We pray, but never move
We sing, but never do
It's time we get our hands dirty
Realize there's a whole lot of hurting
-"Be One", Natalie Grant
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