First Impressions

I read the most ridiculous “scientifically-proven” fact about first impressions the other day.

Here it is:

Individuals with v-shaped eyebrows and naturally downturned smiles are thought of as less trustworthy, while people with easy, natural smiles and eyebrows that have the opposite shape, sloping downward at the ends, received more trust.

Seriously, are we that quick to judge?

During the study in 2013, 609 (weird number) individuals were asked to evaluate photographs of two different CEOs: the photos were portraits, highlighting the CEOs’ facial features.

Based on facial features alone, study participants consistently rated one photo as more trustworthy despite not having any knowledge of the person’s past behaviour or manner of speech.

It seems ridiculous, but apparently true.

The Science of First Impressions

Now a Harvard Business School psychologist, who has studied the science of first impressions for more than 15 years, has come to a new conclusion about how we judge a new person.

In her book Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges, Amy Cuddy says there are two questions everyone subconsciously asks themselves about a new person.

They are:

Can I trust this person?

And

Can I respect this person?

Psychologists refer to these as warmth and competence, and ideally you want to be perceived as having both, but the truth is, many of us aren’t… especially if you have v-shaped eyebrows, apparently!

Interestingly though, Cuddy says that most people, especially in a professional context, believe that competence is the more important factor. After all, they want to prove that they are smart and talented enough to handle your business.

The Big Word

But in fact warmth, or trustworthiness, is the most important factor in how people evaluate you.

“From an evolutionary perspective,” Cuddy says, “it is more crucial to our survival to know whether a person deserves our trust.”

Cuddy’s research shows that these two trait dimensions account for 80 to 90 per cent of an overall first impression, and that holds true across cultures.

The study, which has been published in the book was conducted over a number of year, surveying people in the street.

“After going into about two-dozen different cultures we found that people tended to come up with about 15 to 20 groups in their society,” Cuddy told wired.com.

“Through factor analysis we were able to show that people assess groups largely by these two main factors. Now, when you ask people “how much do you like a given group?” often they’re not going to tell you the truth. There’s too many social desirability concerns. But when you give them, say, 20 traits to evaluate, they’re much more willing to actually give you variance in the responses.”

When asked if knowing the facts of the study would help you make a better first impressions, Cuddy said to make an accurate judgment of somebody, you want to bring out their true nature.

“People need to trust you in order to be themselves. So trying to be the more dominant one in the interaction is probably going to make it harder for you to get accurate information about the other person, because it’s going to shut them down. Or they’re going to feel defensive, or they’re going to feel threatened, or they’re going to try to out alpha you,” she said.

“It’s not going to be any sort of natural interaction. So I’m such a big believer in trying to establish trust, and there’s evidence that shows that trust begets trust. I know people find this very controversial but it’s true. If you are trusting, if you project trust, people are more likely to trust you.”

So there you have it, when going to your next job interview, first think about your smile, your eyebrows… and then consider acting a little less intimidating!