Along similar lines, seeing a flash of a face for just 40 milliseconds - 10 times faster than the average eye-blink - was all many study participants needed to tell if a man was gay or a woman was a lesbian, and thinking about it longer actually made their so-called “gaydar” less accurate. Studies have shown that women’s sexual attitudes and behaviors can be accurately judged from 5-minute video clips and even from photos of their faces. For example, personality traits inferred from the faces of executives predict their leadership skills, measured in terms of bottom-line profits, and the effects are just as strong whether the photo is current or was taken in the leader’s college days. But we’re also quick to make accurate judgments about facts that seem a lot more difficult to predict, such as the amount of money a chief executive is going to make for the company in a given year, or someone’s romantic attraction toward us. Multiple studies have shown that judgments of someone’s extroversion made by looking at that person’s photograph (even for just 50 milliseconds) predict how extroverted he or she actually is. Telling whether someone is extroverted or shy is easy. Surprisingly Spot-OnĮvidence points to accuracy in some of the snap judgments we make about other people. On average, the students picked the actual winner of the election almost 70% of the time. As each pair of candidates came up on the computer screen, the students were asked to judge who looked more competent. In a study published in 2005, students at Princeton University were shown photos of candidates from the last three US Congressional races. But studies have shown that when we step into the voting booth, the candidate’s face drives our decision. Voters and the media scrutinize a candidate’s platform, voting record, experience, and qualifications. Billions of dollars are spent annually across the globe to advance political campaigns. Whether we’re selecting a cashier at a grocery store or picking players for a neighborhood ball game, we go through a detailed and complicated process of noticing cues that give away other people’s traits, and then we unconsciously run a series of calculations to make predictions about how they might act.Įven in cases where we already have a lot of information, a snap judgment overpowers decision making. Knowing how people size each other up from day to day has significant implications for identifying and subduing implicit bias, discrimination, and stereotyping. The science of snap judgments is more than just figuring out what we can tell by looking at each other. The human tendency to, as the old idiom says, judge a book by its cover, has become a source of extensive psychological study. And all of this happens outside of our awareness, in the unconscious processes of the mind, research shows. These first impressions color the way we interact with other people from that point forward. You think hard about every detail: Remember to sit up straight, look them in the eye, give a firm handshake, tell them what they want to hear.īut despite all the effort you spend trying to make a good impression, the interview might be over the second the recruiters first lay eyes on you.īefore we can finish blinking our eyes, we’ve already decided whether we want to hire, date, hate, or make friends with a person we’re encountering for the first time. You’ve tried to anticipate everything your potential new employers may ask you. You’ve spent hours preparing for the job interview.
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