I don’t make a very good first impression when you first meet me. I am typically awkward and nervous. It’s pretty awful. I think I’m great, but unfortunately, you would never know that based on our first encounter. So, when I learned of a recent study that suggests “even fact will not change first impressions,” I was a little disappointed. According to researchers at the University of Toronto, our first judgments of people are so strong they often override what we are told about them: “In the study on first impressions of sexual orientation, [Nicholas] Rule [of the University of Toronto] and colleagues showed 100 participants photos of 20 men, identifying them either as gay or straight. The photos had been previously coded based on a consensus opinion on whether the men 'looked' gay or straight, which accurately matched to their real-life sexual orientations. The researchers then tested participants' recall of the men's sexual orientations several times to ensure perfect memorization.” Once the participants memorized the faces and their correct sexual orientations, researchers showed the photos to them again and, over varying lengths of time, quizzed them on whether each face was gay or straight. The findings showed that participants were more likely to make judgments based solely on appearance when they had less time to make a decision. “With more time, however, the participants reverted to what they had learned about the men's sexuality.” What does this mean exactly? "Not only should people not assume that others will be able to overcome aspects of their appearance when evaluating them," Rule says, "but also those of us on the other end should be actively working to consider that our impressions of others are biased." In other words, we can and do judge a book by its cover, all the time. And often, we don’t change our minds, even after we’ve read it. Then how do we make a good first impression? There may not be any guarantees, but researcher Jeremy Biesanz advises that “to make a good impression, it is critical that it is done in person.” His advice comes from a series of experiments his team conducted in which they analyzed and compared first-impression reactions from more than 1,000 people who met each other either through 3-minute face-to-face interviews or by watching a video of the person they were supposed to be assessing. Source
