"What we observe here is that the accuracy of impressions is the same when you meet someone face to face or simply watch a video of them," Biesanz, says. They also evaluated their own personalities.
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The first study analyzed a series of experiments involving more than 1,000 participants who met each other through either a 3-minute speed-dating style interview or by watching a video of the person they are evaluating. In three studies, Biesanz and colleagues compared the accuracy and bias of impressions formed under different circumstances. That is the bottom line of his new research that looks at the difference in how we form impressions in person, versus online, by video, or by just watching.
"If you want to make a good impression, it is critical that it is done in person," says Jeremy Biesanz of the University of British Columbia. "Not only should people not assume that others will be able to overcome aspects of their appearance when evaluating them, but also those of us on the other end should be actively working to consider that our impressions of others are biased." "Together, these studies help to illustrate the often inescapable nature of how we form impressions of other people based on their appearance," Rule says.
In that study, facial appearance was a stronger predictor of whether people viewed someone as trustworthy than descriptive information provided, even even it conflicted. Rule presented this study at the SPSP conference today, along with a related new study that looked at how people categorized faces as trustworthy or not. In the 1990s, people might see Martin and think "oh, that's a gay guy," he says, "but then you'd recognize that it was Ricky Martin and think 'oh, wait, that's Ricky Martin - he told Barbara Walters that he was straight.' So there's a corrective process there: First impressions continue to assert themselves long after you know relevant information about a person." Rule uses the example of Ricky Martin who for years denied he was gay before finally coming out. "It was important for us to establish a conflict between perception - how the face looked - and memory - what they knew about the man's sexual orientation." They did this to "teach the participants to learn information that was opposite to their perceptions," Rule says. Interestingly, the researchers labeled half the faces with their actual sexual orientation and half with their opposite orientation. "When they were allowed more time, though, they judged according to what they knew about the individuals." "Hence, they seemed to judge by appearance when they were forced to make their judgments quickly," Rule says. With more time, however, the participants reverted to what they had learned about the men's sexuality.
The less time they had to categorize the faces, the more likely the participants were to categorize the men according to whether they looked gay or straight rather than what they had been told about their sexuality. The researchers then tested participants' recall of the men's sexual orientations several times to ensure perfect memorization.Īfter this learning phase, the researchers then showed participants the faces again, varying the amount of time they had to categorize the men's sexual orientations. 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. In the study on first impressions of sexual orientation, Rule and colleagues showed 100 participants photos of 20 men, identifying them either as gay or straight. "This happens so quickly - just a small fraction of a second - that what we see can sometimes dominate what we know." "As soon as one sees another person, an impression is formed," Rule says. While we may be able to size up someone's personality from a Facebook photo, it will often be more negative impression than one formed face-to-face. And researchers say that whether a first impression occurs online versus in person is important. "With effort, we can overcome this to some extent, but we are continually tasked with needing to correct ourselves." The less time we have to make our judgments, the more likely we are to go with our gut, even over fact, he says.Ī series of recent studies, presented today at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) annual conference in Austin, shows that appearance shapes everything from whether we ultimately end up liking someone to our assessment of their sexual orientation or trustworthiness. "We judge books by their covers, and we can't help but do it," says Nicholas Rule of the University of Toronto.