PERSONAL SPECIAL ....The problem with first impressions

The problem with first impressions

We are born to judge others by how they look: our brains come hardwired with a specific face-processing area, and even shortly after birth, babies would rather look at a human face than anything else. Within their first year, they become more discerning, and are more likely to crawl towards friendly looking faces than those who look a bit shifty. By the time we reach adulthood, we are snap-judgement specialists, jumping to conclusions about a person's character and status after seeing their face for just a tenth of a second. And we shun considered assessments of others in favour of simple shortcuts – for example, we judge a baby-faced individual as more trustworthy, and associate a chiselled jaw with dominance.

Unfair, it may be, but it makes good evolutionary sense. Ours is an ultra-social species, so being able to quickly assess whether someone is friend or foe and whether they have the power to help or hurt us is important survival information. But there is a problem. As psychologist Alexander Todorov of Princeton University points out, more often than not, our first impressions are wrong. He suggests that poor feedback and the fact that we meet more strangers than our prehistoric ancestors would have, both play a part.

Another problem is that we don’t stick to stereotyping faces one at a time. We are just as quick to categorise groups of people and then discriminate against them as a result. Research by Susan Fiske, also of Princeton, and her colleagues has shown that group stereotypes, too, are based on levels of trustworthiness and status. The researchers plotted these categories on a two-by-two grid, each quarter of which is associated with a particular emotion: pity, disgust, pride or envy. This, they found, informs our behaviour towards people in the group.

Their findings don’t paint us in a great light. We tend to dehumanise groups we judge to be lacking in warmth, and react violently to those with high status. “Historically, many genocides have been directed towards groups that fall into the envy quadrant,” says Fiske. Even our relatively positive reactions have downsides: we may pity those of low status, but react by patronising them, and the pride we feel towards our own group can spill over into nepotism.

If you think you are above this kind of thing, think again. Even if you consciously reject stereotypes, the culture you live in does not, and experiments suggest that you are likely to share its biases.

The best way to escape this evolutionary trap is to really get to know people from outside your echo chamber. Working together is ideal because relying on someone forces you to look beyond simplistic first impressions. And don’t trust social stereotypes – even your own national stereotype. The evidence suggests that we are not even accurate when it comes to judging ourselves.

New Scientist
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