“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.“ How true! Personnel directors and job coaches have emphasized the importance of the first handshake and eye contact on the occasion of the first job interview for years. It is obvious that the first impression also plays a role when flirting. Indeed, a study at Princeton University clearly demonstrates how quickly the counterpart’s – at any rate temporary – judgment is reached. It states that we only have one tenth of a second to catch the interest of our opposite number. With a little bad luck we could well have landed on the trash dump of history’s flirts after that. Or have messed up the chance for a new job.

The study’s participants had to judge portrait pictures according to traits like “attractive”, “likeable”, “trustworthy”, “capable”, or “aggressive”. The photos initially appeared on the screen one tenth of a second, then half a second and finally for an entire second. Each time the test subjects had to give their evaluation and at the same time state how sure they were of their judgment. With one exception the test subjects did not change their assessment even after they had an opportunity to look at the picture for a longer period of time; then they were even more sure of their valuation. Social psychologists call this phenomenon the Halo-Effect that is actually based on an erroneous perception: A person’s individual characteristics create an overall impression that can be extremely persistent. For instance, classic examples are the assumptions “attractive” = „lovable, nice“, or “wearer of glasses” = “intelligent, wise”, “blond” = “dumb, ignorant” … etc. Continue reading ...

Tags: Job interview, Job, career