Mental Health

What People Think Of You In The First Five Minutes Can Shape First Impressions

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Dec 09, 2015 09:13 AM EST

Everyone knows about making first impressions. They are called "thin-slicing" by modern psychologists. It is a small window of time in which other people impress people immediately---either positively or negatively. This kind of "thin-slice methodology involves the intense observation of a small selection of an interaction", which might not even be for five minutes. It is used to draw conclusions about other people's emotions as well as attitudes.

In just those first five minutes, people can come to a lot of conclusions about others, according to HNGN. Here are a few of them:

Trustworthiness! This is the first thing that people conclude about you. Researchers Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov say that it can be concluded in as little as a tenth of a second, according to a study published for the BPS Research Digest. Hence, it is just how you look, in five minutes, that makes people make up their minds.

Secondly, your high status is also a conclusion that people can arrive at, based on the names of the brand of clothing you wear. It decides whether you have status and wealth or not, concludes a Dutch study. However, these perceptions do not affect the "perceived attractiveness" of people, but is just about social status, according to MSN Lifestyle.

Another study in 2008 found that a person's sexual preference can be decided in just a twentieth of a second. The assumptions were found to be 57 percent accurate when scientists studied the participants in the study.

Fourthly, it is important to look at people in the eye while talking to them, concludes Nora A. Murphy, a professor at the Loyola Marymount University. It makes people arrive at the conclusion that you are intelligent. "Looking while speaking was a key behavior" in making people make up their minds about it, said the study.

Finally, men are thought to be more dominating if they have shaved heads, say researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. After the initial study, another, more extensive research also added to these assumptions that were arrived at, according to researchers.

These thin-slice assumptions may be just one slice of the entire study. Still, they are the first basis on which you can build up your assessment of people, so you could take note of them.

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