First impressions are everything. People will use many different things to judge your personality before they even get to know you. Although it’s not nice to judge a book by its cover, experts say there is a psychology behind why we do it.
“The main reason we judge others (and even ourselves!) is because our brain is wired to keep us safe,” Kellie Zeigler, certified applied positive psychology practitioner, tells Bustle. “It wants stability and certainty, so it makes quick judgments to help us do that.” For example, when your brain judges someone and labels them “rude,” you’ll know to stay away from them in the future so you don’t get hurt.
According to psychotherapist Jacob Brown, humans are also wired to understand our status in our social hierarchy as a means to survive. “If you think of pack animals, a member of the pack doesn’t want to start acting too dominant or the leader may attack him,” Brown says. “At the same time, they don’t want to act too submissive or they may not get all the food they’re entitled to. Accurately assessing your position in your social group enhances your chances of survival.”
People may unconsciously do this when they judge others on things like their clothes, physical appearance, education level, and job. We use those cues to determine whether we’re above or below them in the social hierarchy so we know how to act moving forward.
Here are small things people use to judge your personality, according to science.
1
The Temperature Of Your Hands
“If you’re one of those people with cold hands, chances are that others are unfortunately judging your personality by your hand temperature when you shake hands,” Elizabeth Irias, licensed marriage and family therapist, tells Bustle. A 2008 study published in the journal Science found that people perceive others as more generous and caring when they held a cup of hot coffee in their hands over iced coffee. “People assume that individuals with warm hands are warm and kind, and that people with cold hands are cold and unemotional,” Irias says. So if you want people to perceive you as warm, hold a cup of warm liquid or keep a small hand-warmer around to use before you meet someone new.
2
Your First Name
This is one you can either thank or blame your parents for. A 2018 study found that your first name can influence how others judge your personality, age, and competency. Researchers from Syracuse University conducted a study of 500 college students and asked them to rate popular names. As they found, female names were more associated with warmth than competence. Male names were found to be the opposite. Names like Dolores or Donald were also considered to be “older” than names like Danielle or Devon. Names that were found to be both highly competent and warm included Anna, Caroline, Elizabeth, John, and Matthew. Of course if people had negative experiences with a certain name, they were more likely to rate them more negatively.
