The FIRST Thing People Judge About You Is...

Everyone likes to make a good first impression, but we don’t always succeed. Harvard Business School Professor Amy Cuddy has  spent her entire career studying first impressions, so she’s figured  out exactly what kind of judgments people are making when meeting  someone for the first time.

In her new book, “Presence,”  Cuddy writes that there are two questions we ask ourselves when we meet  someone new: Can I trust this person? And Can I respect this person?  The idea is that by asking those, people are trying to figure out how  warm and competent someone is. She says that from an evolutionary  perspective, we need to assess someone’s warmth to be able to know if  they deserve our trust.

"If someone you're trying to influence doesn't trust you, you're not  going to get very far; in fact, you might even elicit suspicion because  you come across as manipulative," Cuddy explains.  "A warm, trustworthy person who is also strong elicits admiration, but  only after you've established trust does your strength become a gift  rather than a threat."

So when you’re trying to make a positive first impression, there’s  more to think about than body language, eye contact, and if you have  anything stuck in your teeth. For better or worse, snap judgments are  being made about how trustworthy we are in those first few moments.

Source: My Domaine


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