Snap. Patti Wood
than to judge on mere appearances.” Let me clarify. I’m not talking about reducing people to stereotypes based on prejudice or bigotry. I’m talking about the accuracy of your first gut-level reactions. There is a big difference. Gut-level impressions based on nonverbal cues are instinctual; prejudice and bigotry stem from learned cultural and social factors. They are part of our second-stage impressions. True gut-level first impressions are not subject to inaccuracy like stereotypes.
Stereotypes, in fact, undermine accuracy. For instance, one dramatic aspect of this process is the way we create self-fulfilling prophecies. We assign someone specific personality traits in the first few minutes, and then, as we interact, we collect information that makes our predictions about that person seem true, ignoring information that might contradict our stereotypical impression.
For example, a business owner interviewing contractors for a big job might see a candidate with a sweaty forehead and no smile, dressed in a gray T-shirt, coming toward him and think, “I don’t want to hire this unprofessional guy to do this work.” The business owner might not notice, however, that the contractor carries a clipboard, leans forward and nods as he listens, takes copious notes about what the business owner wants, and spends a longer time in the meeting than other potential contractors who bid for the job. All these latter cues are signs that the contractor is, in fact, being professional.
In the coming pages, we’ll look more at factors that undermine our accuracy.
EXERCISE
Explore Your Snaps
1. Think of a recent instance when you met someone and formed either a negative or a positive snap of him or her. What did this person’s body do? What was his or her voice like? Did the person’s actions match his or her words? Record or recall everything you can remember about your first few moments together and how you immediately felt in this person’s presence.
2. Think of a time when someone formed an inaccurate first impression of you that you found out about. Perhaps it was a date who later said that he thought differently of you after spending more time with you, or a colleague who was initially biased against your joining his work group. Think back and try to recall your nonverbal behaviors at the first meeting. Were you nervous? Quiet? Tired? Stressed or insecure about anything? See if you can figure out what the other person saw when he saw you.
3. Ask yourself, “What are my three best qualities?” How do you express these qualities nonverbally? When people first meet you, do they recognize that you possess these qualities?
Survival Instincts
Cavemen and cavewomen knew all about first impressions. Out hunting for food, they were vulnerable to attack by strangers. If one of our caveman ancestors suddenly spied a stranger from an unfamiliar tribe, he had to make a very quick assessment — “Does he look like he will kill me?” Yes, we can trace the ability to form accurate first impressions to our primeval origins, when we needed to protect ourselves from potentially dangerous strangers. Forming quick first impressions is one of our basic survival instincts. When our ancestor saw that stranger from an unfamiliar tribe, he had to decide quickly how to approach him or whether to approach him at all, on the strength of a first impression. In a case like this, if someone’s impression was not accurate, he — and his genes — would not survive. We are genetically predisposed to form quick, accurate first impressions.
In modern day-to-day situations, first impressions play a critical but poorly understood role. We still need to protect ourselves, and we still fear the unknown. When we meet someone, we need to know both whether it is safe to approach and how to approach and interact. We don’t know his temperament or opinions. In a sense, we don’t know if he “bites.” So we assess him quickly. We may start by putting him in a category — safe or unsafe — and acting accordingly. This is vitally important for our comfort in a peopled world. If we could not do this, it would be too scary to leave the house, our cozy cave, at all.
If someone comes into work harrumphing and rolling her eyes, stands in front of you with her arms crossed and mouth twisted, and growls, “Good morning,” you immediately form a first impression. For one thing, you know it’s not going to be a good morning as long as you have to deal with this unhappy person. If people at a social event are standing in a circle talking to one another, and one of them smiles as you approach and steps aside to let you in, she is indicating that you are welcome and accepted. No words are exchanged, but you understand immediately. We may take for granted our understanding of these kinds of interactions, but if our gut-level impressions are to be useful, we have to pay attention to them.
Stay Tuned In to Your Gut Instincts
The first time you communicate with someone, pay attention to your gut. Do you feel safe interacting with that person?
Have you ever called a friend, heard his hello, and known something was wrong? Did you change your behavior on the basis of that gut instinct? Whenever you begin interactions with people you know, check in at the gut level. What are they communicating on this day, at this moment? Do you need to step away, talk another time, or find out what’s going on and give them comfort?
Many years ago, I walked into a drugstore near my house and saw a tall man with a mustache wearing a well-tailored, three-piece suit and holding a thin, unlit cigar as he stood nonchalantly near the magazine racks by the entrance to the store. I froze in place, and every fiber of my being screamed out, “Danger, danger! Leave the store now!” There was something about him I didn’t trust. But I ignored that first impression. “This is a well-dressed man,” I thought. “You’re being ridiculous.” So I walked past him into the store and did my shopping. When I went up to the front counter with my items, the well-dressed man was in front of me checking out. I looked at him and my whole body seized up and sent the message “Danger! Leave now.” Again I ignored it, but I thought of something I had forgotten to pick up, and left the counter to go to the rear of the store. When I returned, the man was gone and the cashier stood pale and frozen behind the counter. I reached out and touched her arm, and said, “Honey, what’s wrong?” She answered, “That man just robbed me at gunpoint.”
Research proves that, while we need to create categories to understand our world, we must be careful of stereotypes, such as “well-dressed men can be trusted.” As I mentioned earlier, stereotypes are maladaptive forms of categories. They do not correspond to what is actually present in the environment. In my case, the fact that he was well dressed had no bearing on whether or not he was a gun-wielding robber.
The moral of the story? Go with your gut. Even though I am an expert in body language, I ignored my first gut-level intuition of danger because it seemed illogical. However, my subconscious mind was busy picking up on little nonverbal details that told me the guy in the suit was not harmless. My limbic brain was processing cues, including the fact that a man in a suit, in the middle of a workday, was lingering by a magazine rack but not actually looking at the periodicals. “This is weird!” said my brain, leading to my “Danger!” stress response. Later, at the checkout counter, though my conscious mind wanted me to ignore it, my limbic brain got me to leave that part of the store. I’ve had many instances of reading people with eerie accuracy at a first meeting; perhaps you have, as well. This story is a reminder to pay attention to the powerful intelligence processed with amazing speed in your deep limbic system.
In the movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the character Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist, goes to a suspected serial killer’s house while his suspect is gone and finds evidence that the person is indeed a killer. When Blomkvist hears that person return to the house, he starts to run away. The killer politely asks him to come back into the house for a drink, and as the killer keeps making that request, we see Blomkvist standing with his feet and lower torso turned away from the killer, signaling his desire to keep on running. Blomkvist, ignoring what his body so clearly wants to do, turns around and goes toward the killer, even as we in the audience yell out, “No, don’t do it!” When Blomkvist reenters the house, the killer greets him, revealing a gun and saying, “Our desire to be polite overrides our bodies’ desire to flee danger.”
In snap impressions, pay attention to your body. It can read clues about danger and then alert your conscious mind. Your body also signals