Are first impressions really accurate? – Quiz

1.  Read the text and answer the questions. 

1. Who was one of the first researchers to try and find out if good judges of character exist?
It was Henry F Adams in 1927.

2. True or False?  Reading personality and reading emotion are the same thing.
False. They are two distinct skills.

3. Why are most of us probably good judges of emotion?
Because emotions can generate easily identifiable physical signs that most of us are probably able to accurately identify.

4. True or False?  It’s possible to be a good judge of personality just by looking at the other person.
False. There needs to be an interaction with the other person, and that person needs to be a ‘good target’.

5. How does a ‘good target’ help make a good judge of character?
The ‘good target’ will give useful cues and information about their personality, and the good judge will detect and utilise them. A good judge of character cannot be successful without a ‘good target’ to read.

2.  Choose the appropriate words or phrases to complete the following sentences.

1. A dog can identify its owner by their scent alone.

2. It is widely believed that adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep a night.

3. The new factory will generate many new jobs.

4. Stop talking about that! It’s not relevant right now.

5. The human ear cannot detect certain sounds.  

Are first impressions really accurate? 

Are you a good judge of character? Can you make an accurate judgement of someone’s personality based only on your first impression of them? Ironically, the answer lies as much in them as it does in you.

One of the first people to try to identify good judges of character was US psychologist Henry F Adams in 1927. His research led him to conclude that people fell into two groups – good judges of themselves and good judges of others. Adams’s research has been widely criticised since then, but he wasn’t entirely wrong about there being two distinct types.

More on that in a moment, but first we need to define what a good judge of character is. Is it someone who can read personality or someone who can read emotion? Those are two distinct skills. Emotions such as anger or joy or sadness can generate easily identifiable physical signs. Most of us would probably be able to accurately identify these signs, even in a stranger. As such, most of us are probably good judges of emotion.

In order to be a good judge of personality, however, there needs to be an interaction with the other person, and that person needs to be a ‘good target‘. ‘Good targets’ are people who reveal relevant and useful cues to their personality. So this means ‘the good judge’ will only manifest when reading ‘good targets’. This is according to Rogers and Biesanz in their 2019 journal entitled ‘Reassessing the good judge of personality’. “We found consistent, clear and strong evidence that the good judge does exist”, Rogers and Biesanz concluded. But their key finding is that the good judge does not have magical gifts of perception – they are simply able to “detect and utilise information provided by the good target”.

So, are first impressions really accurate? Well, if you’re a good judge talking to a ‘good target’, then it seems the answer is ‘yes’. And now we know that good judges probably do exist, more research can be done into how they read personality, what kind of people they are – and whether their skills can be taught.