How people judge your personality

Washington, Aug. 28: People make snap judgments and form opinions about others based not only on their facial appearance, but also on their pre- existing beliefs about how others' personalities work, a new study reveals.

The study showed how we interpret others' facial features to form impressions of their personalities.

“People form personality impressions from others' facial appearance within only a few hundred milliseconds. Our findings suggest that face impressions are shaped not only by a face's specific features but also by our own beliefs about personality, for instance, the cues that make a face look competent and make a face look friendly are physically more similar for those who believe competence and friendliness co- occur in other people's personalities,” observes author Freeman.

Freeman added that although these impressions are highly reliable, they are also often very inaccurate.

“And yet they are consequential, as previous research has found face impressions to predict a range of real- world outcomes, from political elections, to hiring decisions, criminal sentencing, or dating,” said Freeman.

It is long known that people make some personality impressions of others based merely upon their facial appearance.

— ANI senior study Jonathan