You might have made a better first impression!

Washington, Sept. 11: Everybody gets conscious about their first impression. Some even tend to overthink about this after a conversation with someone they meet for the first time.

A recent study has pointed out that after we have conversations with new people, our conversation partners like us and enjoy our company more than we think they did.

In our social lives, we're constantly engaged in what researchers call “meta- perception”, or trying to figure out how other people see us. Do people think we're boring or interesting, selfish or altruistic, attractive or not?

Erica Boothby, first author of the study said, “Our research suggests that accurately estimating how much a new conversation partner likes us — even though this a fundamental part of social life and something we have ample practice with — is a much more difficult task than we imagine.”

“We call this a ‘ liking gap,’ and it can hinder our ability to develop new relationships,” Margaret S. Clark, co- author of the study explained.

The team of researchers examined various aspects of the liking gap in a series of five studies. In one study, they paired participants who had not met before and tasked them with having a 5- minute conversation featuring typical icebreaker questions ( e. g., Where are you from? What are your hobbies?).

At the end of the conversation, the participants answered questions that gauged how much they liked their conversation partner and how much they thought their conversation partner liked them.

On average, the ratings showed that participants liked their partner more than they thought their partner liked them.

Since it can't logically be the case that both people in a conversation like their partner more than their partner like them, this disparity in average ratings suggests that participants tended to make an estimation error. Indeed, analyses of video recordings suggested that participants were not accounting for their partner's behavioral signals indicating interest and enjoyment.

The study appears in the journal: Psychological Science. — ANI