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Op-Ed: Can you accurately judge someone in 3 seconds? Many people do

This range of studies of human interactions has its roots in a book called “3 Seconds: The Power of Thinking Twice” by Les Parrott III PhD, published in 2007. New studies, notably a study this year by Roy Morgan Gallup research, have expanded the range of the study of “First Impressionism” in practical terms, addressing the dynamics of first impressions in a business context.
The findings are pretty grim — 67 percent of respondents agreed that first impressions were important; 66 percent of respondents said they wouldn’t give someone who made a bad first impression another chance; 75 percent stated that “they wouldn’t make contact for more than a month.”
If that last rather ambivalent finding gives you some pause for thought, your social and business instincts are doing fine. A month is an extremely long time in modern social mixes. In business, a month is forever. Very few things take a month to do any more, and business deals have a relatively short shelf life.
Nor is the theory of first impressions confined to business deals. Employers use it regularly, and the much-ground-out theory of staggeringly superficial good presentation at interviews is still the yardstick for most advisory pieces on job interview performance.
The American Psychological Association (APA) published a virtual standard shopping list based on this motif. This is the definitive standard advice given for decades. (In fairness, it’s accepted in the employment industry that employers do use first impressions as a filter.) When I was writing in the employment sector, I had to work my way around this virtual psychosis of superficiality to focus on high value interview performance, rather than the window dressing.
The criteria used by the APA for making a good first impression more or less define first impression folklore:
Dress neatly – Like a normal human being would be expected to do in most circumstances?
Be friendly and outgoing – As distinct from being a homicidal maniac at the interview? Oh… that might work…
Exude confidence – That won’t annoy anyone, now will it, particularly if you’re confidently getting the interview answers wrong?
Field questions gracefully – With or without adding any high-value information?
Prepare and practice – It’s not a job interview at this stage; it’s the role that will get you an Academy Award as an accountant or fast food worker. Some job interview coaches actually give acting lessons to clients.
Coincidentally, speed dating uses the theory of first impressions as a sort of scoreboard approach, so you can “succeed,” banal snicker, banal snicker. So there’s no real substantive difference between a job interview and speed dating?
The problem, of course, is that first impressions relate to judgment, and judgments can be very wrong. Given the three-second timeframe, the chances of a first impression being right aren’t good.
Consider — since when can you assess an entire person, their skills and their life experience, on the basis of three seconds? You’re that observant? Suddenly, you’re an authority on anyone you meet in roughly the same length of time required to take a sip of coffee?
Does this mean that the entire culture of first impressions is based on yet another Recipe for Success from the hacks? Largely, yes. At a time when job and career dissatisfaction is simply an ongoing weather report, being two dimensional is now a default virtue. Never mind your expertise and Nobel Prize; could you pass the KFC job interview?
Nor is the downside of first impressions getting a lot of attention. It’s been axiomatic for decades that every scam artist you meet only needs a nice clean suit and a tie, and presents like a commercial to get credibility. Einstein used to wear a cord drawstring around his trousers and wasn’t a great “presenter”. So you’d do business with the scam artist, but not with Einstein?
Ironically, Parrott, who’s obviously not impressed with this culture in any form, lists six impulses to avoid which “lead to mediocrity … without a second thought”:
1. To give up without trying
2. To shun a challenge
3. To settle for the status quo
4. To shirk responsibility
5. To do the bare minimum
6. Avoid taking action

The killer point — the entire culture of “First Impressionism” is based on these points as applied by those making the judgment calls.
1. You don’t try to make an accurate assessment — You don’t even do your job; you simply use your box-ticking approach to judge someone.
2. There’s no challenge in doing nothing.
3. The status quo is the template approach; an idiot in a nice suit is worth more than a genius in jeans and T shirt.
4. In a culture of non-accountability, responsibility is no problem. A group decision, however wrong, avoids responsibility by definition.
5. Doing the bare minimum is “smart”, like fearlessly agreeing with everyone else. The less you do, the less criticism you receive.
6. Avoiding taking action is another clever (dare we say impressive?) option, proving how savvy you are, and ensuring that even great first impressions don’t commit you to anything.
Parrott basically says that you need to go deeper, and stop using first impressions as a basis for anything. I’d say stop pretending to be a damn psychologist/clairvoyant/great judge of character and find out exactly who and what you’re dealing with.

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Editor-at-Large based in Sydney, Australia.

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