FEATURE
How to win friends and influence people— st 21 century style
JAMES HALL
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Rule #1: Your contemptible unchecked vanity is now your greatest asset!
‘Plastic face can’t smile the white out—with the 24 hour party people’ –Happy Mondays
by Scott Barry Kaufman
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t’s a scenario that social-butterfly Marinites face all the time: You’re in a new environment. You don’t know anyone. You look around the room and try to size people up. Whom should you talk to? Who is likely to like you? Some people immediately rub you the wrong way. Others seem more attractive. Everyone else at that party is doing the same thing. You know you are being judged, just as you are judging others. Welcome to the fascinating world of person perception—a place that image-conscious Marin residents would do well to understand. Recent approaches are allowing us to dig deeper into person perception and pinpoint the factors that influence popularity at first sight. A new approach that holds particular promise is the Social Relations Lens Model, which integrates a number of prior approaches. The model allows researchers to investigate the components of interpersonal attraction and make a more finely grained analysis of the personality traits and cues involved in the perception process. Adopting this framework, psychology pro12 PACIFIC SUN JULY 8 - JULY 14, 2011
fessor Mitja D. Back and his colleagues at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany recently conducted a comprehensive “popularity” study that included multiple personality traits and behavioral cues. At the beginning of a freshman introductory psychology class, 73 German students (52 female and 21 male) were randomly assigned a seat as they entered the classroom. One by one, each student went to a marked spot on the floor and briefly introduced him- or herself. The introductions, which lasted from four to 21 seconds, were videotaped. Each person was then evaluated by the rest of the freshmen on two dimensions: liking (“How likable do you find this person?,” “Would you like to get to know this person?”), and meta-perceptions of initial liking (“How likable will this person find you?,” “Will this person like to get to know you?”). Each freshman was also given a packet of questionnaires to complete at home, including measures of personality. Among other personality traits, the personality battery included 35 items related to selfcentered values (e.g., social power, forgiveness, success, courtesy, ambition), which
were combined to form an overall dimension of self-centered vs. self-transcendent values. Afterward, all videotapes were coded by independent observers for observable physical, nonverbal and audible cues. WHO IS POPULAR? Those high in neuroticism and low in selfesteem expected to be disliked, when in reality neither neuroticism nor self-esteem was related to popularity. It seems, then, that neurotic people and those with low self-esteem have inaccurate perceptions of reality. Extroverts, on the other hand, were more liked and were also expected to like others more. In reality though, extroversion was not related to being a liker or expecting to be liked. Most alarmingly, those who reported more self-centered values were more liked and were also expected to like others more. In reality, self-centered people actually disliked others more, evaluating their peers more negatively! Therefore, while self-centered people may be perceived as more friendly, they are actually less friendly. Why were extroverts and self-centered
individuals evaluated more positively? What cues were they broadcasting that influenced their popularity? Extroversion was related to cues that had a positive effect on popularity: fashionable appearance; speedy, energetic and self-assured body movements; friendly facial expressions, strong voice; and original self-introductions. Interestingly, those with self-centered values tended to display very similar cues. Prior research has linked the popularity of extroverts to their desire to captivate the attention of others, their expressive behaviors, verbal humor and fashionable dress. This study shows that both extroverts and self-centered people share similar behavioral cues. These cues appear to be related to emotional expressiveness and social dominance. Extroverts and self-centered people both are signaling these traits, and these traits influence popularity. Interestingly, prior research has shown that people accurately perceive extroversion even after only being exposed to a face for 50 milliseconds! Consistent with the Back and colleagues study, signals such as cheerfulness and positive facial expressions