What Your “Liking Gap” Can Teach You About First Impressions
Most people are terrible at knowing how they come off
For better or worse, first impressions can be hard to shake. Whether it’s a high-stakes job interview, a blind date, or dinner with future in-laws, research has consistently shown that the way we first come across can set the tone for a relationship long after the initial encounter.
It’s not surprising, then, that first impressions can also be a source of significant stress. Most of us have had the experience of agonizing about an interaction immediately after it ends: Why did I talk so much? Did he think I was boring? How could I have messed up that joke?
A recent study illustrates just how common these reactions really are. Over a series of five experiments pairing up strangers in conversation, a team of psychologists uncovered a phenomenon they dubbed “the liking gap”: Even before meeting the person they were paired with, participants predicted that their partner would find them less interesting than they would find their partner. Following the conversation, participants believed their partner liked them even less than they had initially predicted, even though their partners generally felt far more positively toward them afterward. In other words, we tend to wrongly assume that new people won’t like…
