Monday, February 15, 2010

The influence of physical appearance

Most people, nowadays, believe very deeply in first impressions. Also, in order to be successful in the social life, making a good first impression might be the most important. In 2009, the study shows the evidence how the physical appearance highly influence on their first impression. According to this result, the photography of smiling portraits makes their impressions much better.

In this experiement, Professor Laura Naumann showed students 123 photography of self-portrait and provided 9 questions to answer:

1) Seem to be outgoing or introverted personality
2) Seem to be an earnest person or not
3) Seem to be sociable or not
4) Seem to thrive on adventure or not
5) Seem to have strong self-respect or not
6) Seem to be a lonely person or not
7) Seem to have strong religious belief or not
8) Seem to have great moods or not
9) Seem to have strong political orientation or not

As a result, a group of students who saw photography of smiling portrait accurate recognition on people's personality. However, no one could tell right political orientation. Also, another group of students who saw the photos of expressionless portrait could but barely guess whether they have outgoing personality and self-esteem.

Therefore, this study depicts that people can recognize other people's true personality with only looking at their physical appearance. I believe this might help a lot to most people these days; especially to students who are ready and willing to begin their social life.

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