How You Are Judged in The First 10 Seconds of Meeting Someone
Judging people before you know them is offensive, but it’s also a survival skill.
No matter how good a person you are, people will judge you immediately after they see you. They judge your intelligence and your competence. They want to know if you can be trusted and how you relate to others.
For the first ten seconds of meeting someone, our brain makes different assessments of the person. Judgment is an opinion about someone’s character, thoughts, and appearance.
It’s normal to hold an opinion about people. Judgment helps you understand someone better to know whether you should continue talking with them or keep your distance.
However, judgment becomes a problem when the opinion is intended to attack a person’s character, intelligence, beliefs, and choices in a way it causes shame.
We all judge. We are predisposed to this natural tendency; it is part of human nature.
Our brains are wired to make automatic judgments about others’ behaviors so that we can move through the world without spending much time or energy in understanding everything we see.
Understanding is harder as it requires deep thinking, patience, compassion, and an open mind.
Most times we judge people based on superficial evidence. But when we get to know someone, our judgments tend to be more positive and less automatic.
“When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself.” ~ Earl Nightingale
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves, a self-awareness. What we see in others is quite often what we see in ourselves, and what irritates us in others may be what we don’t like in ourselves.
How do people judge you?
When you walk into a room full of people, something in you gives people the confidence to approach you and talk to you. For the same reason, people form an option about you ten seconds after meeting you.
Although it’s wrong to judge a person strictly by how they look, unfortunately, that is how we know more about a person. Studies show that we express a lot about ourselves on first impressions. You can tell a person’s passion, character, including sexual interest just by looking at them.
They judge your trustworthiness
When you are speaking to a doctor, you feel comfortable telling him/her your problems. That is because their composure is calm and they look you straight in the eye when they speak. These are important tact in creating a trusting environment.
Psychologists have discovered that one of the strong points of knowing a trustworthy person is their face. Faces that look happy even when not smiling and those that have feminine and even baby-like features tend to be trusted more.
We look at people’s faces to understand their intentions. Therefore, trust is the first step we look for in people. We want to know whether we should approach or avoid them. If their intentions are good or bad.
Although, observing facial expressions alone is fairly accurate in judging if a person is trustworthy or not. However, it helps to remove doubts and allows us to know someone better.
They judge your confidence
The way you see yourself when you look in the mirror radiates all over your body. If you see yourself as broken, you will be shy to be around people. But when you see yourself as a winner. You will feel confident about yourself and that’s what attracts others to you.
People judge your confidence level by your body language. When you look and feel confident, it shows on the outside. Confident people own their bodies and they occupy space where they stand or sit.
They stay calm, to an extent even under pressure. They speak slowly to make sure their listener understands them. They maintain eye contact while speaking and they speak with authority. Confident people respect everyone equally because they don’t feel threatened by anyone.
Confidence is the level of trust one has in themselves. Therefore, we judge a person’s confidence because we are more likely to believe those who trust in themselves than those who do not.
They judge your financial status
Believe it or not, our minds subconsciously access the weight of someone’s pocket when we look at them. We also judge ourselves by the purchases we make. How wealthy someone is and what they choose to spend their money on says a lot about them.
Psychologists agree that you can tell if a person is richer or poorer than average by looking at their expressionless faces. Something subtle reveals on your face about your social and financial status.
Recognizing one’s economic class can be predicted if their face is neutral and expressionless. But if they are smiling or angry you can’t tell if they are rich or poor.
The theory behind rich people’s assessment is that they have been through different life experiences that shape their faces. They are not easily alarmed and because they take life seriously, you can count on them to be dependable.
Judging others less can improve our relationships and our emotional well-being. We are also able to appreciate and love the world around us more as it is, instead of trying to adapt it to our specs.
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