Читать книгу Snap - Patti Wood - Страница 9
ОглавлениеUnderstand the Four First-Impression Factors: Credibility, Likability, Attractiveness, and Power
Marie was nervous about a meeting with a high-level executive, Ron, at his country club. Ron raised his eyebrows and smiled from across the room, approached, and said, “Marie?” When she nodded “yes,” he tilted his head briefly and his smile grew and he continued walking toward her, with his hand outstretched, as though they were long-lost friends at a reunion, rather than a freelancer and potential client at an interview. Her tension about the meeting eased. Ron spoke warmly to Maria, as well as to the dining room hostess as she walked them to a table. He gave a friendly open greeting to their server and, once Marie was settled in her seat, turned his heart toward her and thanked her for coming to meet him. Though there were many distractions, he fully focused on her. “I like his confidence,” thought Marie. “I thought I would be scared, but I’m not.”
Marie very much wanted the work Ron might offer her, and felt a bit out of her comfort zone before meeting him. Yet almost instantly, she relaxed and felt comfortable, even safe.
Melissa thought she had found the perfect business partner when she met Jason. He was confident, attractive, and a great storyteller. He laughed all the time. When she first met him, and in later interactions, she felt “overwhelmed” by his enthusiasm and wit, but she would say to herself, “That’s because I’m an introvert.”
She noticed that sometimes there would be a swift change in Jason’s demeanor. When a meeting was over and the other people had left, he would put on his lopsided grin and say something sarcastic about them. This would make Melissa uncomfortable, but again she would reason away her doubts, saying, “That’s his sense of humor, and the clients love him.” Jason was so charismatic that charm oozed out of him like honey. The problem was that the honey was so thick that Melissa couldn’t see through it. Jason was a compulsive liar and a smooth talker, and he took her top clients from her, leaving her business in the lurch.
Something in Ron’s demeanor immediately put Marie at ease. There was something about Jason’s demeanor that charmed Melissa but also made her feel “overwhelmed” and “uncomfortable.” We know that we make snap judgments within seconds of meeting someone for the first time. But what is it that we see that can either put us at ease or set us on edge?
We assess four “first-impression factors” when we first meet somebody:
1. Credibility: This most important factor makes us feel safe because it tells us the other person is trustworthy.
2. Likability: This is what indicates that someone is warm, friendly, and easy to be around.
3. Attractiveness: Balance and symmetry in the body and face help create a positive snap for reasons that may surprise you. Other aspects of the power of attractiveness inform your impressions and actions. But rest assured, it is not all about being pretty or handsome.
4. Power: Levels of dominance, either pronounced or subtle, exist in all our interactions and, ideally, send messages of confidence and ease in situations.
To understand how people use nonverbal behavior to make snap impressions, you need to understand these four crucial, primary factors. When you learn to recognize them, you will be aware of how they affect your perceptions of others, and you can form more accurate first impressions. You will also understand the specific things you can do at any time with any person to increase your credibility, likability, attractiveness, and power. I will also discuss how you can gain positive charisma, the extreme charisma exhibited by people who have high levels of likability, attractiveness, and power; what you can do to increase your positive charisma; and how you can be swayed more easily, and even fooled in ways that are dangerous, by highly charismatic people.
Credibility
As a first-time manager, Janet often sought the advice of Barb, a more experienced manager of another department in the company. The first time she met Barb, she felt at ease. And each time Janet sought Barb’s counsel, she felt that comfort. It didn’t matter if she came in upset with an employee or confused about a client’s needs, when she talked to Barb she trusted her. Janet knew that if Barb said, “You did the right thing,” she really meant it. There was no reason to worry that Barb would share her confidences with anyone else in the company, that she would say to someone, “You won’t believe the crazy thing Janet said to a client.”
At the same time, if Barb had a hard truth to tell Janet about something she’d done wrong or could have done better, Barb wouldn’t hesitate but would tell it to her straight. Barb’s voice, face, and words would be earnest, and Janet would never feel judged. Whatever problem she experienced, she felt better for having shared it with Barb.
The most important factor in assessing others is credibility. Do you feel at ease in their presence? Are they themselves and fully present and attentive? When a person has credibility, she is who she says she is, with no facade. You can trust her. In fact, the words credit and credibility have the same root — credo, which means, “I trust or believe.” When someone is authentic, you recognize this in both her facial expressions and her actions. It really comes down to evolution: we are hardwired to pick up on credibility. In forming a first impression, the basic survival instinct says, “Can I trust this person? Can I feel safe in his presence? Is he going to pull out a knife? No, I can believe that what I’m seeing is the real thing.”
Before I teach the four factors of a first impression, I survey the audience, asking, “What is the first thing you notice when you meet somebody?” Remarkably, in thousands of surveys, of audience after audience, year after year, I get the same answers. People either specify credibility or list trustworthiness, authenticity, honesty, or integrity — all of which make up credibility.
Your True North
Have you ever met someone who made you immediately feel safe and at ease in his presence? Do you know someone you can absolutely trust? The exercise “True North: Recognizing Credibility,” which appears later in this chapter, will help you recognize credibility. In my programs, when audiences complete the exercise and talk about their “True North people,” who are credible, their voices grow warm — whether they are describing their mothers, new neighbors, CEOs, high school teachers, best friends, or new bosses. I listen and watch their nonverbal behavior as they pause with wonder and their bodies unfold. Their breathing deepens, moving from high in the chests to the bellies. If they are excited, they are also at ease and in general seem calm. And they always smile. They are reexperiencing what it feels like to be with a credible person.
One of the most important insights about credibility is that, when you are with someone who has it, you feel it in your body. Under stress our limbic system creates the freeze-flight-fight-or-faint response, but when we are in the presence of a True North person we feel the opposite of stressed. We feel not only safe but fully alive. And when you give others a True North impression, you feel comfortable and fully alive. Your body loves authenticity. If you try too hard to be someone you aren’t, it exhausts you. If you are not behaving with integrity when you meet someone, even a short conversation can drain the life out of you.
Some people think it takes time to discover whether a person is credible. Time can certainly allow someone to build trust. But when a person behaves as his authentic self, as exactly who he is, no facade, you immediately develop a visceral feeling about him in his presence. And there’s something else interesting about this: a credible person is credible to everybody. Other people see him the same way you do. Credibility is consistent and universal.1
When I first met John, he was a senior vice president of marketing at BMG, the entertainment conglomerate. I was struck by his credibility, and over the years this first impression proved accurate. He would take a call from the head of Disney’s movie division, talk to an intern who came into his office, take a call from an überfamous musician, take a call from his boss, and turn to me, his friend, and use the same upbeat, happy voice. He is consistently himself with everyone; he gives each person his full attention while interacting with him or her; his gestures, the corners of his mouth, his voice, and his posture go “up” with enthusiasm; and the palms of his hands open wide as he talks, whether he is with his son, a musical star, or the waiter in a restaurant. He makes everyone instantly feel good. He is never “on” for important people and “off” while talking to others.
There are three classic components of credibility: competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism.2 You’ll find David K. Berlo and James B. Lemert’s three components in the stories about first impressions that I’ve discussed so far:
• Competence is obvious in the knowledge and expertise expressed by the manager Barbara in her communications.
• Trustworthiness is evident in the sense of ease and safety engendered by the high-level executive Ron, in the honesty and sincerity of Barb, and in the warmth that John at BMG conveys to everyone he meets.
• Dynamism — a person’s energy and confidence — is clear in John’s consistent nonverbal behavior (which includes his energetic voice, his body language that moves and stays “up,” and his open heart and palm windows) with everyone he talks to or meets.
You don’t typically meet someone and say,“Hi, I’m credible.” Rather, nonverbal communication — your facial expression, the quality of your attention, your expression of welcoming openness — is vital in demonstrating competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism in a first impression.
Seven Ways to Lose Credibility
I am often asked to determine the credibility of people in the media. For the History Channel special The Secrets of Body Language, which airs periodically, I was asked to focus on some famous — or infamous — moments in recent history. Here are some examples from that special and from other classic loss-of-credibility moments (specific cues that hint people may be lying) that I have analyzed and that show the power of nonverbal cues to change, in a snap, the impression a person gives. You can do things that make people doubt the veracity of a particular comment you are making and affect your snap only in that moment, or you might have a more lasting impact.
The Eyes Have It
The most noticeable nonverbal behavior affecting credibility is eye contact. Studies find that maintaining a steady gaze while communicating promotes credibility — especially the speaker’s trustworthiness and competence — and that avoiding eye contact undermines credibility.
You may recall that former vice president Dick Cheney accidentally shot his friend Harry Wittington while on a quail shoot. In a televised interview four days after the incident, the vice president consistently looked down and to the right while making his main statement about the incident. For many observers, his credibility plummeted when he did so. It further eroded when he spent his interview time talking about his pain, calling the day one of the worst of his life, instead of recognizing it as likely one of the worst days ever for his injured friend.
• A sports star is asked if he has used performance-enhancing steroids. He pulls his feet under the chair, and each time he replies, he gives a fluttered blink and the left side of his face lifts up in a smirk.
• In a historical State of the Union address, the president smirks twenty times, so that the two sides of his face are mismatched. He makes tongue thrusts (brief movements of the tongue out of the mouth) more than fifty times as he talks about education and health care, and even at the end of the speech, when he says, “the United States of America.”
• In a 2011 interview, everything Charlie Sheen said was overridden by the effect of his glazed eyes, disheveled hair and clothing, and manic gestures. And, guess what: he smirked — a lot.
• In the White House press conference during which Bill Clinton said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky,” he touched his nose approximately every four minutes. He also paused oddly, in relation to his normal speech pattern, and he gestured out of sync with his words, using a finger that was crooked, not straight.
• When Oprah Winfrey asked Jay Leno about his feelings toward Conan O’Brien, he said, “I have no hard feelings at all.” But as he said this, Leno frowned, moved an arm across the center of his body, shielding his heart, and rubbed his ear.
• A judge in a well-known reality competition show rolled his eyes, smirked, and told one contestant, “You were great,” while looking away. (Okay, maybe that made him an interesting judge to watch.)
• A presidential candidate said, “I love the United States of America and all it stands for,” while shaking his head “No” several times. Later he said, “I love America” and shook his head “No” again.
(For more examples, go to www.snapfirstimpressions.com and view the videos Ways You Can Lose Credibility in a SNAP and Are They Lying? You’ll see in a snap how people display nonverbal behaviors that affect their credibility in negative ways. And you’ll see how even seemingly small behaviors can affect a person’s credibility.)
EXERCISE
True North: Recognizing Credibility
1. Think about someone you trusted straight off the bat, or after interacting for only a short time. If no one springs to mind, consider a person you have known for a long time whom you trust, or even a public figure you consider trustworthy. This is your “True-North person.” What is it about this person that makes you feel this way? How does this person behave? What does he or she say that makes you trust him or her? How do this person’s facial expressions, posture, or hands, or the rest of his or her body, transmit integrity?
2. Imagine your True-North person in your mind’s eye. Write down details about his or her demeanor and nonverbal behavior. If you recall your first meeting with this person, describe it in as much detail as you can.
3. Imagine yourself in the presence of your True-North person. Reach back and remember how he or she made you feel. How did you feel physically? Did this person make you feel heard, seen, and understood? How did this person initiate a conversation? How did he or she stand or sit? How could you tell that this person listened to, focused on, or was generally interested in you? Is there something about this person that you want to model? Is there something in his or her behavior that reminds you of yourself?
Understanding why this person is your True North increases your ability to recognize this kind of person elsewhere — and to be this kind of person to others. Once you’re able to recognize a True-North person, you can calibrate within seconds whether someone or some situation “feels good” or “is not right.”
Seek Models of True North
Vistage International is an organization that helps leaders within companies, and owners of companies, become more successful. Once a month, small-business owners and high-level executives meet in groups with one another and with an adviser from Vistage, who chairs the meetings. Each chair interviews and selects his or her group members, facilitates the meetings, and coaches each member one-on-one. For many years, I’ve given talks to Vistage groups on credibility and deception detection, and I am fascinated by the credibility shown by Vistage chairs. They possess many behaviors that I admire and seek to emulate.
For example, when Ben, one these chairs, called to prep me for my meeting with his group, I felt he really wanted to talk to me and wasn’t simply rushing through a to-do on his list. The use of time as part of communication, called “chronemics,” can create a powerful snap. Ben was happy to spend time talking to me, and this increased his likability. As he talked about each member of his group, the tone of his voice and his speaking rate matched what he was saying. As I discussed earlier, a match between a person’s nonverbal behavior and the words being said creates credibility and makes us feel safe and comfortable as listeners. Ben sounded sincere when he mentioned that he liked something about a member of the group; when he shared something a member could improve on, he sounded caring.
At the meeting, I noticed that Ben spoke to everyone the same way. Each member of the group relaxed and opened up as Ben talked. With all the high-status people in the room, there could have been tension and competition, but Ben’s authentic presence put everyone at ease. After the meeting, he took the time to pull two seats over to a corner of the room and sit down with members individually. I talked to a member later who said, “This group is full of people who own companies and have to appear perfect to the world, but here we trust Ben so much. We know he sees us as strong people, and yet we feel safe enough to tell him anything — and cry like babies if we need to.”
Credibility and Synchronicity
When an honest and credible person speaks, her body language, facial expressions, and paralanguage are all synchronous with the words being spoken. (Paralanguage refers to vocal features that are nonverbal yet still contribute to communication, such as pitch, volume, intonation, and tempo. All these can be used to subtly modify meaning or convey emotion.) You can detect deception by watching for a lack of synchronicity between any of these elements. When a person’s spoken words don’t agree with her accompanying nonverbal communications, we should give the nonverbals more weight.
What Credibility Sounds Like
Paralanguage, or vocalics, refers to all the nuances of the voice except for speech. Just as paranormal defines behavior that is outside the normal, paralanguage defines meaning given outside of words — the volume, pitch (high or low), rate of speech, and its quality. Prosodics, a subgenus of paralanguage, includes intonation, stress, vocal emphasis, and rhythm.
Paralanguage is how words are uttered. This can include whether they are spoken unusually fast and loud, as well as unusual “um” and “ah” pauses; coughing and throat clearing; and a tense, higher-than-normal voice. Notice the vocal utterances that occur in the first moments of an interaction. You will be surprised to find that they are windows to the person, that they reveal how honest and open that person is going to be with you.3
As in the examples of Sheen, Clinton, and Leno mentioned earlier, words (which are conscious) can be used to deceive, whereas body language (which is subconscious) is much harder to control and use in this way. For example, when interviewed, people who answer either negatively or affirmatively should have congruent head movement. It’s common for those who are lying when they say, “I did not do it!” to nod their heads up and down in a contradictory nonverbal yes as they speak. People may also shake their heads no while saying yes. For example, the wife of presidential candidate Herman Cain shook her head almost violently no while saying, “He respects women.”
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
In one of his first interviews after the largest oil spill in history, Tony Hayward, British Petroleum’s CEO, wore neat, pressed vacation attire. He spoke about the spill in a relaxed manner and smiled as he did. He brushed off any talk of friction between BP and the Obama administration: “The extent of the cooperation that is taking place, I think, will be seen as a textbook example of how to do an emergency response.”
Many viewers were struck by a disconnect between the circumstances and Hayward’s words and demeanor. Stock phrases like textbook example downplay the seriousness of a situation and connote insincerity. A credible person shows nonverbal behavior that matches the circumstances. Hayward could have demonstrated credible care, concern, and understanding had he worn work clothes and work boots, allowed emotion to animate his voice, and used words emphasizing that there was nothing routine or textbook about the spill’s impact on the human and wildlife populations affected. Hayward was soon forced to resign his position, at least in part because of the snap impressions he gave viewers in his communications.
To form our impression of a person, we compare what we think would be normal or appropriate words and nonverbals with the words and nonverbals we hear and see. Hayward’s words and nonverbals did not match what many felt should be expressed by a person leading a company responsible for a horrible crisis.
Credibility Cues
Nonverbal communication is the way the subconscious mind speaks. No matter how much you want to control it, your nonverbal behavior gives clues about how you are truly feeling. We can base our interpretation of these clues on a number of factors called deception cues. They help us spot liars and recognize what in our own nonverbal communication establishes credibility.
When someone is telling the truth, she feels the truth in her emotional brain (limbic system). She responds to this feeling with nonverbal behaviors. Then the neocortex, which is responsible for words, is activated. An honest and credible person feels, shows, and then speaks in ways that match; the brain moves from feeling, to showing, to speaking. What you want “leaks out.” If you want to ensure that you give an impression of credibility, the first thing you should do is think about your underlying motivation in the situation. Whether you’re a salesperson, teacher, parent, or manager, what you really want comes out. Do you want to manipulate someone, or do you want to help? Do you want to appear trustworthy and sympathetic, or just look that way while someone is watching?
“Feel, show, say.” When someone is being honest, he might sound more melodic and his movements, voice, and words will seem to flow smoothly. Someone who is lying thinks about the information he wants to hide. He thinks of the words he wants to say in the lie, and he may say the words super quickly before he forgets them. He has to think about how to transmit what he should be feeling, which results in awkward, oddly timed verbal and nonverbal messages. You have heard, seen, and felt it when someone says, “It is a pleasure to meet you,” but takes a long pause before actually looking at you and smiling, and then lets the smile linger too long. When you listen to or watch someone lie, this lack of synchronicity between the verbal and nonverbal messages alerts the central nervous system and creates a stress response. You can see how important it is to get an accurate impression of someone you’re listening to, and being in the presence of someone who is lying is stressful.
A Person’s Stress May Be Visible in a Snap
A stressed-out person may do one of the following:
Freeze: Freeze in place for a moment.
Flight: Move or position all or parts of her body to flee, or try to make her body smaller to create a smaller area for attack.
Fight: Position her body to fight by getting bigger, placing her feet farther apart, moving her arms up, or putting her elbows out.
Faint: The blood can flow away from the surface of the skin.
When someone feels guilty or fears being caught in a lie, he might freeze in place like a teenager caught by his parents in the part of his story he didn’t rehearse. He might wear the famous frozen, deer-in-the-headlights look that Tiger Woods exhibited at the beginning of his apology statement. Freezing gives us time to decide what to do next. The liar might flee, so he may give nonverbal signals of leave-taking by pointing his feet toward the door, tucking his feet under a chair, or pointing his lower body away from the person or people he is with. He might place his feet far apart in what I call the “lock-and-load” position, or place his hand or hands on his hip(s). These moves make him appear bigger and more threatening, and they signal that a person is ready for a fight. Or he might suddenly lose the color in his face as the blood rushes away from the surface of the skin, leaving him looking like he might pass out at any moment.
Lies that are planned in advance can sound credible, but there’s apt to be “nonverbal leakage.” Liars expend so much effort trying to remember the lies they made up that they give out more cues, from eyeblinks to foot pointing, called “leakage,” than do spontaneous liars.
In order to most clearly read deceit, you need to know the person’s normal baseline behavior. This might be tough to recognize if you are reading someone you just met, but there are tools that make it easier. For example, notice whether the speaker is pausing. Some people talk fast and loud, and some people talk slowly with lots of pauses. Liars tend to go to the extremes of their normal behavior patterns with regard to expressiveness and pausing. Extroverts tend to be more expressive when lying — raising their voices, laughing, cracking jokes, changing the subject, or getting in fights. Strong emotions such as humor and laughter provide great cover behaviors to hide liars’ nervousness. Introverts, on the other hand, become more introverted. They might freeze up, slow down, get quieter, make less eye contact, or become wooden, giving their voices less vocal variation. As you might guess, this means we are more likely to recognize when introverts are lying. It is easier for extroverts to charm us into thinking they are telling the truth when they cover their lies by being more bombastic.
The Lock-and-Load Power Position
Notice whenever anyone makes you lock and load your stance, planting your legs far apart, or if anyone locks and loads as you talk to them.
The Timing Is Telling
A sports star accused of wrongdoing holds a press conference to deny the charges. He clears his throat and begins speaking; it’s a simple case of nervousness, perhaps. But listen closely as he continues to speak. Is his throat clearing a baseline behavior, or does he do it only when he makes certain statements? Notice the timing. Does his voice go up in pitch, and does he clear his throat or cough after he says, “I am innocent”? And does he clear his throat again after bringing his voice down almost to a whisper and saying, “I did nothing wrong”?
Feel It First
Depending on how you define the term muscle, there are about six hundred to eight hundred muscles in the human body. It’s impossible to consciously manage or control them all. What’s more, if you do work to control your body’s language, your subconscious will simultaneously continue to send its own messages.
Remember, when someone is being honest, she feels something first, then shows and says what she feels. A deceiver, especially if she has time to prepare her deception, is thinking of her story and the words she needs to say. But there are so many muscles in the face that you can’t control all of them when you’re under stress. It’s difficult for a person to avoid sending a constant stream of signals about what she is really feeling and thinking.
If you try too hard to control your body, you’ll likely send mixed messages. One part of you will say one thing, while another will say something else, and the result will be that people trust you less, not more.
Morgan is a petite, shapely blonde who doesn’t lack for men coming up to her and flirting. Her complaint is that these encounters never end in the men requesting a date. She is highly successful in her business, but in social settings, she says, “I smile, laugh, and do all the things that should work, but they still end up walking away.”
One evening, I go out with her, not as her wing woman, but as her barstool coach, to watch her interactions from a discreet distance, hidden from her view. I notice that the men are picking up on her tension. Morgan smiles and laughs, but her smile lingers longer than it should, and her laugh is a bit brittle and forced. She radiates tension. Even her shoulders and eyebrows are noticeably raised, as if she is afraid. Her voice is high and strident, and her hands occasionally rise up and push out, as if she is stopping traffic. She is pushing the guys away!
The men sense her fear, and I can even see some of them try to be less assertive by taking up less space and tilting their heads to put her at ease, but she is unwittingly making them uncomfortable. Morgan has a lot going for her, but it is undercut by the discomfort she evokes in others. When we talk, she is not surprised by my observations. “I wasn’t doing any of these things simply because a body language expert was watching me. I have always felt nervous while flirting, and I just thought my bravado masked it!”
We addressed her fear, working “from the outside in,” deciding what she could do differently. We worked on changing her stance and gestures, relaxing and lowering her voice and shoulders, and calming her tension. We even changed her breathing so she was able to breathe deep in her lower abdomen and feel more relaxed. She ended up getting dates, including a very special one with the man who is now her boyfriend.
Likability
Sharon and Scott opened their door to greet their friend Spencer and his new wife, Debbie. Debbie came in with shiny eyes, her arms up and open, and her head tilted, exposing her throat. Her palms were showing, and she greeted her hosts with a warm, melodious voice. Though Sharon had never met Debbie, her guest’s greeting was so warm and gregarious that she won her over immediately. An hour later, after dinner, Sharon remarked to Debbie, “I feel like I’ve known you for years!”
When a person demonstrates likability, she smiles and laughs easily and uses friendly upper-body language. She shows emotions and facial expressions that allow us to know how she’s feeling. The opposite of likability is a lack of expression and affect, and, often, a monotonous voice. Research shows that the more expressive someone is, the more comfortable we are with her.
Why We Love Extroverts
Extroverts tend to give more positive first impressions. Remember, when we can read someone’s emotions easily we are more comfortable around them — which puts introverts at a disadvantage when it comes to creating a good first impression. If you are a nice, quiet person who wonders why slick players and high-maintenance drama queens get all the attention, know that there is science behind this love for “madness at first sight.” Happy, healthy extroverts seem confident and expressive, which are things we like. Even extroverts who display red-flag warnings with their over-the-top, supersized gestures still make a great first impression. This expressiveness — at which the extrovert excels — may aid the few dangerous extroverts in their successful deception.
Introverts, on the other hand, who naturally pause to think before they speak, who talk softly, display fewer gestures and expressions, and make less eye contact, don’t fare as well on first blush. Introverts’ ways may appear to be signs of deception. We may wonder why they are so quiet, why they stumble over their words and make so little eye contact, and this may make us suspicious of them.4 Understanding these differences between introverts and extroverts can help you read and interact with them more effectively.
A person who demonstrates likability does so in person, online, and over the phone. You know it immediately. And, like credibility, likability is universally recognized. We can recognize likability in the first split second when we meet someone.
Likability includes, but is not exclusively about, commonality. We like people who are like us, but likability is more about personality, warmth, and friendliness. People who are likable turn and look at you. Like Debbie when she met Scott and Sharon, they open their bodies to you when they speak. Likability welcomes connection.
Amy went to her fiftieth (yes, fiftieth) high school reunion and remet a high school pal, Rob. It was love at first re-sight. They said they knew they were reunited soul mates. To introduce him to her friends, Amy had a dinner party. Imagine this strange new guy meeting Amy’s friends, many of whom had known her for thirty or more years and were highly protective of her.
Rob was at the door to meet Amy’s friends as they arrived, hugging them warmly. Throughout the evening he spent time with each one, leaning in to talk and in one case touching his listener on the arm to emphasize his emotional point. He obviously worried less about himself than connecting with each person. If something were between him and another — such as a sofa pillow on the couch or a vase of flowers on the table — he gently and subtly moved it out of the way. Rob spent time with Amy, too, as the evening progressed, but he also gave each of her friends his rapt attention. As they shared stories, his face and body language fully reflected their emotions. He laughed with them and sighed with them. At one especially emotional point in the evening, when stories of a loved one lost to AIDS were shared, he cried with them. Of course Amy’s friends all loved him.
What’s to Like? — Cues That Make You Likable
Several characteristics contribute to likability.
Moving toward: We go toward what we like and move away from what we don’t like. This is a foundation principle of body language, and it is related to our primal orienting reflex. Instinctually we move toward what we like, desire, or want, and move away from what we fear, distrust, or don’t like. You can move toward someone by stepping nearer to him or by simply tilting your head, upper body, or whole body in his direction. Leaning your body toward another says, “I’d like to be closer to you.” It also tests whether he will reply in kind. Think of how you pose for a photograph with another person or a group: everyone leans in. This is something we often do when we’re listening intensely, which is another way to show our particular interest in someone.
What do you think is the most honest portion of the body? Think about the part of the body under the least amount of conscious control, and the part of the body that is often first to change in response to stress. Did you guess the feet? The feet point to where the heart wants to go. When we are stressed, our feet may freeze in place, point away to flee, plant themselves far apart so that we can fight, or go out from under us as we faint. We stand with both feet toward the door to signal that we want to leave a conversation, or, more politely, we place one foot toward the speaker and one toward the exit in a subtle, little “please let me go” plea when we want to wave good-bye.
Opening windows: We have what I call “body windows,” which we seemingly open or close while interacting with others. Our feet, knees, pelvis, stomach, heart, neck, mouth, eyes, and palms are the body parts that act like open or closed windows, depending on how we orient them in relation to other people. Likable people tend to keep their windows open by orienting their body windows toward others, unfolding their limbs, and keeping barriers like desks, cups, drinking glasses, and purses from coming between them.
Reaching or pointing: Think of the trained hunting dogs who point their bodies toward prey so the hunter can find it. A person interested in you may subtly point at you with a foot or knee, cross his leg at the knee so his foot is facing toward you, reach a hand partway across the table, or point his face toward you. These are all signals that say, “I am focused on you.”
Eye focus: In this electronic age, with so many distractions, it feels great when you have someone’s full attention. They aren’t looking around the room, distracted by others, or glancing down at electronic devices. They look and listen until you have finished speaking.
Facial and auditory feedback: Clear, readable facial expressions and lots of them — smiling, brow furrowed in concentration, slow nodding — and perhaps small sounds like uh-huh and mmm show interest. These are examples of warm and/or enthusiastic, expressive paralanguage.
Matching: Subconsciously, people demonstrate their comfort with the people they talk to. When you reflect the other person back to him, he feels affirmed and that you are aligned with him. If you lean forward, he leans forward. If you cross your legs, he will cross his. If you reach out across the table, a comfortable person will demonstrate likability by doing the same. While seated at a table, he will move glassware, papers, and other objects out of the way so that nothing distances him from you. Conversely, a person who is ill at ease or lying will place things between the two of you — a purse, a coffee cup, a cell phone, or some other object.
Touch: It’s helpful to briefly touch the person you’re speaking to. I know what you’re thinking. “Are you crazy? I don’t want a stranger to think I am weird, or to have a new coworker charge me with sexual harassment!” Yes, in our current culture we fear all kinds of touch in initial interactions, and even handshaking has decreased significantly. But touch is powerful, and it works because nonthreatening touch positively affects our chemistry. A brief, nonthreatening, nonsexual touch can change how we feel in less than a fortieth of a second.
Match and Mirror
To establish commonality nonverbally, match the body posture and facial expression of the person you are speaking to, as well as her energy level, gestures, tone of voice, and even rate of speech and breath. Do this unobtrusively while maintaining eye contact. When you match another person, an interesting thing happens: you actually begin to feel what she is feeling. In addition, you communicate at the subconscious level: “Hey, I get it; I’m with you,” or “I want to understand you,” or “I’m not your enemy.”
Don’t mirror aggression. If someone stands over you and yells, with feet planted broadly, legs apart, and hands on hips, don’t jump up out of your chair and match this behavior. Instead, if it feels safe to do so, subtly come in at a level or two below her energy. Inject a little intensity into your voice as you say that you understand she’s upset. Express your interest and concern. Then slowly bring your volume down, slow your rate of speech, and relax your body. Your would-be opponent will likely slow down — and calm down — with you.
Touch is an essential element in our development and health, and a powerful way of communicating.5 I have been studying and conducting surveys on touch since my first graduate-school research paper on the subject, “Haptics (Touch) in Initial Interactions in Business Settings.” I even did research on touch in initial interactions in my role as Canada’s national spokesperson for Vaseline Intensive Care lotion. Over the years, I have discussed with audiences many fears and concerns related to touch, in programs on body language, gender differences, and sexual harassment. But touch offers so many benefits, which should motivate you to touch in safe, nonsexual ways. There have been many studies on how touch affects first impressions, and they show it has positive effects. For example, in one study, subjects who were asked to sign a petition were touched lightly on the arm when the request was made, and 81 percent complied. When the experiment was repeated with a different request, 70 percent of those touched complied; only 40 percent of the untouched individuals did so.6 A restaurant server’s fleeting touch on the customer’s hand or shoulder results in larger tips. Of course there is a caveat: 8 percent of people in the United States don’t want to be touched. (Go to www.snapfirstimpressions.com to watch the video Five Ways to Use a Safe Touch to Make a Positive Impression.)
Attractiveness
Traveling to speak at a convention, I went to the airport straight from the gym. I was wearing my favorite old and stretched-out sweats. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail and, okay, a tad sweaty. Needless to say, there was no makeup in sight. No big deal, I figured; I didn’t know my fellow flyers, and they didn’t know me. We would never meet again.
Upon arrival, I waited with a large group of people for the bus that would take us to our hotel. I noticed that everyone waiting seemed to know one another, and that many had been on the flight with me. These sixty or so people were well-dressed (in suits) and well-coiffed. They also were giving me odd looks or averting their gaze. As we boarded, none of them offered me access to the empty seats next to them. As I made my way to an empty row in the back of the bus, I saw, on the laps of some of my fellow passengers, the convention brochure with my picture on it! These were the people I would be speaking to the next day — and I looked like I’d just gotten out of bed.
We live in a visually oriented culture in which our appearance not only precedes our words but can overpower them. Research shows that individuals tend to agree on their snaps of strangers even when these strangers vary in race, nationality, and culture, and even when their impressions are based solely on facial appearance.7 But appearance is only one aspect of attractiveness, so before you plan on having plastic surgery, read on.
What Is Attractive?
This measurement has a lot to do with symmetry. Research shows that a person with body and facial symmetry is highly attractive. Cate Blanchett, Halle Berry, and Michelle Pfeiffer display bilateral facial symmetry. So did Elizabeth Taylor — a line from her obituary in the New York Times in 2011 reads, “As cameramen noted, her face was flawlessly symmetrical; she had no bad angle, and her eyes were of the deepest violet.”8 A Newsweek cover story, “The Biology of Beauty,” specifically mentioned Denzel Washington as a star whose face had been measured and deemed to be perfectly symmetrical.9 Bilateral symmetry — in which the body or face is perfectly balanced — has a subliminal effect on first impressions. When we say that a person’s body or face is “perfectly balanced,” we mean it can be divided into identical halves by drawing a line down the center; the right half will be a mirror image of the left half. Scientists believe symmetry is seen as an indicator of a person’s freedom from disease and of worthiness for mating and reproduction. Other researchers hypothesize that a face or body that is bilaterally symmetrical is easier for us to read.
A lack of symmetry is uncomfortable for us to view; it can alert the central nervous system that there is something amiss. When I teach deception detection, I show what a lack of facial symmetry looks like: Simon Cowell’s mouth twisted into a one-sided smirk as he judges a performer, or a twitch lowering one side of the mouth of a sports star as he says he never used steroids. When the right and left sides of the upper and lower halves of someone’s face are asymmetrical, or the sides of the body are asymmetrical, as when, say, someone stands with one hand on her hip or leans to one side, we see the incongruence. It indicates that the person is confused or puzzled, doesn’t understand something, is unhappy, or is in one of a long list of other uncomfortable states.
Between the Sexes
I am at my favorite restaurant, sitting outside with two of my girlfriends. Three slender girls in pretty summer dresses walk in and sit at the bar. Within twenty minutes, eight men, puffing up their chests, surround them and lean in to get closer. As my friends and I watch, the men compete to see who can pull out a credit card faster to pay for the girls’ drinks. My friends and I smile, watching men in the pursuit of their idea of beauty as we order another round of mojitos, one dessert, and three forks.
There is a stronger consensus among men regarding which traits are attractive than there is among women, according to a study published by a Wake Forest University psychologist.10 More than four thousand study participants rated photos of young people (age eighteen to twenty-five) for attractiveness, using a ten-point scale that ranged from “not at all attractive” to “very attractive.” But before the participants rated the photos, members of the research team went through the photos and judged the essential characteristics of the people depicted in them — qualities like “seductive,” “confident,” “thin,” “stylish,” “sensitive,” “well-groomed,” “classy,” and so on. Breaking out these factors helped the researchers determine which common characteristics appealed most to men and women.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the men’s ratings of women’s attractiveness centered primarily on physical characteristics. They rated most highly those women who were deemed to be “thin” and “seductive,” although many men also favored “confident” women.
On the other hand, there was little consensus among the women as to which subjects were attractive. As a group, they tended to favor “muscular” men, but some women gave high attractiveness ratings to men that other women said were not attractive at all. Women seem to be programmed to find all sorts of men attractive, perhaps so that they do not all compete for the same Tarzan-like he-man. In fact, while most men have the same standard as other men when deciding what is attractive, women tend to be more individual, having a standard of attractiveness that is eerily similar to the man they are in a relationship with, or have recently been in a relationship with. Women find men who look like their current boyfriend or current mate the most attractive, and, as they change love interests, they change what they find attractive.
Attraction and the Halo Effect
Research shows that we believe what is beautiful is good. We favor facial symmetry and we like a balanced body silhouette. When we meet someone we find attractive, our snap impression of that person is generally much more positive than our snaps of those we find unattractive. Research shows that the positive and more lasting impressions created by attractive people affect how they are treated by teachers, juries, college admissions committees, managers, and job interviewers.
The good news for women — and men — is that you can affect your attractiveness by feeling more confident. Most of the men in the Wake Forest University study rated women who looked confident as more attractive. My roommate in college had a great way of creating a likable, confident first impression. It sounds odd when described, but it worked. She would pause at the entrance as she walked into any room, her shoulders back, her chin slightly raised, her arms slightly extended, and her hands open, as if she were offering the room at large a hug and waiting for the men to notice her and come into her arms. They did.
Most of us would claim not to be so shallow as to judge people on their looks, but research indicates that we do judge others in that way. For example, an attractive boss is liked more and generally perceived more positively than an unattractive boss. In an online survey of 61,647 people (a very large subject pool) by Elle magazine and MSNBC in 2007, “good-looking bosses were found to be more competent, collaborative and better delegators than their less attractive counterparts.”11 This is another example of the halo effect. When we see outstanding positive characteristics in individuals, we assign them other positive qualities as well.
And in a 2008 study at Tufts University in Medford, Maine, psychologists Nicholas Rule and Nalini Ambady asked students to rate faces according to their perceptions of the competence, dominance, likability, facial maturity, and trustworthiness of the faces’ owners. The students did not know they were judging pictures of the CEOs of the highest- and lowest-ranked Fortune 1000 companies. The students’ ratings of each CEO closely corresponded to the CEO’s company’s profits.12
What Can We Do about “Lookism”?
When the actual personality and character traits of individuals have been studied, stereotypes about attractiveness have proven false. Good looks don’t make an individual particularly “good” in other ways.13 Next time you get a warm, fuzzy feeling about someone you’ve just met, ask yourself if this is based on superficial good looks.
Still, we all want to feel good about how we look to others, and there are things we can do to boost our attractiveness quotient and improve the impression we create. Remember the disheveled me who was mortified to find herself surrounded by future audience members on the bus? In that moment, I couldn’t change my appearance, but I could change how I felt about myself and how I behaved in order to help people feel more comfortable with the sweatshirted me.
I began to walk up and down the aisle of the bus, stopping to say hello and introducing myself. I joked that I could use a refresher course in the first-impressions training I’d later be giving all of them! Instead of cringing and cowering, I assumed an air of confidence. My comfort, my going toward rather than away from them, my warm laughter-filled voice and handshakes made it easier for people to look past my appearance and, I hoped, trust and like me more than they would have if I had schlepped to the back of the bus and hid (as my embarrassment would have otherwise led me to do). I was pleased to see the smiles as people leaned in to greet me warmly.
There may be times when you need to go “outside-in” and fake it till you make it. Keep in mind that, however you hold your body, it begins to chemically influence how you feel in as little as one-fortieth of a second. Briefly taking on confident, charismatic, likable behaviors until your body chemistry catches up makes you feel confident inside.
One of my clients who has participated in my body language programs had a brain tumor removed and is paralyzed on one side of his face. He has been struggling because people are not comfortable around him. I’ve been helping him in oneon-one coaching do things nonverbally to help people cope with his appearance and lack of facial symmetry.
We can all make simple, small changes in our body language, voices, and approach to others to improve our attractiveness. Remember that, while we find attractive people more likable, we also find likable people more attractive. So incorporate behaviors discussed in the “What’s to Like?” section earlier in this chapter to create a more attractive snap impression.
Power
The speaker came onstage with shoulders back and chest high and moved to the front of the platform. He showed his confidence in his recommendations by using gestures that mimicked a conductor’s baton coming down just as he made each important point. He also struck a beat with his open hand by pounding his fist into his palm. He paused to let his points sink in, and, in the silence, he looked out at the group, gazing deeply into people’s eyes.
Another speaker came onstage with shoulders slumped and head bowed. He stood behind a table, bent over his laptop, his feet together and his hands glued to the keys of his computer. Occasionally, he glanced up at the screen behind him, where his slides were projected, and read his bullet points aloud. His ideas were well supported and his speech was well prepared. But his nonverbal delivery? Not powerful.
We’ve all experienced power in first impressions. We walk up to someone and shake hands, each of us noting whose grip is more forceful. When we make eye contact, we notice who breaks away first. Is one of us nervous and the other calm and confident? Beginning with our snap impressions, we’re subconsciously deciding who is going to have more power in the interaction.
Power is communicated in numerous ways — the four foundational principles of power are confidence, space, openness, and relaxation. You demonstrate power through the amount of space you take up with your body, through your possessions (coffee cup, purse, computer tablet or pad, smartphone), through your voice, and through whether your body windows are open or closed and whether your body is tense and distracted or relaxed and focused. This isn’t purely about being dominant. It’s about assuming a confident stance, claiming and holding the space you’re in, and being open (positioning your body and face toward others) rather than closed (fearful and self-protective).
Be the Queen of Your Jungle
Imagine a lion in the jungle. She establishes her space and territory with relaxed confidence. She moves gracefully. Her posture is open as she stretches out her limbs. She’d never have to battle for an armrest on an airplane! She’s authentic, fully herself. Without baring her teeth or making a threat, she is in charge.
In a study of 132 business school graduates that took place over eight years and included extensive interviews, researchers looked at women who show power by means of aggressiveness, assertiveness, and confidence — traits normally labeled as masculine. They discovered that women who can turn their power on and off according to their circumstances (called self-monitoring) get more promotions than either men or other women.14
How to Look and Feel Powerful and Confident in a First Impression
You can meet another’s power with your own without coming to blows by making use of the following tips.
• Note how much space you take up in your walk, in your stance, and as you sit; you don’t want to take up too much or too little space.
• Maintain eye contact. Trick: look from one of the other person’s eyes to her other eye to the bridge of her nose, then back to each eye.
• Touch the other person, either before she touches you or immediately after.
• Be the first to extend your hand for a shake.
• If you’re on the receiving end of a power shake, in which someone surrounds your handshaking hand with his left hand, or is overly aggressive in his greeting, reach out and hold the other person’s elbow with your free hand as you shake.
• If you are normally the quiet person who is interrupted frequently, and you’re interrupted when you are not finished talking, continue to speak. Know that, if you are interrupted, it is okay to very slightly raise your voice and even raise your hand a bit with the palm facing toward the interrupter.
• Don’t hide behind your “stuff.” Don’t put your belongings — coffee cup, electronic devices, and so on — between you and others. Similarly, if you are presenting and are offered a podium or table, stand in front of or to the side of it instead of behind it.
• Select a prominent seat — a noticeable position at the center of the conference table or in the front row of a large meeting. This signals confidence, genuine interest, and your willingness to engage.
• Show respect for hierarchies but don’t be overly deferential. If your aim is to advance to the next level of your profession, strive to be a colleague rather than a subordinate. Visit the offices and cubicles of powerful people, ask them to lunch, spend time with them. Positive power is contagious.
• Notice how far apart your feet are in a normal stance. Now move your feet one inch farther apart to create lion-like stability and presence.
• Square your shoulders and let them relax to communicate strength and stability.
• When anxious, we often fidget or touch ourselves for reassurance. Minimize acts such as rubbing your earring or mustache, twisting your hands, pushing back your hair, and so on. Research indicates that powerful people do move — they might tap their feet or click their pens with impatience — but this is not behavior you want to model.
Some aspects of nonverbal communication that generate a power impression are permanently set. Of course you have heard that greater height and bulk give people more power, and research shows that people with deeper voices are also more apt to have power or be perceived as more believable, and more likely to have their requests carried out. If you don’t have these physical attributes, work the bullet points in the preceding list especially hard!
Observing or Participating?
Your company culture might have powerful people who sit in the back row or even in chairs pulled behind the back row so that their backs are against the back wall. Oddly, these seem to be the seats where people of power sit, as part of cultural norms. Unfortunately, this position might indicate a lack of engagement and/or can make it appear as if they are there to critique or judge the proceedings. These are not the qualities of truly powerful people.
I’m a short blonde woman. Early in my career, I was often told by my audiences that, when I was first introduced, but before I actually spoke, I didn’t appear to be a credible information source. I found out that, even though they knew I was a credentialed expert, they were thinking, “What is this little blonde going to teach me?” I learned early to appear “bigger” by projecting my gestures outward and making my voice lower and louder.
Conversely, some very tall people need to soften their appearance. The power of height can be so overwhelming that others back down, back away, or just don’t interact. Power isn’t about intimidation.
Charisma
Charisma comes from the Greek word charis, which means “grace.” Research shows that people with charisma are able to gracefully persuade us to buy from them, vote for them, and mate with them. Charisma intoxicates and persuades us.
Charisma is based on three of the four first-impression factors — likability, attractiveness, and power. A person who has a high level of these three characteristics also has charisma. Charismatic people take up space, relax, maintain laser-focused eye contact, focus on their listeners completely so that the latter are the center of their attention, keep all their body windows open to others, energize their listeners, and smile all the time. Do you know someone like that?
Research says that when someone’s charisma is high, it overrides our ability to tell whether that person has the fourth important first-impression factor: credibility. In other words, highly charismatic people have an easier time getting away with lying. Can you think of anyone in your life or in the public eye who has charisma but lacks integrity?
Not all highly charismatic people are dishonest, but be aware of and savvy about the potentially blinding effects of charisma. When you meet someone you find highly charismatic, pause, check up on his credibility, and remember to use your “True North” as a guide.
Charisma without credibility can be extremely powerful. In fact, sometimes it can be much more powerful and persuasive than what you hear or believe in. Watch a televised political debate with the sound off and see which candidate appeals to you. Or the next time you see a charismatic movie star in a long TV interview, turn the sound off and see what stands out. Researchers Daniel J. Benjamin, an assistant professor at Dartmouth and a fellow at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, and Jesse M. Shapiro, of the University of Chicago, examined the effects of charisma on politics in a study using Harvard undergraduates. Two hundred and sixty-four students viewed soundless, ten-second video clips of unfamiliar candidates from fifty-eight past gubernatorial elections. They “were able to pick the winning candidate at a rate significantly better than chance. When the sound was turned on and participants could hear what the candidates were saying, they were no better than chance at predicting the winner.”
The researchers found that they had to use silent clips to measure charisma because, as Benjamin said, “We found that snap decisions based on charisma are a good predictor of election outcomes. But you need to measure charisma with silent video clips rather than sound-on clips because knowing about candidate policy positions disrupts people’s ability to judge the non-verbal cues that really matter.”15
So, to determine whether someone has charisma, we may not need to hear that person speak. But do not be fooled by someone who is both charismatic and dishonest. How can you identify those who are both? You’ll have to listen to and watch them much more closely. As I mentioned in my discussion about credibility, the timing and congruence of nonverbal behaviors with actual spoken words can reveal whether someone is lying. When someone is telling the truth, her entire body aligns with her words. In addition, credible speakers exhibit facial symmetry between the upper and lower halves of their faces when speaking. Look for this when considering your social, business, and political snaps — and when dealing with someone who is highly charismatic.
(Go to www.snapfirstimpressions.com to view the video Charismatic People: The Good, the Bad, and the Both.)
Next, let’s explore how to interpret and convey the four snap impression factors — credibility, likability, attractiveness, and power — in our personal and professional lives.
