How much can you tell about a person just by looking at them.

Great Debates
1

I ask the question because I’ve been in many situations, usually at work, where I’ve either been the new person sizing up my coworkers, or been working at a place for a while and had new people come in. More often than not, I either take to them right away, or immediately dislike them, and I’m right about my assessment of their character probably 90% of the time, just based on an impression culled from their physical appearance. The times I’m wrong usually involve someone I thought was an asshole, who has had a hard life, but has since eliminated certain factors from their life that had a, um, negative effect on their general outlook and ended up being a nice person.

I’m not talking hair color, weight, ethnic facial characteristics.

I’m talking about, for lack of a better word, facial musculature, something that shows that they have a particular facial expression often enough that it has become a permanent feature.

That curl to the lip that says the person spends a lot of time sneering at other people.

A krinkle at the corners of the eyes and mouth that says they smile a lot.

Or, in some cases, a total lack of any particular expression that says there isn’t a lot going on inside a person’s head.

And I also wonder about the manager that hired this person, especially the ones that turn out to be, um, difficult to work with. Didn’t he/she pick up on this in the interview?

Or is it that I’m just more intuitive than your average hiring manager, who gets his/her job based on hard nosed analytical skills rather than a combination of that and “feeling”?

Or am I full of beans?

I recall Mom’s warning, “Don’t make that face, what if it froze like that?”

2

No offense, but you’re probably full of beans. :slight_smile:

Or, more likely, it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you decide that somebody’s an asshole and they do something you don’t like, you’ll chalk it up to them being an asshole. If you had instead decided you liked them, you might chalk the same action up to a mistake.

It’s human nature. Similar to the way people who want to believe in “psychics” remember the “hits” and ignore the “misses.”

3

Speaking as someone who is often described as ‘stoic’ and who doesn’t always make a good first impression, I would tend to disagree :slight_smile: . If I’m just walking down the street I generally have what has been described as a grim/blank expression on my face, even though I’m often happy as a lark :wink: . Add in a handlebar mustache, five o’clock shadow, near-permanent slouch, scruffy clothes, and a decent gut. I know - What a hottie :smiley: . But in general I suspect I don’t give off an impression of being the sort of person that is interested in fungal taxonomy or early Islamic Persia. Nor the impression that I make as good of money as I do.

Now I do come across as amiable once folks talk to me. And I am :slight_smile: . So I do just fine in interviews ( and I usually clean up a bit :wink: ). But that doesn’t derive from appearance.

So, yeah. I think you’re mistaken :smiley: .

4

I’m going to have to disagree with David B. These same cold readers are pretty adept at making accurate characterizations based on appearances. They have to be.

Who you are is expressed by the body you inhabit. You alter it to fit your lifestyle. The clothes you wear, your grooming, your posture, and the way you look out your face all tell a good deal about you.

This information can of course be misinterpreted, and most likely often is. But, the information is there.

Also, one can fake a particular impression one wishes to make. I do public speaking, and myh company paid to send me to a course that taught me how to appear confident. I practiced posture, intonation, a sincere smile, keeping an open face, and tried to define my “public” persona.

Actors can do much the same thing. Kevin Spacey is an excellent example. He’s able to portray a variety of characters quite easily. Do you recall the end of The Usual Suspects?

So, the information is there. The trick is to make your observations at an unconscientious moment, or be able to look past the persona being portrayed.

My sister-in-law is three hundred pounds, unkempt, always looking down, has a closed face, won’t meet your eyes, and walks around with her fists clenched. My first impression was of a thoroughly miserable and self-centered person. Experience has proven that one correct.

On the other hand, my first impression of my wife was that she was an airhead and would be easy. I was wrong on both counts.

Like anything else, it’s a skill, and it improves with practice.

5

Scylla said:

No, they don’t really have to be. Because if they miss, they just keep on plowing ahead and, as I indicated, the person ignores it. Also, there are many other tactics they use.

Yes, but they may or may not describe your personality to the extent that Thea was talking about.

For example, I know a guy who looks like a total asshole. His face just makes you want to dislike him. But it turns out he’s a pretty nice guy.

Between this and your statement that people often misinterpret the “information” about somebody, you seem to be agreeing with me, not disagreeing!

Which is not what is being discussed here, since Thea was talking about an immediate feeling of liking or disliking, rather than an intense study of a person.

6

David B:

I find the qualifications addresed in your response to be both cogent and correct.

Bastard! ;0

7

:wink:

damn emoticons.

8

Scylla: David B is correct, Thea was talking about an immediate reaction. Not an intense study of someone. I can usually pick out depressed/miserable/cheap/what-have-you people most of the time as well - If I spend a little time around them. People do give off clues. But behavioral clues are generally more accurate than simple appearance.

Hate to keep using me as an example, but… When I was a senior in High School I won an academic award that was considered worthy of getting my photo in the local small town gazette. A friend of mine remarked to me that when he showed the photo to his mother - me with long hair, leather jacket, mustache, and an emotionless face ( actually I was smiling - but a small smile from me is virtually indistinguishable from a frown, so I’m told ) - she said I looked like a thug. Which, knowing me, gave my buddy a good laugh :smiley: .

Now if someone were to look at me at my scruffiest and think, “he looks like a lazy person”, they’d be right :slight_smile: . But it would just be a guess. An educated one, granted. But I know from experience, that most people when they look at me think “mean” and “unintellectual”. Oh and ten years older than I am ( damn premature graying ).

So I don’t necessarily think you’re wrong. But I think Thea is. Or at least she seems to be putting too much confidence into a very dicey way of deciding a person’s basic character.

9

I really must remember to refresh more often :o .

Scylla: Given your last post - Never mind :slight_smile: .

10

As a corollary to Scylla’s observation, those who fail to practice may lack the skill to conceal. They’re the bad guys, but not the boss you meet at the end of the Nintendo level.

This was a common way of identifying the personality of people in writing, back when people didn’t post to message boards. What was it called–physiognomy? I vaguely recall Poe including his own pen-portrait as an ambiguous figure in one of his own short stories. Students, are you still reading the same edition?

Mostly, I think it is the incredible ability of humans to associate one past experience with innumerable experiences that fall thereafter. I must confess that I have known the round-shouldered ne’erdowell, the sloped-foreheaded thug, the beady-eyed planner, the hawk-faced leader, the rat-faced fink.

But I also profess to know the evil-clownish monk (not a baddy, except at cards), the Neandertal physicist (merely intimidating), the gentle gnomish sex maniac (huh!), the devilish princess (disappoiningly not evil at all), the cow-eyed mathematician-genius (scary), and none of them were particularly good at faking who they really were, either. They just didn’t look like who they were.

11

Please add “out there” after “Students.” I mean the same footnote in the same everyone-in-college-has-to-read-it English book. I’m a hatchet-faced, long-haired, squinty-eyed, red-nosed, independable sort of a guy, but I’m not patronizing–I hope.

12

There are only minimal things that you can tell about a person just by their appearance. Brief conversation will reveal even more. Given that, by assessing a persons dress, manner and speach there are a few things that you can surmise. As to their character, integrity, sense of humor, etc. that generally takes a little more time.

Usually upon first meeting someone I can pick up on several things…

Where they hail from, North, South, East or West. Not with pinpoint accuracy but since I live in VA it’s pretty easy to tell who is from around here and who isn’t simply by their accent.

Their level of education. Once again not with pinpoint accuracy since I have met quite a few self educated or people who obtained their educations later in life who do not betray their lack of formal education in their upbringing.

Their socio-economic background. Now I may be blasted for this but you can usually tell if someone is raised in a middle, upper or lower middle class home simply from the way they look and talk. Doesn’t usually even matter what their status is now.

Other than that I believe it is difficult to tell much else about someone at first meeting. Often people do not turn out to be as they originally seem. And sometimes you get a good or bad feeling about someone and you’re right on the money. As for being able to assess someone like is posed in the OP. I’m wondering if the 90% accuracy rate as to whether or not someone is an asshole isn’t simply the supposed asshole picking up on the others party’s facial expressions and body language. If I percieve that you don’t like me from jump street I might not be likely to cultivate a decent relationship with you anyway. (Not usually my tactic at all. Usually I become so charming and nice as to make you either love me or hate me even more. Kill 'em with kindness my mom always said.)

Needs2know

13

I remember something about this from a Psychology class.

The text talked about the human tendency to assume personality traits based on the level of someones attractiveness. We generally assume a physically attractive person to have positive traits and assume unattractive people to have negative traits.

14

I’ve found that with most people looks can be deceiving, since every human being (statistically speaking…maybe we’ll discuss twins at a later date) looks different, so if you put them under a microscope you will find that no one falls under a particular stereotype on true looks alone.

However if you divide your groups in more general ways and examine people’s actions and behaviors, expressed in gestures, postures, expressions, without even hearing them speak a rather eerie picture of who they are may emerge.

I’ve found that that type of a scenario is much more useful for being able to determine personalities at first look.

I spend a lot of time in bars (my family owns one) so I watch a lot of people interacting socially. Spend some time watching people interact, and over and over you’ll see people respond almost identically to similar behaviors.

You may not be able to judge a book by it’s cover, but without reading a word of it, if you examine other details about it you should be able to tell if (superficially) it’s your kind of book.

15

OK, I’m going to throw out a piece of completely scientifically invalid anecdotal evidence.

When I was working in the shipping room of a music store warehouse, the owner came in with this dark, handsome-looking guy, giving him a tour of the place. Didn’t introduce the guy to anyone, but my first reaction was “Who is this guy, he doesn’t belong here. I hope he’s not going to be working here, he’ll be trouble.” Turned out he was the new warehouse manager. The previous boss, who had made the place run like a clock, was demoted. The shipping manager, who made the shipping room run like a clock, was also demoted and subsequently quit.

The whole place promptly went to hell in a handbasket. Customers who had requested catalogs be sent to them didn’t get them because the new boss ignored our requests for a supply of said catalogs. When we started raiding the front office to get them, a new rule was made that warehouse employees were not allowed up front without a special pass.

Other needs as far as necessary equipment were similarly ignored.

When a large number of orders were returned because they contained incorrect items, I suggested it might be a good idea if the order checkers dropped a card into each order with their initials, so that we could readily identify the responsible party. Guess who took credit for that idea?

He “reorganized” the warehouse, causing one of my coworkers to remark, “I didn’t know that ‘random’ qualified as an organizational system.” And in the process, instead of having the new bin locations for our products entered in the computer as he went along, he waited until the whole process was finished before submitting the new locations to the data entry people. Result- for three months, the warehouse people literally had to wander around the warehouse looking for items that weren’t where the paperwork said they would be, and they couldn’t look them up in the computer. Orders that previously would take maybe a half hour to fill took half a day.

At least one woman was hired because she had slept with him.

He was suspended for a week for sexual harassment (the charge was probably unfounded, but I wouldn’t have put it past him.)

He was eventually fired, after working there for six months, but the damage to morale was long-lasting.

I had made an assessment of the man’s character

16

oops

I made an assessment of the man’s character based on his physical appearance. Not his looks, so much as a look about him, like I said, facial musculature, and the way he carried himself. I hadn’t even made eye contact with the dude.

And he turned out to be the Manager From Hell.

17

I will agree with Thea Logica’s assertion that you can tell a person’s intelligence by their face. I don’t know what it is . . . a vacant expression in the eyes, slack facial muscles . . . just something about the person tells you they’re none-too-bright.

18

Well, Thea, like you said, it was a scientifically invalid anecdote. :slight_smile: And I wonder if you keep track of the number of times you think something about somebody and then later decide you were wrong. Most of us don’t. Hence, remembering the hits and forgetting the misses.

19

In short, not a thing, and it’s positively absurd to believe that one can “know” anything of substance about a person by looking at their face, body, etc. More often than not, the label you assign to a person when you first meet and interact with them is the label they will ALWAYS live up to.

Try treating one of the people you’ve labeled “disagreeable” differently and see what happens. I could be wrong, but you might be surprised at the result. :slight_smile:

20

I don’t think thea was suggesting everyone she meets is an open book, and that she gains accurate insight into people’s souls with the briefest of glances.

Would you be better off meeting a roomful of new people with your eyes closed? Or with them all wearing masks and identical form and gender disguising clothes?

We must seek out information upon which we can make predictions and style our future behavior. And a person’s appearance, not just their face and body habitus, but their dress, their body language, and the way they interact with me and others, is information I MUST acknowledge. Of course, I temper it with my experience. This person may be exactly as he appears, he may be intentionally adopting this persona for a certain reason, or his appearance may say SOMETHING about him, but certainly not all. So, yes, David, you should remember the times your initial impression was subsequently contradicted. Which improves your ability to avoid such mistakes having negative repercussions in the future.

I also believe some people are better are “predicting” peoples’ character than others. Maybe simply because some people put more effort into it than others.

I certainly don’t form final, unalterable judgments based upon initial impressions, but neither do I ignore the information I get from such impressions.

And I suggest that the fact that you may choose to dress and groom yourself in a certain way most likely DOES say something about who you are as a person. Of course, what it says may not be the conclusion most people might jump to.