I have a question that I would like peoples opinions on. How is it that when you meet certain people you can sometimes take an instant dislike to them or, on the other hand, have an instant like to or connection with them even before you have talked to or started working with that person (with either sex, male or female)?
Is this a sort of extra sense we have that we don’t know about and if so what use is it. I personally believe its down to genetic make which we pick up upon subconsciously and thus warns us to stay away/go to a particular person.
I think it’s one of two things (or a combination of both):
Memory. The person exhibits similar traits that we unconsciously recognize as ones belonging to someone we have liked/disliked in the past.
Intuition. The below-consciousness recognition of certain traits that we believe to be indicative of a certain personality type, such as voice inflection, meeting your gaze, etc. Some people are better than others at this. My husband is very good at judging character on-spot.
I usually like everyone until given reason not to, but the one person to whom I took an immediate and strong dislike without a clearly definable reason (as a child) turned out to be a pedophile. That’s anecdotal and not scientifically conclusive in any way, but it’s interesting to note.
I’m going to side with the memory component of this, although I do think there’s something akin to a “sense” involved.
My memory preference has to do with how past experiences with people tend to have their faces (and maybe other aspects of their appearance like body type, posture, etc.) burned into the memory. Both the good and the bad experiences.
If you’re like I am, I can rarely see a new face without doing an almost unconscious search through all the faces in my memory for a match with the new one. I see resemblances and even fused resemblances of two or more faces almost automatically.
If the match is with someone I had a bad experience with, or someone I know to have been associated with something bad in the news, on TV, in a movie, or even in a magazine article where their picture was shown, I have an early warning that this person may not be somebody to get to know well.
Later, if the real life experience with a new person (whose face sent up a red flag) turns out to make me reclassify the face and others like it, I do have the ability (I think) to change my “first impression” triggers.
But most of this is at a sub-conscious level, I think.