

You Can Judge a Book by Its Cover, and People Do - alanthonyc
http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/07/the-accuracy-of-first-impressions-an-amazing-old-study-about-thin-slices-of-behavior.html

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pmichaud
The article says that because there's a strong correlation between ratings by
people who have only seen 30 second clips and ratings by people who have been
in class all semester, that first impressions are very accurate.

The alternative explanation is that we make snap judgments easily, and have a
hard time letting go of them even after several months.

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endtime
If the judgments are about whether we're going to like something, is your
alternative explanation actually even different?

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tedunangst
Not sure why the result is so surprising. If you are warm and confident, you
are likely to appear as such in a 30 second video. If not, then not so likely.
I'm not sure of all the criteria one would use to judge professional, but
surely dress and appearance play a large part, and you can judge that just
from a still image.

Competence is certainly harder to tell from a short clip, but I think people's
impressions, both long and short term, for competence are a function of the
more immediately apparent characteristics. If you wear an inside out t-shirt
and have dishevelled hair, your competence rating is probably going to take a
hit, even after a long term exposure.

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ghshephard
It's important to note that the study didn't actually measure objective values
such as competence, rather it measured perception (and student's perception,
at that) of such traits.

I'm curious as to why the author was impressed that in three 30 second
samples, a student's perception of traits correlated with students who had
more time (albeit several months) to develop that perception. Did they think
that the instructor would act noticeably different? Or, did they think that
for some reason the several month experience would develop more than
perception, and actual knowledge?

Now, for a more interesting study, I'd be interested in seeing how well the
student's perception correlated to a professional psychological profile,
analytical review, and other _objective_ measurements of the teacher.

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swolchok
Headline: s/It's/Its/

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alanthonyc
ech, thanks

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endtime
Isn't this just called "experience"? When you've been through 13-16 years of
schooling, you learn what good teachers look (act, talk, stand, etc.) like.

