Trust and warmth are created when people feel understood, and they need to be doing a lot of sharing for that to happen. Taking the floor right away shows dominance, and that won’t help you build trust. Let them take the lead in the conversation, and you can always ask good questions to help this along. Let the person you’re meeting speak first. Here are some tips to help you make that happen the next time you meet someone new: 1. Once you recognize the importance of trustworthiness over competence, you can take control of the first impressions you make. As Cuddy said, “A warm, trustworthy person who is also strong elicits admiration, but only after you’ve achieved trust does your strength become a gift rather than a threat.” If there’s no trust, people actually perceive competence as a negative. In order for your competence to matter, people must trust you first. We often assume that competence is the most important factor, and people have a tendency to play this up when they meet someone however, Cuddy’s research shows that trust is the most important factor. Subconsciously, you and the people you meet are asking yourselves, “Can I trust that this person has good intentions toward me?” and “Is this person capable?” Can I respect this person’s capabilities?Īccording to Cuddy’s research, 80 to 90 percent of a first impression is based on these two traits.
She and her colleagues found that we make snap judgments about other people that answer two primary questions: Shutterstock
Amy Cuddy, a psychologist at the Harvard Business School, has been studying first impressions for more than a decade.