Do you size people up when you meet them?

[UmberHedgehog]

Be honest - when you meet someone new, do you find yourself quickly forming opinions about them based on their appearance, behaviour , or the first few things they say? I’ve been thinking about how much we subconsciously ‘size people up’ even if we try not to.

Is it just human nature to assess people like this or is it something we should try to stop doing? I’m curious if others do this and, if so, how aware of it you are. Do you think these snap judgments are accurate, or do they often turn out to be wrong?

Everyone does, consciously or not.

For me, it’s not so much about appearance but what they say.
If within their first 15 minutes monologue I made to know what they do, what they own, who they know, where they go on holiday, how they kids do at school etc, then I’m instantly put off.

God yes. Before they've even spoken. I believe I can accurately tell the way somebody votes based on their appearance.

It's inevitable to form first impressions.

Sometimes though the first impressions can be totally wrong. I think it's important to be aware of this.

So I think the way to go is to proceed with caution until you are in a position to know the person more fully and can find out if your initial reaction to them was correct.

Its possible to be either pleasantly surprised by who a person is or extremely disappointed when first impressions turn out to be wrong.

It's normal to form an impression of someone when we first meet them based on our life experience, whatever stereotypes we carry or knowledge of people we have previously met.

I think the term "sizing up" is a little unpleasant and negative though.

Forgot to say, that yes sometimes I was wrong!
It happened that if I managed to stick around for 16 minutes and they realised I was not entertaining the bollocks fight then they stopped the showing off and turn into quite good company. 😝

Yes. I have to get a measure of people fairly quickly, to do my job well.

Anyone who says no is lying. Of course I do and I’ve been right many times, I’ve also been wrong many times.

This is a weird question IMO - the only way to avoid 'sizing people up' is to completely ignore them. No matter what, as soon as you start talking to people you start forming an opinion of them.

My first impression is usually right and the times when I've ignored my instinct I've regretted it.

No not at all. I naturally never form opinions on anyone unless they force me to by their behaviour. In my last job I was there 4.5 years before I realised I hadn't formed opinions on any of my colleagues

Wow. This made me gasp 😧 The level of judgement my god. Do you genuinely not see what is wrong with this? You're making massive assumptions based on how somebody looks! So if somebody has a natural resting bitch face but is actually a lovely, jolly & kind person, you're saying you see their resting bitch face and assume they're miserable?!

Jesus fucking Christ

@MoMhathair the only way to avoid 'sizing people up' is to completely ignore them

Absolute nonsense! As I said above, by default I never form opinions on anyone unless forced to by their behaviour- good or bad.

I have a severe allergy to all make up (even hypoallergenic make up burns my skin) and I'm naturally light blonde with skin so fair I practically glow in the dark, so without make up I look ROUGH! No matter how nicely I have my hair and how smartly I dress, I still look rough thanks to my skin. It genuinely breaks my heart to think that people are seeing me and assuming I'm 'rough' without even interacting with me. It certainly explains why security guards always follow me, despite never giving any of them any reason to.

No wonder anxiety is so prevalent these days.

I think everyone does and there is not much you can do about it. I genuinely think I do it more on what people say than how they dress, but thats probably not entirely true. I do tend to take people at face value at first. I think it tends to be over time that i pick up little things they say and form more of an opinion.

Everyone does. I get vibes off people and I’m always right ! Don’t care what they wear hiw they look etc

Are you seriously telling me that you interact with people and don't have one single thought about them???

Not really, I'm sure my brain does 101 calculations that I'm not conscious of but it's only when I have met people a few times that I start to form any opinion either way. And some people take far longer to reveal themselves.

Most times I couldn't tell you a single thing about people who I've been on a train with on the way to work and even walk past people I do know in the street half the time unless they attract my attention.

The arrogance! Of course you're not always right! Nobody is ffs.

I've had someone say that about me, that they got a negative vibe from me and that they're "always right" when in fact, they couldn't be more wrong. I'm not a perfect saint by any stretch but I'm not a bad person in the slightest.

Same!!

I probably used to judge or notice people a lot more when I was younger - being a teenager/school does that to you and it takes you a few years to get over that level of "noticing" and judgement that younger people have. It was largely down to my own insecurity.

I've got to the stage in my 40s where I genuinely care very little about what strangers think of me and find myself far less judgemental of others.

I have to say though I would judge anyone rather harshly who thinks they can always accurately read anyone else on first impressions as rather a simple soul who has never heard of confirmation bias.

I really try not to do this as I have completed some unconscious bias training at work but in reality I think we all do it or have done it at one time or another.

But if we do this i.e. sizing people up and making assumptions before we get to know them properly it informs our interactions, decisions, actions, behaviours etc etc.

Sometimes we are right and sometimes we are wrong. The key thing to know is to be aware of it and question or check yourself (am I just thinking like this or feeling like this about them because they remind me of X, look like a Y, sound like Z or because I heard something bad about them and check yourself and sometimes you can be very pleasantly surprised.

@MoMhathair Correct. It's not an intentional 'I must not judge people' ethos I just naturally don't form any judgement. If for example I meet someone and they are particularly very funny I'll think "Wow he/she is funny!" but no, it naturally doesn't cross my mind to form an opinion.
To give an example, I dropped my car off at Kia for it's service this morning and was chatting to the lady at the service desk. Looking back, it never crossed my mind to think anything good or bad about her. I chatted, made a joke about how I'd spilled my cup of tea on my top and left. Never occurred to me to judge her in any way at all.

Oh 100% I do judge. Based on how they greet me, what they're doing, what they're wearing etc. It's natural to me! For example if I meet someone new at work, who doesn't smile when I greet them, looks unclean or is smelly - I'm probably going to make a negative judgement about how friendly they are and that we might not get along.

However I do tend to hold full judgement until I've properly spoken to them / spent time with them - first impressions count but you never know if you've caught someone on the worst day of their life and they're going through things. If the judgement is the same multiple meetings in it'll stick!

I do it too, with me it's based on how they dress, nothing to do with that whole "resting bitch face", not bothered about that in the least.
Yes, I know it's horrible, it is shallow, but don't most people do it? You can tell a lot from how people dress. Also what car they drive. You can guess what their aspirations are and what their house will be like.

The question wasn't about judging, it was about forming an opinion. Thinking that someone is funny counts as 'sizing someone up' to me - as in, you are a normal human reacting to your environment. Forming an opinion doesn't automatically mean you're thinking good or bad things, you're just having thoughts, which to me seems fairly standard for a person!