First impressions count, and they’re harder to achieve through a screen

According to an oft-cited study by psychologists at Princeton, we more or less make our minds about other people within one tenth of a second of meeting them. Experience suggests first impressions are often wrong, or at least incomplete, but at least we can correct ourselves. According to a new study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, many people says that it’s even harder to form an accurate impression of someone they meet through a screen. Marie-Catherine Mignault and colleagues at Cornell University questioned whether this perception was valid. Specifically, they wanted to know if it was actually more difficult to form accurate first impressions of a person’s personality during a videoconference compared with a face-to-face encounter.

To explore this, they designed a study to compare the two settings. The researchers recruited 938 strangers to participate in round-robin ‘getting to know you’ sessions in pairs, conducted via Zoom. Additionally, 306 people took part in an identical procedure, but they met in person. Before the sessions, all participants completed personality questionnaires, including the Big Five Personality Inventory, and asked three friends or family members to complete these same questionnaires on their behalf. This data was used to build a personality profile for each participant.

During two-minute one-on-one interactions, participants were instructed to “just introduce yourself and try to get to know one another.” After each interaction, they rated their partner’s personality and indicated how much they liked them. Those in the Zoom groups also rated the audio-visual quality of their meetings.

The analysis revealed that overall, participants could perceive each other’s unique personality just as well over Zoom as they could in person. Likewise, they rated how much they liked their partners similarly, whether they met virtually or face to face. Both groups were also equally likely to rate their partners’ personalities in line with socially desirable traits — a normative personality profile.

However, further analysis highlighted some key differences. Certain personality traits, such as being ‘assertive’ or ‘energetic’, were perceived more accurately during in-person meetings. In contrast, traits that are harder to observe during a brief encounter, such as ‘originality’, were judged more accurately via Zoom. The researchers suggest that visual cues present in a Zoom environment, such as background items like books or wall art, may offer insights into traits like originality, which might not be as visible during an in-person meeting.

The quality of the technology used in virtual meetings can have a significant impact on the effectiveness of interpersonal communication

Another important finding emerged: participants who rated the audio-visual quality of their Zoom meetings as relatively poor were less accurate in their assessments of the other person’s personality. This suggests that the quality of the technology used in virtual meetings can have a significant impact on the effectiveness of interpersonal communication.

The implications of this finding are broad. In a world where job interviews, healthcare assessments, and even court proceedings are increasingly conducted online, poor video or audio quality could lead to misjudgements about a person’s character or abilities. As the researchers note, individuals from rural areas, minority communities, or those of lower socio-economic status who lack access to high-speed internet might be more likely to suffer from inaccurate assessments during videoconference-based evaluations. Over time, this could exacerbate socio-economic inequalities.

Nonetheless, the researchers also acknowledge that online interviews offer increased accessibility, especially for rural, disabled, or other candidates who may find it difficult to attend in-person meetings. Striking a balance between these advantages and the potential downsides of videoconferencing will be an important challenge as more industries adopt remote working practices.

Further research is needed, particularly since the participants in this study were primarily North American undergraduates, a relatively homogenous group. Nonetheless, this initial work suggests that while we might feel it’s harder to evaluate someone over a screen, our first impressions of their personality may not be so different from those formed in person — provided that the technology holds up.