Category: Social psychology

The bias operates in a matter of milliseconds and is hard to avoid.

People whose clothes make them look ‘richer’ are automatically judged more competent, psychological research finds.

Whether it is a sweater, t-shirt or suit, better clothes lead to more positive snap judgements.

These assumptions about people are made in a matter of milliseconds and are very hard to avoid.

Dr DongWon Oh, the study’s first author, said:

“Other labs’ work has shown people are sensitive to how rich or poor other individuals appear.

Our work found that people are susceptible to these cues when judging others on meaningful traits, like competence, and that these cues are hard, if not impossible, to ignore.”

The finding suggests that people with low incomes may struggle to look as competent as those who can afford more expensive clothes.

Professor Eldar Shafir, study co-author, said:

“…people living in poverty face a persistent disregard and disrespect by the rest of society.

We found that such disrespect—clearly unfounded, since in these studies the identical face was seen as less competent when it appeared with poorer clothing—can have its beginnings in the first tenth of a second of an encounter.”

The conclusions are based on a study which used images of 50 faces, all wearing different clothes.

Across nine studies, participants were asked to rate the competence of the faces.

The results showed that even when people only saw a face for around one-tenth of a second, they were still biased by clothes: people wearing richer clothes were judged more competent.

The bias existed even when people were specifically told to ignore clothing.

The researchers write:

“To overcome a bias, one needs to not only be aware of it, but to have the time, attentional resources, and motivation to counteract the bias.

In our studies, we warned participants about the potential bias, presented them with varying lengths of exposure, gave them additional information about the targets, and offered financial incentives, all intended to alleviate the effect.

But none of these interventions were effective.”

Clearly overcoming the effects of first impressions is difficult.

Professor Shafir said:

“Knowing about a bias is often a good first step.

A potential, even if highly insufficient, interim solution may be to avoid exposure whenever possible.

Just like teachers sometimes grade blindly so as to avoid favoring some students, interviewers and employers may want to take what measures they can, when they can, to evaluate people, say, on paper so as to circumvent indefensible yet hard to avoid competency judgments.

Academic departments, for example, have long known that hiring without interviews can yield better scholars. It’s also an excellent argument for school uniforms.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour (Oh et al., 2020).

The contagious behaviour provides a significant boost to happiness.

Being nice to others is highly contagious, new psychological research finds.

Someone who sees a person being prosocial is more motivated to perform their own act of kindness for another.

Things like running an errand for a neighbour, helping someone in the street or giving a present all tend to be imitated by others who see it.

An act of kindness can ultimately be tripled in value by people subsequently giving more and more.

Seeing other people benefit from kindnesses is an even more powerful motivator for our own prosocial behaviour than when we receive the kindness ourselves.

Nevertheless, acts of kindness are not wholly unselfish, they provide a small, but significant boost to happiness.

Indeed, helping others boost happiness more than helping yourself.

Cooperative behaviour is even more important right now, says Dr Haesung (Annie) Jung, the study’s first author:

“Just like the deadly virus, cooperative behavior can also be transmitted across people.

These findings remind the public that their behavior can impact what others around do; and the more individuals cooperate to stop the spread of the disease, the more likely others nearby will do the same.”

People do not just copy the prosocial behaviour they observe, though, said Dr Jung:

“We found that people can readily improvise new forms of prosocial actions.

They engaged in behaviors that were different from what they witnessed and extended help to different targets in need than those helped by the prosocial model.”

Asian countries have the strongest prosocial contagion effect, followed by European countries, then North America.

Modelling prosocial behaviour is important for tackling the pandemic, said Dr Marlone Henderson, study co-author:

“Many people may choose to avoid social distancing practices because they don’t think they’re likely to contract the virus or experience serious symptoms.

So, one of the best things we can do is frame recommended practices as prosocial actions.

By thinking of recommended practices as prosocial behavior, modeling then becomes a powerful tool for encouraging others to engage in such practices.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Bulletin (Jung et al., 2020).