It’s well known that we form opinions incredibly quickly, with seemingly irrelevant factors like the shape of someone’s face helping us to form an opinion of someone. This snap impression of someone is possible because our primary visual cortex is able to efficiently perform such mental heavy lifting.
Research suggests that when we look at a scene for the first time, our brain is immediately able to categorize items based on things such as their shape and texture. We then rely on other parts of the brain to perform more complex processing, such as what the images actually are.
First impressions
Of course, in our hybrid world, many of our first encounters take place in a virtual environment. How does this affect how we process those initial meetings? That was the question posed by researchers from the University of British Columbia, which explores whether the first impressions we make through a video call are as reliable as those we make when meeting people face to face.
The Covid pandemic saw a huge rise in virtual connectivity, with everything from schooling to healthcare moved online, while huge numbers worked remotely for the first time. This meant that many people’s first interactions with other people happened virtually.
This shift raises intriguing questions about the mechanisms behind first impressions in a virtual setting. If our brains rely heavily on visual and contextual cues to form these snap judgments, how might a mediated environment like a video call alter this process?
Feeling differently
Does a virtual introduction prompt us to view relationships differently, however? For instance, it’s well documented that text-based platforms strip away many of the ways in which we understand other people, especially in terms of body language but also their tone of voice. Zoom calls are slightly better, but even then we can lack many of the contextual cues that are so valuable when it comes to understanding others.
The researchers examined whether the impressions we have of people when we connect with them virtually are accurate representations of them. For instance, do we assess their personalities accurately? Do we generally view those people in a positive way?
They then explored whether these first impressions influenced the connections we ultimately forged with those new contacts. Were virtual connections longer lasting than those we meet in person?
“Finally, we looked at whether poor audio and video quality—a challenge specific to videoconferencing—affects how accurately people perceive each other, how typical those perceptions are, and how much they end up liking each other,” the authors explain. “To explore this, we ran two Zoom studies where people got to know each other—one exploratory and one a preregistered replication—and then compared the results to an in-person version of the same study.”
Positive results
The results are positive for advocates of remote working, as the researchers found that we’re generally able to forge both the same kind of first impressions and also lasting relationships regardless of whether we first meet someone online or offline.
“We thought they would differ,” the researchers explain. “However, we didn’t see any overall difference between the two, so we are just as accurate about assessing personalities when we meet people for the first time on Zoom versus in person.”
The researchers found that when we meet people for the first time via Zoom, we tend to have as positive a first impression as when we meet them face-to-face. Interestingly, however, there were some slight differences in the kind of first impressions we have when meeting people online.
The study found that when we meet someone via Zoom, we’re less successful in assessing traits such as neuroticism and extraversion. This strongly suggests that when we meet someone via Zoom we take in different information than when we meet people in person, with this especially so around some of our more expressive characteristics. On the flip side, when we engage via Zoom we might gain access to background information about that person, such as any books or art in the background of their call.
So, while broadly speaking, our impressions are similar when we meet people virtually as when we do so in person, we might be correct in slightly different ways. The results suggest, however, that virtual connections are still pretty good, which is further positive reinforcement in a world in which the debate continues to rumble on around the merits or otherwise of remote or hybrid working.
