My theory about 'First Impression'

Once I saw him entering the room, an unsettling thought struck me as a lightening bolt - "What the hell! Is my training going to meet a tragic end?" Instantly, my subconscious mind rated him as "a school dropout and sole breadwinner who is pretending to be a trainer in the absence of the real one". However, I didn't allow this rating to influence my speech, thoughts and expressions while receiving the car driving lessons from him. Within a month, I realized that he was a highly skilled, helpful, demanded and experienced professional trainer and instructor. At the end of three month long training, I gave him 4.5 star rating in feedback. It was spontaneous act. He didn't ask me for it at all.

First Impression, Initial Guess, Stereotyping, Labeling or Judging...Whatever you would personally choose to call it but you simply can't escape it. It's not only you but perhaps any other so-called less-intelligent-than-yourself creature on the planet Earth can't escape it. Forming judgement, assessment or evaluation is an inevitable part of life, especially while sharing physical space and resources with others and more specifically - strangers who you're seeing, accidentally bumping into, meeting with or interacting with for the first time.

They say that you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. Despite of the harsh reality, this famous statement has firmly imprinted the critical importance of first impression in our minds. Do you know what 'first impression' really is? What popularly known as 'first impression' is nothing but an instant evaluation or judgement formation about a previously unseen person, based upon her external appearance or looks in the first accidental bumping, encounter, interaction, introduction or meeting.

There shouldn't be any surprise to know that our limbic system or more specifically - Amygdala instantly actives upon seeing strangers as if they could be potential enemies. The so-called 'First Impression' in human world is basically a trust-based evaluation. Obviously, a friendly, trustworthy or non-threatening stranger is further evaluated, depending on the individual needs, urges or desires at the time of encounter. Of course, your own biases influence it.

The process takes place entirely at subconscious level and it takes just a few milliseconds. That's the only reason why you don't consciously realize that some parts of your own brain are silently evaluating, forming judgement or creating the 'first impression' of the person. The only moment of conscious realization is when you find yourself liking, disliking, pasting a label(s) on or using an adjective(s) for the person.

Although we tend to change our judgement or initial guess about people, our brain's default 'seeing-is-believing' mode of instant evaluation subconsciously motivates us to trust the external appearance - The person would be what her looks are quietly yet clearly giving the indications of, in a single and static snapshot, picture or photo taken by eyes. Indeed, vision plays a pivotal role in the entire process.

Exactly who has made 'Good Impression' on whom?

That's why the 'First Impression' influence our thoughts, decisions we make, actions we take or our behavior in relation with the person who has left it, in the first glance. Some people even openly claim to quickly step back from developing a relation with the person or giving an opportunity to her just because they internally felt something wasn't right or was off. Sometimes, the first meeting ends up being the last one.

Your eyes see a person for the first time and your brain instantly pastes labels on her. Just because it instantly judges, it doesn't mean that every judgement is 100% correct. It's not at all necessary that the external appearance including physical features and attire of every person should perfectly match with her inner reality, let alone her true intentions and character. In modern human world, looks can be deceptive.

No matter how elaborately, poetically or vividly you would like to describe 'the great first impression' a specific person made, it could have been utterly bitter for you to swallow the reality of the person later on. You might choose to openly admit exactly how the same person shattered your own judgement. Personal experience would teach that a 'first impression' always doesn't reflect reality.

"A very handsome and well-dressed man with a cute smile on his face is offering you help when your car is having some problem in the middle of the road at the midnight. He may be a psychopathic serial killer, looking out for his next prey."
- Body Language Insights (Book)

My theory (or hypothesis) about 'First Impression'

'First impression' is entirely nonverbal, based upon visual appearance only. However, a question was bothering me for years - Exactly why it can "make or break the deal", without any talking or conversation? Has it to something do with our evolutionary past or developmental history? I sincerely believe that it has to do with our remote non-human ancestors i. e. aquatic or water-dwelling ancestors, more than our immediate pre-human ancestors' i. e. primates (apes). Please let me try to explain.

Did you ever asked yourself exactly why the external appearance of a person should be enough for your brain to instantly pull a label(s) from its large label bank? What about person's body smell, speech or touch? While comparing to body smell, speech or touch; the external appearance or looks is the only aspect that can be quickly captured by eyes from a long and most importantly - a safe distance. Distance dictates personal safety.

A noise, clamor, mating call or warning call of any creature can be heard over a long distance. If a creature producing the sound hasn't been seen ever before then exactly how to visually identify it when it's not making it? Precise identification can take places only when the external appearance of a creature is saved in the memory along with the sounds it produces. It's like a vocal signature. The same rule applies to the body's smell.

When it's about increasing chances of success, predatory, stalking or ambushing creature would smartly choose to remain totally silent to avoid the remote detection. A friendly, mate seeking or accidentally bumping into creature would hardly do so. Additionally, predatory, stalking or ambushing creature could slow down or completely freeze its body movements to avoid the visual detection, especially by its targeted prey or victim.

Our remote fish-like aquatic ancestor
(around 375 to 400 million years ago)

Exactly when did forming the 'first impression' evolved in our ancestors? Exactly which group of ancestors benefited from it first? While considering the amount of time our brain takes to judge by the external appearances, it could have evolved in the kind of environment in which the survival entirely depended on the physical reaction time. For understanding it deeper and better; we need to look deep, below the surface of water.

Let's try to imagine the period on planet Earth in which our earliest fish-like ancestors lived and roamed in water. While sun-rays fall straight on the ground, they enter at an angle in the water. That's why objects below the surface of water appear differently than how they appear above it. Also, brightness of the light goes on decreasing with growing depth. Bubbles, streams, waves and algae further intensify the challenge for vision.

In this kind of physical environment, aquatic ancestors had to quickly evaluate strange creatures approaching them or even simply roaming in their close proximity. With eyes scanning only a limited visual space around their bodies at a time, instant evaluation of the threat based upon a few visual cues of any creature definitely would have given them the decisive survival and socialization advantages, over millions of years.

As our aquatic ancestors used to evaluate an approaching creature as predatory or non-friendly, they had to flee away from it as rapidly as possible. Even a fraction of a second matters for activating an appropriate physical response for survival. Greater frequency of encounters with both predatory and benevolent creatures could have led to their smaller and primitive brain to adapt 'seeing-is-believing' evaluation.

Irrespective of the habitat, all predatory and non-predatory creatures have definite visual characteristics to be able to identify them from a safe distance. Their external appearance give them identification. Hence, only the silhouette, outline or profile of the body of an approaching creature from a (safe) distance should be sufficient to identify the species, diet/food, intentions and physical abilities of the same creature.

The environment in which a predator or a hunter can approach from anywhere and is able to attack fatally within the fractions of a second then survival of its prey entirely depends upon how quickly it detects the approaching predator or hunter with optimal neural activities and make the defensive move quicker than the time predator or hunter takes to launch an attack. Both detection and reaction decide the destiny.

How you judge this upright walking creature?

While concluding my theory (or hypothesis), I'd like to claim that the instant evaluation based in the first ever face-to-face encounter must have evolved in the same evolutionary era in which the external looks were consistent or matching with every creature's species, diet/food, intentions and physical abilities i. e. creature's look was enough to figure out exactly how it can move, behave and pose a threat.

Blind-sight in humans or an extraordinary human ability to detect visually (or through eyes) without consciously realizing the same might be strongly linked with or originated from the instant evaluation system evolved in our remote aquatic ancestors who would have spent most of their lives below the surface of shining water.

"It helped our ancestors over millions of years and our brain learned to judge people only by their looks or appearances. However, this instant (judgement formation) process can and does mislead in modern human world."
- Body Language Insights (Book)

[#Special Note: Through this article, I'm finally making my aforementioned theory (or hypothesis) publicly available or redable - in its enhanced, finished and detailed form. In November 2014, I shared the crude and partly unfinished summary of the same, through email with 100 scientists and researchers of different fields related to brain and behavior, from some of the top universities and institutions in the world.]

Related Articles:
1) Face to Face 2) Can first impression be fully trusted? 3) First Impression and Body Language

Is Empathy among humans in decline?

"What the hell is going on?"

“Is the whole world being controlled by psychopaths, ego-maniacs, evil aliens or even non-human entities? Is a demon secretly playing with the human minds? EXACTLY WHO is pulling the strings?”

You won’t miss to ask the same questions openly or in your own mind while looking at the current state of affairs in almost the entire world - by taking out some time from your busy routine and closely analyzing the level of "profitting over people", (over-)confidence, self-centeredness, irresponsibility, radicalization, carelessness, recklessness, manipulation, provocation, exploitation, extremism, narcissism, ambitions, hypocrisy or deception in terms of or in the name of "environmental protection", sharing of resources, (geo-)politics, cooperation, development, technology, ideology, religion and economy. In terms of climate, society, life-style, relations and human behavior; many people would surely find today's world quite different than the one they were born in, merely a few decades ago. What about you? How do you find it?

It could be the major reason behind the prevalence of or growth in rush, panic, anger, gloom, stress, hatred, phobia, apathy, anxiety, despair, dullness, amnesia, insomnia, addiction, nihilism, hedonism, escapism, disbelief, pessimism, insecurity, depression, loneliness, intolerance, distraction, disillusion, frustration, disinterest, uncertainty, impatience, vulnerability, insensitivity, DOOM-saying, demotivation, disorientation, helplessness, hopelessness, purposelessness, pleasure-seeking, loss of meaning, sense of betrayal, existential dread and/or above all - EROSION OF TRUST, among millions of people, across the entire globe, at present than ever before. Aren't you among those people? Really? Well! I kindly suggest you to sit quietly and ask yourself seriously. By the way, people are loosing their trust in what? You just name it!

"Every psychopath is a narcissist but not every narcissist is a psychopath."
Clinical Psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula
(World's leading expert on Narcissism)

If you firmly believe that psychopaths completely lack human emotions then you're completely wrong (Sorry!). It’s not the so-called ‘lack of human emotions’ that makes a normal looking person immoral, careless, reckless, unethical, narcissistic, irresponsible, manipulative, deceptive, abusive, parasitic and exploitative towards others. Actually, psychopaths do have human emotions but they don't care about emotions, feelings and suffering of others. They've very low or complete lack of empathy for fellow human beings or even their closed ones. By the way, is this the first time you’re reading the word ‘Empathy’?

As of now, you surely might have read, heard or even used another word several times. The word is ‘Sympathy’. Along with the same word, ‘Sympathizing’ and ‘Sympathizer’ are the words that you might read, heard or even used many times, as of now. You might have expressed your sympathy towards or became sympathizer of others. However, most people simply confuse between sympathy and empathy. Although both words end with the exact same sound ‘m-pu-thee’, their meanings are totally different from each other. So, better understanding is necessary.

Sympathy is a conscious attempt of understanding what exactly other person may be going through, feeling or experiencing. However, empathy is a genuine subconscious experience of the same feeling inside oneself. Unlike sympathy, empathy is like putting your own foot inside the other person’s shoes and trying to experience how really it feels like. Body language (facial expressions and posture) and vocal tone of a one person instantly changes in the presence of another person in distress, danger or pain. Doesn’t it ever happen to you at all?

Empathy is the critical pro-social quality.
(Image Courtesy: American Psychological Association)

On one hand, empathy is a genuine subconscious experience. We tend to experience happiness when others around us are happy and experience sadness when others are sad, down, crying, distressed or depressed. Similarly, we experience horrified when others are in danger and experience anger when others are getting abused, exploited or punished. The experience of empathy is entirely subconsciously. Also, it leads to instant physiological and hormonal changes. Hence, it’s physiological, behavioral and nonverbal.

On the other hand, sympathy is more of a conscious process of trying to visualize, imagine or understand what another person may be going through at present or might have gone through in the past. It’s expressed verbally, especially in the form of agreement, validation, recognition or support while not experiencing the exact same internal distress or uneasiness that is felt subconsciously. That’s why sympathy can be faked or copied but empathy can’t be!

"Ability to control the impulses makes us civil but behaving empathetically makes us social."

Ability to control the impulses makes us civil but behaving empathetically makes us social. Whenever a person internally experiences what the other person is most likely feeling, is going through or might have gone through then those two persons virtually become 'ONE AND THE SAME'. Moreover, the first person might nonverbally and physically help, soothe, rescue, protect or even fight for the second person who is in distress, danger or pain.

Please let me explain you with a real life example. An elderly frail man and his young son fail right in the middle of a road when their scooter's wheels slipped off on a greasy patch. An elderly man got slammed so hard on the surface of the road that he couldn't stand on his feet whereas his son got minor bruises. A young woman living in a nearby house immediately rushed to the spot with a bottle full of water in her hand.

Another commuting man who happened to watch the whole scene and suddenly stopped his motorcycle at the edge of the same road. He helped the son to lift his elderly father and take him to an empty place. Moreover, the commuting man ran his hands over the legs of the elderly to check the injuries if any. Behavior of the young woman and the commuting man wasn't sympathetic but empathetic.

The lone man crossing the railway tracks
(Note: An image generated by AI, exclusively for the book)

"Perhaps, ability to create an uber-real model or simulation wouldn't prove as dangerous as the complete lack of EMPATHY towards humans in a purely non-biological superintelligence. Such kind of intelligence is fundamentally dangerous."
(Source Article: Why we may not survive the Artificial Superintelligence (ASI)?)

Not Sympathy but Empathy is the necessary foundation of humanity, morality and ethics or in other words - compassionate, law-abiding, responsible, sensitive, truthful, ethical, caring and moral behavior. Today's global outcry about the degradation of humane, moral and ethical behavior towards each other strongly reflects the steady erosion of empathy. It seems that the mandatory quality helping us coexist and maintain the social harmony over millions of years is in decline.

There’re certain primary and secondary co-existential benefits of an internally felt distress or uneasiness while watching each other in suffering, distress, danger or pain. A few critical insights flashed in my mind while walking through the memories of major distressing or discomforting experiences of my own, including watching a lone man crossing the railway tracks while an express train was rapidly moving towards him on the same.

The same insights have voluntarily been shared by an email in June 2024 with world’s some of the top behavioral researchers who’re working on empathy and a leading institute - Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) of University of California at Berkeley (UCB). The institute has formally acknowledged them. You can read the same insights in my upcoming book - Body Language Insights.

[ 'Reserved' Empathy: It's quite natural, by-birth, instinctive or even spiritual for any (normal) human being to have empathy for every other human being. However, a (geo-)political ambition, a radical ideology or tribalism systematically tries to manipulate, motivate or deceive its followers, believers or members to keep their empathetical contribution, adherence, behavior, struggle or actions limited to or reserved only for other followers, believers or members of the same movement, ideology or tribe. ]

Related Articles:
1) Would aliens have emotions? 2) Surprise vs. Startle Reflex 3) Your Confirmation Bias vs. Context 4) Body Language of Extreme Psychopath

THE END of Over-Generalization

"The basic emotional (facial) expressions are universal.", "There's no such thing as micro-expressions.", "93% of the human communication is nonverbal.", "Avoiding the eye direct contact indicates lying.", "People do lie...times a day." (You can fill the same blank space or three dots (...) with the same number that you've heard so far i. e. 10, 20, 30, 75, 100 or 1,000 e. g. People do lie 1,000 times a day.)

Without any doubt, such statements, opinions, claims and quotes do attract the attention of people who are interested in body language. However, these are over-generalizing opinions, claims and quotes. "There's no such thing as micro-expressions!" was the radical claim, publicly made by a globally renowned body language expert. It was made in Amsterdam (Netherlands). Did he include the FACIAL micro-expressions in them? Unfortunately, he didn't clarify it then and there. He should have but he didn't. So, I felt extremely sorry for him, out of respect.

Please let me share another incident that left me utterly shocked and perplexed, due to a catastrophic irresponsibility. An American Nobel laureate physicist made a most remarkable claim in a famous documentary about Climate Change. He said that the existing level of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) gas is much lesser in comparison to its level 200 million years ago. Overall conditions on the planet Earth are entirely different or even unparallel in these two different time periods or eras. Completely ignoring this single-most profound fact isn't over-generalization?

Such over-generalized statements, opinions, claims and quotes have misled the millions of people so far. They're not just related to body language but also almost every field of knowledge, reasoning, science or inquiry. It doesn't just end in misleading people but it goes beyond it, in many cases or situations. If such over-generalized statements, opinions, claims and quotes are publicly made by renowned experts in a speech, a lecture, an article or a book then people do tend to make decisions in their own lives by referring to them.

That's why researchers, scientists, specialists, educators, thinkers, trainers, analysts and experts should always provide the context in which they have arrived on their own conclusions. For example, if any researcher has arrived on a particular conclusion then he/she should provide the exact context, the (chosen) data or the evidence upon which the conclusion has been derived. However, if they don't do so then the listeners, audience or readers should ask them about it. Now, the responsibility lies on their shoulders.

Today's world is posing the greatest intellectual challenge to the entire human race. Exactly WHY? We're all witnessing the rapid growth in the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI), increasing cognitive offloading or outsourcing to Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and finally - the dangerous deludge of provocative, deepfake, disturbing and meaningless content and narratives on social media platforms. It's the exact same age in which Critical Thinking has become super-important or even inevitable.

Among many other components, Contextualization or Contextual Reasoning is one key component of Critical Thinking. Contextualization has to be given a center-stage in the statements, opinions, claims and quotes. Researchers, scientists, specialists, educators, thinkers, trainers, analysts and experts should make putting an end to over-generalization their mission. If some of them already have then thanks to them.

[#Critical Thought: The word 'universal' or 'universally' is often used to replace the word 'cross-cultural' or 'cross-culturally', in the statements made about human beings. However, I sincerely think that usage of the word is massively misleading or utterly uncontextual while considering the unfathomable vastness of the (observable) universe and the very possibility of innumerable species of intelligent creatures (following cultures) living in the same.]

Related Articles:
1) CONTEXT is the KING 2) Context 3) Interpretation 4) Perceptual Bias 5) Being a Body Language Expert 6) Are you stuck with the same meaning? 7) Your Confirmation Bias vs. Context 8) Is Human Communication 93% Nonverbal? 9) Artificial Intelligence and Body Language 10) Body Language and Lie Detection